2015-01-22 When visiting the Gerald R. Ford and making the trek to the bridge, one notices quickly that the deck space in front of the island is significantly expanded over a Nimitz class carrier. We talked with the Captain and a construction engineer about the changes on our visit to…
2015-01-22 Murielle Delaporte, the Co-Founder of Second Line of Defense and the editor of Operationnels SLDS, is currently with one of the two NATO counter-mining groups. Her full report will appear on the Operationnels website and magazine. The change of command of the group is held twice a year and Dutch Navy…
2015-01-22 Second Line of Defense visited the next generation carrier CVN 78 (Gerald R. Ford) on January 9, 2015. We had a chance to interview the Skipper of the ship, Captain John Meier, and afterwards tour the ship with the Captain and senior construction personnel. We will publish the interview…
2015-01-20 Cameroon will this year receive artillery, missiles, armored trucks and other weapons from Russia, according to the country’s government. Russia’s ambassador Nikolay Ratsiborinskiy met with President Paul Biya on January 16 and discussed a number of issues. In a statement released after the meeting, the president’s office said that,…
2015-01-20 Egypt is interested in procuring 20 Rafale fighter jets as well as two FREMM frigates from France in a potential deal worth nearly six billion euros. French newspaper La Tribune reported that France has offered two DCNS FREMM multi-mission frigates worth 1.8 billion euros and 20 Dassault Rafales worth…
2015-01-19 Although the F-22 and F-35 have flown together previously, now training to bring together the core competencies of the two systems into a coherent combat force has begun. As the former head of the Air Combat Command put it in an interview with Second Line of Defense: People focus…
2015-01-17 By Robbin Laird The Royal Australian Air Force is in the throes of significant modernization. As I wrote during my visit earlier this year to Australia about the process of change: The Aussies entered the 21st century with an aging Air Force. The silver lining in that difficult position is…
2015-01-15 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake Nellis AFB, Nevada A new chapter in developing the next generation of combat airpower has just opened at the USAF Weapons School, Nellis AFB. We attended the arrival ceremony of the first fully operational F-35A into the USAF Weapons School. F-35s have been…