Nep: mate that second pic I posted here a while ago if you do a search you’ll see that we did a chat about it and in the background you can see the two Malay vessels being prepaired for delivery.

Mirage III history and development This is a good reference to the Mirage and all it’s varients, note the quoted text below:

One was fitted with a Rolls-Royce Avon 67 engine with thrust of 71.1 kN (16,000 lbf) as a test model for Australian evaluation, with the name “Mirage IIIO”. This variant flew in February 1961, but the Avon powerplant was not adopted.

And here is another reference on another site:

The Mirage IIIE was also built under license in Australia and Switzerland. While the Avon-powered Mirage IIIO built for the Australians didn’t work out, the Australians did become interested in producing their own Mirage IIIEs, retaining the designation Mirage IIIO, sometimes informally rendered as the “III-Oz”. The production Mirage IIIO retained the SNECMA Atar engine, the major difference between the IIIE and the IIIO being avionics fit.

The Australians actually produced two variants: the Mirage IIIO(F), which was optimized as an interceptor, and the Mirage IIIO(A), which was optimized for the attack role. Dassault produced the first two sample IIIO(F) aircraft, with the first flying in March 1963. The Australian Government Aircraft Factory and Commonwealth Aircraft went on to complete 48 more IIIO(F) fighters and 50 IIIO(A) strike aircraft.

All the surviving Mirage IIIO(F) aircraft were converted to IIIO(A) standard between 1967 and 1979. The Mirage was finally withdrawn from Australian service in 1988, and 50 surviving examples were sold to Pakistan in 1990.

While I was looking up the Avon 67 specs I came across something interesting, it seems the 67 was once considered for the Swedish Air Force J-35 fleet but dropped because it ment reworking the intakes in a similar fashion as to what the Nimrod fleet are going through today and like the Mighty Rods, the new intakes would have looked really ugly on the Drakens, you know the Sweds, they have to look their best 😉

The Aussie invention called Metal Storm has been very active lately, I have done a story on it on my site but hang on and I’ll grab the details for you, they are working on a CIWS system based on the Redback Turret

Here we are:

Not stopping there, Metal storm and ST Kinetics have released their first turret called the Redback. Basically it is a 40mm ST Automatic grenade launcher on top of a four barreled 40mm MS system coupled with an Electro Optical Systems turret. EOS having joined MS and ST only one year ago.

The Redback turret is small enough to be fitted to the Australian Army’s ASLAV’s and similar APC’s used by other countried (Strykers in America, NZSLAV’s in New Zealand). this system will give a similar protection to these vechiules as those in the Israeli army which are fitted with the Trophey system.

Here is another version of a Redback turret that can be mounted on top of a standard truck and offers troop support and even a good degree of Projectile defence.

More details about the Redback turret system including a couple of pics of it fitted to an Australian Army Truck.

What is the projected Air Compliment for this vessel? Judging by it’s size, it would only have a couple of Blackhawks on it but has about five spots on deck for helo movements.

Even still, With these vessels and the Japanese Oosumi class (not to mention their new DDH’s), China will be watching with curious eyes as to the movements and capabilities of these vessels. The Region is heating up for a carrier war 😉