Tu-95MS "Bear"

Hole wrote:

The training exercise also involved Tu-95MS long-range aircraft, which fired air-launched cruise missiles.

Not sure why those are tested. Looking at the SMO they seem to work pretty fine.

During wartime, with all the experience gained, enginerrs become much more creative.

Who knows what they really tested.

New hypersonic turboprops.

I know you are joking, but making very fast propeller blade tips is very easy... the longer the blades the faster the tips move.

The problem is that when they reach supersonic speeds they mostly just make noise.

I think someone complaining about the noise a Bear makes obviously hasn't heard a Huey UH-1 or for that matter a Harvard trainer... because of tip speed they really make a loud noise.

I do not understand why they are not using curved tip propellers on the Tu-95. This reduces tip speed and noise. There is no loss of performance that
I am aware of. In fact, the transition supersonic tip regime is a loss of thrust performance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_propeller

It is worse than the article describes. At speeds where supersonic shocks are generate there is also cavitation. Similar to the submarine problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra-rotating_propellers

Contra-rotating propellers make more noise but there is no discussion of a bad mix with curved blades. It is possible curved blades would amplify the
noise associated with the contra-rotating configuration. But I think the trans-sonic shock regime is worse for noise generation, considering cavitation.

It is not like they don't know how to make propeller blades... the blades on the engines on the An-70 are optimised for thrust for takeoff at heavy loads, but they are not optimised to fly at the speeds the Bear flys at... no other propeller driven aircraft flys at the speeds the Bear flys at, which is why other propeller driven aircraft have different looking blades.

I suspect they are optimised to generate sufficient thrust for high speed flight at the altitude the aircraft operates at... and changing them to increased thrust on the ground for takeoff like the D-27 propfans for the An-70 might help with take off but might also reduce top and cruising speed at operational heights.

A turboprop based on the PD-35 that has twelve blades on the front and 8 blades at the rear might generate enormous thrust but reduce top speed flight performance and be slower than the blades and engines currently being used.

Arrow wrote:How long does Russia intend to leave the Tu95MS fleet in service? Are all components for these planes produced in Russia or were they made in Ukraine, which may cause problems during renovations? To what extent can actions in Ukraine exploit these bombers?
​Tu-95MS is still the basic machine of Russia's nuclear triad, and of course it is a great bomber for conventional ALCM attacks.

They were made by Aviakor s an aviation plant located in Samara, Russia, they apparently filed for insolvency in 2017 but it's believed that the government now own it, but not confirmed. The fact that these have been upgraded over the years and Russia seems to have plans to keep them in service for now. I would think they are fully geared up to keep them going. They have proved their worth in Syria and Ukraine. Their reliability and range are their keys strengths, currently doing their job as they should.

The NK-12 turboprop engines are made by Kuznetsov. Also a Russian company in Samara. The designs have been digitized and the engines are now built with modern CNC machine tools instead of the old process. The Russian state must have spent a pretty penny on this. Kuznetsov had its factory totally modernized after decades of neglect. The engine is also used in oil and gas pumping facilities, at least it used to, but there are other alternatives today.

Kuznetsov basically reverse engineered the NK-12 and NK-32 from paper schematics and made them with modern processes and tools.

The latest Tu-95 upgrade seems to use similar electronics to the Tu-160 and Tu-22M3. They basically unified the radar and other systems.

In theory the PAK DA should be able to do much the same missions though. Whenever it enters service.

I think we will see a mixture of Tu-160, Tu-22M, Tu-95 and Pak Da, and eventually after some years Tu-22M and Tu-95 will be phased out, I have a feeling Tu-22M might be phased out before the Tu-95 despite the age.

So the Tu 95MS fleet may remain in service for a long time. Tu-160 production resumed.
The PAK DA will probably also carry cruise missiles, which the B-2 and B-21 do not.

The Tu-95 and its engines are all Russian made and kept up to date with modern production and design.

It is not in urgent need of replacement but the PAK DA is the theoretical replacement for both the Bear in the strategic role with cruise missiles and the Backfire over theatre ranges with bombs and missiles.

They are going to make 50 plus new Tu-160s for a fleet of perhaps 60-70 maybe, and the PAK DA will enter production and replace Bears and Backfires respectively as they are made.

They might be expensive to make but operational costs should be quite minimal as much of their stealth is shape related as a flying wing is inherently stealthy already.

The engines are up to date and modernised... didn't the recent upgrades reduce vibration by 50% which is staggering...

