Defence`s Feeds

North Korea has criticized U.S. plans to hold a joint military exercise next month with South Korea, suggesting the drills could negatively impact upcoming working-level nuclear talks with Washington.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA on July 16, with regard to the DPRK-U.S. working-level talks.

A spokesperson for the DPRK Foreign Ministry made public the following press statement on Tuesday:

The U.S. State Department on Monday urged China to stop imposing its political views on U.S. companies, in response to Beijing's threat last week to impose sanctions on American companies selling weapons to Taiwan.

The US should get used to China's sanctions on US companies involved in a possible arms sale to the island of Taiwan, and the US has no right to criticize the sanctions as it does this all the time, Chinese experts said on Tuesday.

The first China-Africa Peace and Security Forum convened in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday, with almost 100 senior defense and military representatives from 50 African countries in attendance, including 15 defense ministers and army chiefs, as well as the African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security. China's peacekeeping efforts in Africa were hailed by African leaders who recognized the service and devotion of the

The effects of delayed defense budgets, the dearth of confirmed civilian leadership in the Pentagon, modernization, Afghanistan, and great power competition were all topics the president's nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff faced from the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing.

Service members from NATO's enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group Poland partnered with the host nation and participated in the annual "Tank Battle" event at the Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Jul. 13.

The Turkish Defence Ministry announced on Friday the beginning of the delivery of elements of the S-400 to the country. The information was later confirmed by Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation.

The ninth plane carrying components of Russian S-400 air defence system arrived in Turkey on Monday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

The Turkish Defence Ministry said on Monday that an eighth plane carrying components of Russia's S-400 air defence system had arrived in Turkey.

At least 76 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in separate incidents across the country on Monday, marking another deadly day for the country despite US-Taliban peace talks aimed at ending the country's 18-year war, local officials and sources said.

The Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) are looking to laser scan US Navy (USN) ships to better assess the vessels and conduct related work on them. Previously, yard workers and supervisors would have to rely on hand drawings for ship checks, but navy engineers say

A slew of Pentagon programme cuts could be on the horizon across the services if US Army Secretary Mark Esper takes the department’s helm. During his 16 July Senate Armed Services Committee nomination hearing to become the next Secretary of Defence, Esper said he is committed to the National

The Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) Unit (MMU) has been established, the Luftwaffe announced on its website on 10 July. Multinational MRTT Force (MMF) programme executive board chair, Royal Netherlands Navy Commodore Dick Kreiter, handed over command of the MMU to its first

Senior officials of the four organisations signatories of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), the European Defence Agency (EDA), the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions, Bodies and Agencies (CERT-EU) met today at the EDA premises.

The purpose of the meeting was to update each other on relevant developments and to assess the progress made so far in the implementation of the MoU. The Memorandum, signed in May 2018, provides a framework for cooperation through which the four organisations can leverage synergies  in order to achieve a safe and open cyberspace and to promote civil & military synergies. 

Significant progress has been achieved since the MoU entered into effect in June 2018, notably a continuous exchange of views on top cybersecurity aspects (including policy, technical, operational items), reciprocal participation to events and a better understanding by respective staff of how the four organisations can work together..

The collaboration roadmap prepared by the MoU working group, which contains concrete activities and deliverables scheduled throughout 2019, has been reflected in the signatories' respective work programmes, ensuring improved coherence. The main focus of the roadmap is on training and cyber exercises, building on the cooperation capacity and the improved exchange of information on respective projects and events. The aim is to complement the respective work of the four partners and avoid duplication of efforts, also taking into account broader EU initiatives in the cyber domain. 
 
As part of the cooperation, the four partners are planning to organise another major event in the second part of 2020. They also want to pay additional attention to improving incident response mechanisms and processes as well as increased joint participations at high visibility events in the Cybersecurity and Cyber Defence area.
 

More information:

• Four EU cybersecurity organisations enhance cooperation

 

Chernobyl, Behind the Scenes

Picture: vibration test on a munitions lot

Last June, EDA’s 2019 ‘Round Robin Test’ was launched with the participation of nine laboratories from seven EDA Member States (Poland, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Cyprus) as well as from Norway (which has signed an Administrative Agreement with the Agency). The initiative is designed to compare test results obtained in different Member States laboratories working on ammunition safety.

These multinational tests, organised on a yearly basis under the auspices of EDA, are a central tool established by the European Network of National Safety authorities on Ammunition (ENNSA) whose objective is to enhance cooperation and interoperability between national authorities in charge of ammunition safety. 

In a Round Robin Test (RTT), the results of different laboratories are all considered to be at the same level of quality: the intent is thus not to verify the accuracy of the results obtained from each and every laboratory by comparing them with the reference exact result, but rather to verify the dispersion of the data and the possibility of using a certain standard to obtain reliable results (within a certain range of errors considered tolerable), under different conditions. Therefore, what is evaluated in an RRT is the standard itself, not the performance of the laboratories. A successful RRT provides the assurance that the standard used is suitable to generate ‘reproducible’ results. A failed test, on the other hand, can help to highlight the need to amend and/or supplement the standard.
Focus on Energetic Materials

This year’s RRT is focused on the characterization of Energetic Materials, which are key components of any kind of ammunition, and more specifically on propellants (single-base nitrocellulose) and high explosives (HMX). All nine participating laboratories will soon receive samples from the same explosive batch and will be required to perform identical tests, all referring to explosive sensitivity and thermal stability, in particular: impact sensitivity, friction sensitivity, Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA),

Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Heat Flow Calorimetry (HFC), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The test is led by one of the most experienced European laboratories in this field, the Polish Laboratory of Combat Assets Testing of the Military Institute of Armament Technology (MIAT), located in Zielonka, near Warsaw. Coordinator of this test is Agata Kamieńska-Duda, Head of MIAT’S Ammunition Test Laboratory.
 

Room for improvement

Bogdan Krysiński, the current chairman of ENNSA, is responsible in MIAT for testing ammunition after long-term storage. He insists on the substantial added value provided by the annual Round Robin Tests initiative but also believes it could be further improved.  “The RRT initiative is very valuable in many aspects. First of all, it allows everybody to compare research capabilities among the institutes and exchange experience among the researchers. However, it would be wrong to claim this is enough. Science never stops. Better methods of ammunition performance should be continuously sought for in order to provide a more precise assessment of its safety and operational reliability”, he commented. 

“For many types of ammunition and their components it will be probably necessary to introduce a broader scope of testing than that used within the current RRT. Another issue is the need to develop unambiguous templates of documents for the preparation of the tests, as well as for the recording and reporting of the test results. Recent experiences confirm the importance of this. Continuous improvement of the Round Robin Test programme is thus something we should keep in mind for the benefit of all”, he stated.
 

Background

In 2010 the EDA Steering Board approved the establishment of the European Network of National Safety authorities on Ammunition (ENNSA) with the primary task to facilitate communication among the national bodies which are in charge of ammunition safety. The focus of ENNSA, as agreed by its members, was to explore the harmonisation of ammunition qualification to improve interoperability and increase cooperation among Member States, in parallel with achieving savings across the ammunition production/procurement cycle. One of the basic tools designed for this purpose is the Round Robin Test (RRT) programme.  It serves to compare and validate test results obtained in different laboratories of the Member States working within the area of ammunition safety.
 

 

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