Military Photos [OFFICIAL]

[Äijä]

FAF F/A-18 Hornet carrying AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), LITENING targeting pod, AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder.

[Äijä]

[Äijä]

Valmet M76, top picture, the most common assaul rifle used by FDF will get a small facelift, bottom picture.

[Gauthier]

Valmet M76, top picture, the most common assaul rifle used by FDF will get a small facelift, bottom picture.

Looks similar to the Galil rifle.

[Gauthier]

FAF F/A-18 Hornet carrying AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), LITENING targeting pod, AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder.

How many Hornets does Finland have?

[Äijä]

Finland’s most secret military plane

New surveillance plane likely to be costliest aircraft in Finnish military history

The Finnish Air Force is currently outfitting a top-secret surveillance aircraft with a capability of eavesdropping on communications by the armies of neighbouring countries.
The new plane is being tested by the Finnish Intelligence Research Establishment, which is not commenting on anything related to the project.

What is public knowledge in the matter is the price of the plane before taxes. With all of its equipment, the plane costs EUR 112, which means that it is likely to be the most expensive single moving object to be acquired by the Finnish military.
The aircraft itself costs just EUR 24.5 million, but the surveillance system has a price tag of EUR 85 million.

The system is being set up in a Spanish-made Airbus Military Casa C-295M aircraft – a medium-sized tactical transport plane. The Finnish Air Force already has two of them in use.
The Defence Forces organised competitive bidding for the surveillance system toward the end of the previous decade. Conditions that were set included that it should be possible to install the system on a Casa plane, for which the Air Force has a ready servicing system.

Six bids came in. The winner was the US armaments and aviation giant Lockheed Martin, whose system comprises antennas and sensors, a surveillance system, and land-based stations.
Lockheed Martin says that the system bought by Finland is called Dragon Shield. Finland appears to be the first country to install it on a Casa plane.

Dragon Shield is installed inside a container that can be detached from the cargo space of a transport plane. The advantage to this is that the top-secret equipment can be easily removed and locked away during aircraft maintenance.
The operators of the airborne surveillance system have their work space inside the container, and any communications that are picked up can be relayed to the land-based station.
The sensors on the plane are passive, which means that it is not a radar-based air surveillance plane. The aircraft has no weaponry of its own.

The new plane has been in Finland for a while. Lockheed Martin says that the first components of the land stations were delivered to Finland in the spring.
The Defence Forces are not saying where the aircraft is being assembled. However, Lockheed Martin’s main cooperative partner in Finland is Patria, which has a service hangar for the Casa planes at Jyväskylä Airport. Patria said on Friday that the Defence Staff had ordered the company not to say anything about the project.
Helsingin Sanomat has learned that Patria will deal with the conversion of the Casa, set up the ground stations, and make sure that the surveillance system can communicate with other data systems.

The Defence Forces are also not disclosing when the new aircraft will be ready for use. According to information received by Helsingin Sanomat the testing of the system will involve 700 flight hours between 2013 and 2015. The plane will probably have its first actual flight in late 2013.
The Casa will replace the current Fokker plane that the Defence Forces have been using for signal surveillance. Both are expected to be in use at the same time for about a year; it has already been announced that the Fokker will be decommissioned in 2015.
The new plane will be based in Pirkkala, near Tampere, where the other Casa transport planes will be moved in connection with military restructuring.

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Fin.../1329104842318

[Äijä]

Looks similar to the Galil rifle.

Galil is based on the Finnish version, Finland and Israel have a lot of defense contacts since founding of Israel.

[Äijä]

How many Hornets does Finland have?

55 F-18C + 7 F-18D = 62

[Gauthier]

55 F-18C + 7 F-18D = 62

That is a respectable force. I feel envy, the good kind though.

[Äijä]

That is a respectable force. I feel envy, the good kind though.

It has been but could need something more soon as Russia is flexing muscles, the Swedish JAS 39 Gripen NG might be a cheap and good option to expand the air force fast, not that our pacifist politicians would do that.

The cheapest would be if USA sold their old F18s with a friendly price.