China's aircraft carrier air operations have started on "Liaoning" (ex-Varyag)

A Chinese Navy Shenyang J-15 carrier based fighter aircraft performs a "touch and go" on Liaoning aircraft carrier (ex-Varyag)

Shortly after its official delivery and commissioning to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy last month, China's first aircraft carrier has already started training for air operations with helicopters and naval jets.

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A U.S. platoon awaits the end of Afghan war

View Photo Gallery — A war ends in a remote Afghan outpost: Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade are in the final months of their mission in Combat Outpost Jaghatu, which will likely close later this year.

 JAGHATU, Afghanistan — The platoon sergeant poses a simple question to the men of 3rd Platoon: “What do you consider success on a mission?”
There is an uneasy silence in the dark chow tent. In a few months, the U.S. Army will bulldoze its portion of the base, part of America’s slow withdrawal of combat forces from Afghanistan. All that will remain here in this isolated place is a small Afghan army camp and a mostly empty government building with a mortar hole in its roof, the sum total of 11 years of U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in this district 65 miles south of Kabul.

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Syrian Rebels Capture 256 Government Soldiers in Idlib

Grainy video footage uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 9 shows purported Syrian rebel fighters with captured army tanks and guns in Khirbet al-Jouz. On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 256 regime soldiers (not pictured) were captured. (YouTube.com)

Syrian rebel forces on Friday captured nearly 260 government soldiers in the restive northern part of the country after clashes in several towns in the area, said a pro-opposition group.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that rebels captured 256 regime soldiers throughout the week in the towns of Khirbet al-Jouz and Reef Jisr al-Shughour, both in Idlib province—one of the most hard-hit areas during the 19-month-long conflict.

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Iraq to Buy Czech Military Planes for $1 Billion

AP

Iraq has agreed to buy 28 Czech-made military airplanes in a deal worth $1 billion (€775 million), part of a broader effort by Baghdad to rebuild military capabilities destroyed during the U.S.-led invasion of the country, officials said Friday.
Iraq only has a few planes and is unable to defend its air space. The government has bought billions of dollars in tanks, fighter jets, ships and other weapons from the U.S. in recent years, but is now looking to forge military ties with other allies and nations, including Russia.

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HMS Conqueror’s biggest secret: a raid on Russia

It was dark, in the early hours, and the sea was freezing as Her Majesty’s Submarine Conqueror came to periscope depth. Her captain, Christopher Wreford-Brown, had been stalking his target methodically, a hunter in pursuit of wary prey. There she was, 1,000 yards ahead, slow-moving, seemingly unaware of the submarine coming up on her tail. Gathered around Commander Wreford-Brown in the darkened operations room, officers and men waited in silence, inner tension masked by outward calm. It was 1982 and this was the real thing.

HMS Conqueror is famous, some would say notorious, for sinking the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano. The nuclear-powered attack submarine, a type also known menacingly as a hunter-killer, that year became the first of her kind to fire in anger. The Belgrano was sent to bottom in short order, her ancient hull rent by two torpedoes: 323 men, many of them young conscripts, died. The Falklands war began in earnest that day, May 2 1982.

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Britain's Prince Harry fighting in Afghanistan had fire on Taliban

Britain's Prince Harry

Sahit Muja: New reports today show Britain's Prince Harry is "fighting in Afghanistan against Taliban and has had "multiple engagements" with the Taliban during his time in the war zone, according to a new report in the UK's The Sun.

Britain's Prince Harry, 28, is on NATO tour of duty as a chopper pilot in Afghanistan.
Britain's Prince Harry is part of a four-man team on standby 24 hours a day to take to the air and either destroy the enemy or provide cover for other aircraft, including the workhorse Chinook or American Pedro rescue chopper.

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This is Stealth?

DDG 1000's composite deckhouse was revealed this week down in Gulfport. The uniquely angled 48.8m long, by 21.3m wide, by 19.8m high balsa-wood core carbon fiber super-structure is designed to provide the Navy's newest guided-missile destroyer a low radar and infrared signature.  The deckhouse, combined with a low-profile tumblehome hull will likely achieve this goal, but is it truly fair to say that this design is "stealthy?"  Today's enemies will not operate long range maritime patrol aircraft and radar satellites like the Soviet Union did to locate U.S. fleets on the open ocean 30 years ago.  They will, however, use a network of tattletale fishing dhows equipped with satellite phones, cheap tactical UAVs, and HUMINT networks in nearby logistics ports with twitter accounts and smart phones to find ships operating in narrow seas such as the Arabian Gulf.  A singulary-unique profile 14,000 ton combatant is not likely to be able to hide from these intelligence platforms, no matter how innovative her design may be.  One hopes that the three staggeringly expensive DDG-1000 destroyers will validate many new naval technologies, but how to hide a ship in the littorals during 21st Century irregular warfare will not likely be one of them.

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