But once sufficient PAK DAs and Tu-160s enter service they will likely retire their Bears and Backfires and possibly divert them to other roles where they might be suited... remember these aircraft are relatively new for strategic and theatre bombers... the Tu-22M3 is an 80s-90s aircraft and their Bears are too... it is a very young fleet... and there is no urgency to replace them.

The Backfire would be a good platform for delivering glide bombs... the four external mounts for bombs are designed to hold conventional bombs and the glide kits I have seen have been designed to fit to bombs mounted on standard wing pylons... including bombs with the glide kits mounted on the bottom of the bombs so there are no mounting and clearance issues... which should work just fine with the MER on the Backfire.

With 9 positions on each MER and four locations for MERs on the Backfire you could carry 36 bombs externally with the internal bomb bay able to carry some heavier bombs or just more light bombs.

The external MERs can carry up to 9 x 500kg bombs but I understand each weapon pylon can also carry two FAB-3000s... or possibly a single FAB-5000 or maybe three FAB-1500.

I think we will see a mixture of Tu-160, Tu-22M, Tu-95 and Pak Da, and eventually after some years Tu-22M and Tu-95 will be phased out, I have a feeling Tu-22M might be phased out before the Tu-95 despite the age.

Have to say I would agree, but a Tu-22M3 with an internal rotary launcher for big AAMs and work on semi conformal belly weapon locations and a modern AESA radar in the nose could make an interesting interceptor... especially if you convert it to the same engines as the new Tu-160s which they will be making and supporting anyway.

I think the Backfire has real potential and I am rather surprised the Chinese and Indians didn't buy any.

I remember on that Auspower website the experts there seemed to think rather favourably of the aircraft with one guy who loves the F-111 basically compared it favourably with two F-111s with inflight refuelling support. Kopp was his name I think.

I suspect when the PAK DA replaces the Backfire in the theatre strike role they might send them back to the growing navy for the anti ship role... but then they might want a version of the PAK DA for that role eventually anyway.

Being able to carry 11m long cruise missiles internally would mean the PAK DA would be useful for carrying long range anti ship weapons too...

We heard about the Tu-22M3M upgrade. A couple airplanes were rolled out some years ago. Then nothing.
It was also supposed to use the NK-32 engine instead of NK-25. But it looks like the NK-32 engine wasn't physically compatible with the existing airframes. So it still uses the NK-25. I wouldn't be surprised if they also had workforce issues because of the huge rampup of Tu-160M construction at the same time Tu-95MSM and Tu-22M3M program and PAK DA prototype construction is happening. It is just too much stuff at the same time. And now they had to make them produce the Tu-214 in larger numbers as well.

I would say the TU-160 was much more critical as they are building new airframes, and the current fleet is below critical mass. TU-22 is fine as it is for now, and NK-32's need to go to the TU-160 for now. Once its all in full swing the TU-22 upgrade can happen if it still make sense. Perhaps the TU-160 with 12 Tsirkons is such a crushing machine the TU-22 can be sunseted and the SU-34 + TU 160 + TU-95 is sufficent.

Perhaps the TU-160 with 12 Tsirkons is such a crushing machine the TU-22 can be sunseted and the SU-34 + TU 160 + TU-95 is sufficent.

Well that is interesting... the Tu-160 has 2 x 11m long weapon bays each capable of carrying 6 missiles in a rotary launcher, but the old 3,000km range Kh-55SM cruise missiles are 6m long. The Kh-101 and Kh-102 missiles are 7.4m long so even with these bigger missiles there is a lot of empty space in each weapon back that has 11m of space in it.

The new Tu-160M has a payload of 45 tons (as opposed to 40 tons of the original aircraft), but wouldn't it be interesting if they made the bomb bays 13m long each so each rotary launcher could carry 12 Kh-55SM missiles each?

(so 24 x Kh-55SM 3,000km range cruise missiles).

The Kh-15 is a short range rocket powered attack missile to penetrate enemy air defences with a mach 5 rocket powered 500km range missile intended to shoot down groups of aircraft or destroy ground based air defences with a nuclear warhead.

Because it is less than 6m long you can load 12 into each rotary launcher on the Tu-160. The Backfire and Bear can also carry 6 of these smaller missiles in their internal rotary launchers...

The Zircon is loaded into the 10m long UKSK tubes and we can assume it is designed to fill that, but an air launched version could have its large solid rocket booster replaced with a fuel tank so on release from an aircraft the small empty hollow space for the scramjet could have a small solid rocket booster internally to accelerate the missile and then it starts burning much more efficient jet fuel that should massively increase its flight range without making it much bigger.

