Japan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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Defense Ministry picks Fuji Heavy and Bell to build new military transport helicopter

TOKYO — Japan has awarded Fuji Heavy Industries and Textron Inc’s Bell Helicopters a $3.02 billion deal to build a fleet of military transport aircraft that would also be sold overseas.

The project, dubbed the UH-X, will over the 20 years from 2021 replace 150 of Japan’s aging fleet of troop-carrying Huey helicopters, a design by Bell that dates from before the Vietnam War, a spokesman for Japan’s Ministry of Defense said.

Picking a partnership of a Japanese and foreign firm to build helicopters for a local and overseas market comes after Japan last year removed a decades-old ban on arms exports..... to read more

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Japan Defense Ministry Unveiled Details of "27DD" Class Railgun & Laser armed AEGIS Destroyer

According to the Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) request for proposal (RfP) to bidding contractors, the 27DD destroyers will incorporate a number of design changes compared to the first batch of Atago class guided missile destroyers.

First, the hull of 27DD has been enlarged to an empty displacement of 8,200 tons compared to the original Atago's 7,700 tons. It is believed in the Japanese defense community that the enlargement of the hull was conceived in order to provide a necessary growth space for advanced naval weapon systems that are currently under development in Japan, and will be incrementally added to the ships' arsenal as they are developed -- such as railguns and laser point-defense systems.

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navyreco said:

Japan Defense Ministry Unveiled Details of "27DD" Class Railgun & Laser armed AEGIS Destroyer

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Very nice indeed. Designing in, from the get go, provisions for their own rail gun and laser systems. It will be interesting to see what their total power output will be.

"Eventually, the Japanese MoD envisions their new AEGIS ships to be the first operating platform of an indigenous naval railgun and laser point-defense system that they are locally developing in Japan. The plan for the railgun armament was outlined in their recently published FY2015 defense budget report.

This new subclass is officially called the "27DD". It is widely regarded as the second but a much improved batch of the JMSDF's Atago class destroyer (which in turn is an improvement of the Kongo class). The two 27DD vessels are expected to be commissioned in 2020 and 2021."

Could we get an English translated version of that diagram?

Interestingly enough, 2020, 2021 is about when the first 055s will probably enter service

Also surprised that they'd be willing to refit both rail guns and lasers on a ship without IEPS. Given flight iii Burke is quite tight for power with their new AMDR. Then again, 27DD will probably be a bit bigger than flight iii Burke and it might have more power generation...

navyreco said:

Japan Defense Ministry Unveiled Details of "27DD" Class Railgun & Laser armed AEGIS Destroyer

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Interesting,
1) Is this some kind of Russian like propaganda? Announce crazy military ideas that never happens?
2) Why don't they team up with the U.S in development of the naval railgun/ laser systems? Would for a fact be half the costs since U.S has been trying to develop these for years.

I wish that the U.S would get more serious with railgun/laser systems.

The US is very serious about the rail gun and laser.

They will be live fire testing the rail gun next year at sea, and they are planning it to be installed on the third Zumwalt...and probably later retrofitted to the first two.

There is also a very real plan to provide a 127mm version for Burkes at a later date.

The initial laser is already installed on the USS Ponce at sea for operational testing. The plan is to later put operational, stronger lasers on the Zumwalts and the Ford carriers for CIWS.

As to the Japanese. I assure you this is not propaganda.

They are not saying that these systems are going to be on those two vessels when launched.

They are saying that they are wiring and building the two vessels to accommodate their systems at a later date. Given the amount of testing the US has done on both the rail gun and the laser, and the information available, I believe the Japanese, as close allies to the US, will be able to place those weapon systems on their vessels at a later date...probably some time in the 2020s.

Bernard said:

Interesting,
1) Is this some kind of Russian like propaganda? Announce crazy military ideas that never happens?
2) Why don't they team up with the U.S in development of the naval railgun/ laser systems? Would for a fact be half the costs since U.S has been trying to develop these for years.

I wish that the U.S would get more serious with railgun/laser systems.

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Don't know if the reporting that's sensational or the original Japanese press release.
They are slightly enlarged Atagos with spaces left for possible future upgrades.

Why they don't team up with U.S.? Well, they like to develop their own weapons (F-2 as a example), and the U.S. don't give them the best stuff (F-22)
They'll probably have more powerful generators like Burke Flight III. So CIWS type laser shouldn't be a problem. (whether laser is a good idea for warship is another question) Railgun power requirement is entirely different ballpark, without IEPS, questionable. But operational railgun won't be around for many years anyway.

"“Within two to three years, we could actually have operational directed energy weapons [i.e. lasers] on ships, at our forward bases, even perhaps ones that would — if there was funding,” Gunzinger said. (A rail gun, he said, is more like 10 years away). At roughly $500 million a year across the defense Department for multiple S&T projects, “there’s been adequate funding for what they’ve done,” he said. “There’s been inadequate funding for testing these technologies,” let alone fielding them."

shen said:

...operational railgun won't be around for many years anyway.

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Depends on what you mean by many years.

This is probably something that could be considered true for Japanese vessels.

But the US will live fire test the rail gun at sea next year.

The third Zumwalt, the USS Lyndon B. Johnson, DDG-1002, which is scheduled to be launched in 2018, and scheduled to be commissioned in 2020, is the first vessel where they are planning to have an operational rail gun in one of the gun positions when it becomes operational.

Jeff Head said:

Depends on what you mean by many years.

This is probably something that could be considered true for Japanese vessels.

But the US will live fire test the rail gun at sea next year.

The third Zumwalt, the USS Lyndon B. Johnson, DDG-1002, which is scheduled to be launched in 2018, and scheduled to be commissioned in 2020, is the first vessel where they are planning to have an operational rail gun in one of the gun positions when it becomes operational.

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Do we have a date for when DDG-1002 will be installed with a rail gun? Will it have a rail gun at commissioning, or will it be part of a refit later in its life.

Anyway, I agree with Shen's overall assessment regarding the 27DD class -- it's basically an upgraded, slightly larger Atago with room for rail guns and lasers when they emerge. Like the rail gun and DEW situation for other navies pursuing them, the question is when such subsystems will be mature enough to be fitted onto their ships.

But all this aside, I'm interested in just how much power the 27DD can generate, and whether they're looking to adopt more powerful PARs.
As I said before, Flight III burkes have more power generation and cooling than previous flights, mostly for their more powerful AMDRs. Logically, it should follow that they probably don't have much juice left for rail guns and lasers without substantial modification and/or removal of other subsystems for more volume to provide power generation.
So if 27DD really is intended to be fitted with lasers and rail guns later, I wonder if it will also have improved PARs like AMDR, or if they'll stick with a SPY-1 variant... i.e.: do they have the power for not online rail guns and lasers, but also a new generation PAR?

Jeff Head said:

Depends on what you mean by many years.

This is probably something that could be considered true for Japanese vessels.

But the US will live fire test the rail gun at sea next year.

The third Zumwalt, the USS Lyndon B. Johnson, DDG-1002, which is scheduled to be launched in 2018, and scheduled to be commissioned in 2020, is the first vessel where they are planning to have an operational rail gun in one of the gun positions when it becomes operational.

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Jeff, while LBJ has been selected' to be the first ship to have rails installed I do not believe she will have it on commissioning.

Most likely it will be install after the first or second shakedown post commissioning since the LBJ is not your 'typical' destroyer. My wild educated guess is 2021-2022 time frame.