In fact you could take the solid rocket booster off the rear and put the extra fuel tank on the front and have it climb and accelerate to supersonic speeds with that front fuel tank... at 20-30km altitude at mach 3 or so with a medium scramjet motor throttle setting the fuel tank in the front can absorb the heat generated and it can cruise much further than the original solid rocket booster could have carried the missile. As it approaches empty the throttle can be increased and it can climb and when it is empty it can fall away leaving the aerodynamic shape of the Zircon designed for mach 9 flight speeds and it can climb and accelerate to operational heights and speeds.

This should massively increase flight range... but of course a new custom designed missile would probably achieve better performance.

The GROM II missile is supposed to be a hypersonic missile with 12,000km flight range at mach 10 plus with a two stage 11m long missile...

The GROM is a mach 6 missile that is 6m long with a range of 1,500km and intended for short range attack roles to help the strategic aircraft penetrate enemy air space.

One aircraft in a flight of perhaps four Tu-160s might carry 12 GROM missiles in one rotary launcher and 6 Kh-102 5,000km range missiles in the other rotary launcher with the other three bombers carrying 12  Kh-102 nuclear armed cruise missiles. As the flight approaches enemy airspace any enemy aircraft or ground based radars that start scanning for targets, the aircraft carrying the GROM would launch the Mach 6 missile into the midst of a group of enemy interceptor fighters or ground based SAM sites. The missile will have a large nuclear warhead able to take out a flight of enemy fighters in one hit or a ground based SAM site or airfield with one missile.

If enemy air defences are strong then perhaps two Tu-160s will carry 12 Groms each...

Eventually the Kh-102s will be replaced by GROM IIs which means the GROM is no longer needed as the GROM IIs could be launched from over the North or South Pole and still hit targets 12,000km away...

The Tu-95 has an internal rotary launcher for 6 missiles but the launcher can only take 6m long weapons so it can't take Kh-101 or Kh-102 missiles or GROM II missiles.

The internal launcher could take GROM missiles and the Tu-95MS16 can carry ten missiles externally (any size) and 6 more missiles internally (Kh-55SM or the Kh-555 conventionally armed version, or GROM).

Armed with GROM II 11m long missiles that are hypersonic and have enormous range means the Bear could continue in service for as long as you like... it is relatively low cost and has excellent flight range.

Its subsonic speed is not important when it is carrying hypersonic super long range missiles.

Originally the weapons bays of the Tu-160 were designed to carry a larger cruise missile.
Kh-45? Can´t remember.
The missile was never put into service, only the shorter Kh-55.
There have been rumours for a while that a cruise missile is in the making that uses the length of the weapons bay.
Maybe a longer version of the Kh-101.

With the upgrade to Tu-160M or whatever they are going to call it, and the fact that the Bear can carry 10 missiles externally so their length is not really restricted, and of course the PAK DA is in design, you would think that with existing missiles that are 6m long and the current long range missiles like Kh-101/102 are 7.4m long and I seem to remember Onyx is also 7.4m long and presumably Zircon is either the same length or lengthened to take advantage of the fact that the UKSK launch tubes are 10m long in total that they would start making missiles to match.

If your cruise missiles are 7.4m long then make the missile bays 16m long so you can either have 12 missiles 7.4m long in them or perhaps a combination of 7.4m long Kh-102 missiles for nuclear strike and some 6m long missiles for shorter ranges or other roles like short range attack for self defence.

Making the launchers 13m or thereabouts would allow 12 x 6m long missiles to be carried...

New missiles could be 5-6m long so they can fit internally in the Bear and Backfire and be doubled up with the White Swan.

The next gen GROM II is supposed to be 11m long and is a two stage hypersonic missile with enormous range... 11-12K kms...

The Bear and the White Swan are missile carriers, but the PAK DA should be fitted with rotary launchers that can carry dumb bombs with glide kits fitted... rotary launchers 12+m long would allow a significant number of glide kit equipped bombs to be carried... and also perhaps AAMs too like R-77 and R-37 and newer missiles.

It would also likely benefit from anti radiation missiles... I wonder how many R-27s they made... an anti radiation version of the R-27 would be a useful missile, but of course a scramjet powered upgrade of the Kh-31 would be amazing.

https://armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2024/new-variant-of-russian-tu-95msm-bomber-capable-of-launching-advanced-missiles-targeting-ukraine