MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News

pair of Russian MiG-31K Foxhound jet fighters armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles has touched down for the first time in Syria, which is also the first trip anywhere outside of Russia for these aircraft and weapons. These converted interceptors are joined by Tu-22M3 Backfire-C bombers at Khmeimim Air Base in Syria’s coastal Latakia province, marking the second time the latter type has been deployed to the country in the space of a month. These aircraft are ostensibly in the country to take part in exercises in the eastern Mediterranean Sea that will also include other types of planes, as well as Russian warships and submarines.

The deployment to Syria of these aircraft — reportedly together with Il-38 May anti-submarine planes — comes just days after the U.K. Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth launched its first combat missions against ISIS militants in Iraq from its position in the eastern Mediterranean. According to official Russian accounts, “one of the objectives of the exercises will be to monitor the actions of the [British] aircraft carrier group.”

With the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender having broken off from providing an escort to HMS Queen Elizabeth and entering the Black Sea, where earlier this week it incurred Russian wrath for its transit off the coast of Crimea, this show of force in the eastern Mediterranean has an added resonance, providing another demonstration of Moscow’s military power projection to the United Kingdom in particular.

News of these deployments to Khmeimim first emerged earlier today, with the Russian Ministry of Defense’s official television station, TV Zvezda, posting a video showing MiG-31Ks and Tu-22M3s arriving at the base. The clip also noted that joint exercises by the Russian Aerospace Forces and Russian Navy units had already begun.

Two different MiG-31Ks are seen in the footage, with the Russian registrations on their tailfins censored, but with the individual aircraft’s codes ‘Red 90’ and ‘Red 96’ clearly visible on the forward fuselages.

A subsequent video directly from the Russian Ministry of Defense shows one of these aircraft taking off with its huge Kinzhal missile, a single example of which can be carried on the centerline. A separate official statement said that the MiGs “have begun to fulfill the tasks of mastering the airspace of the region.”

Three Tu-22M3s are also seen in the footage — aircraft ‘Red 15,’ ‘Red 28,’ and ‘Red 50’ — two of which are armed with Kh-22 or Kh-32 series long-range cruise missiles. Of these Backfires, both ‘Red 15,’ wearing the Russian registration RF-94149, and thought to be home-based at Shaykovka in western Russia, and ‘Red 50,’ RF-34091, from Belaya in the Russian Far East, participated in the previous deployment to Syria, late last month.

The Backfires have already been flying simulated combat missions, according to the defense ministry. “Airplane pilots have gained practical skills to perform missions in new geographic areas,” said the commander of Long-Range Aviation, Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash. “Tasks were carried out to destroy the conditional enemy. The tasks were completed with high quality. Aviation technology has once again confirmed its high reliability. The flight personnel gained invaluable experience.”

TV Zvezda’s reporting has outlined the Russian maneuvers, which are also said to involve five Russian Navy warships, including the Slava class guided-missile cruiser Moskva, the Admiral Grigorovich class frigates Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov, as and the Improved Kilo class submarines Stary Oskol and Rostov-on-Don. All these are from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

In one of the first elements of the exercise that apparently began today, surface warships practiced their air defense skills “to repel enemy air attack weapons,” according to the defense ministry. In this scenario, simulated enemy aircraft flew a mock attack against a frigate with anti-ship missiles.

Also reportedly taking part in the drills are Il-38 and Tu-142MK Bear-F anti-submarine aircraft, though neither type has been seen in the imagery that has been released so far. According to the same source, the aircraft in the exercise will conduct “combat training tasks to ensure the security of the Khmeimim Air Base and the Russian Navy’s Tartus logistics center.”

“During training flights, aviation technology and equipment will be tested in difficult climatic conditions, including those caused by exposure to high temperatures and the possibility of long flights over the water,” the TV Zvezda report adds. “Aircraft crews will acquire practical skills to practice training tasks in new geographic areas.”

Earlier this year, The War Zone reported on how the airbase at Khmeimim was undergoing runway extension as part of a refurbishment of the base that will help it to accommodate bombers, like the Tu-22M3. The MiG-31, too, will likely benefit from these infrastructure improvements. The basic MiG-31 requires almost 4,000 feet of runway to take off, but that figure is certainly increased when carrying the Kinzhal.

When Russia first deployed Tu-22M3s to Syria, The War Zone suggested that it might be timed to coincide with the arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is the centerpiece of Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21). That turned out not to be the case, but Russia has acknowledged that the second visit of Tu-22M3s (plus MiG-31Ks) to Khmeimim will include monitoring the British-led task group as it conducts operations in the eastern Mediterranean.

As we discussed before, the Tu-22M3 offers a powerful long-range anti-shipping strike capability, although now these aircraft all serve with the Russian Aerospace Forces, not the Russian Navy. Nevertheless, the aircraft is able to launch the 38-foot Kh-22 (AS-4 Kitchen) and the improved Kh-32. These are powered by a liquid-fuel rocket and can reach a speed of over Mach 4 for the final run-in to the target. The missiles carry either a nuclear or high-explosive warhead. The maximum range after launch from high altitude is over 300 miles for the earlier Kh-22 and reportedly over 500 miles for the Kh-32.

The Kinzhal missile, meanwhile, which is currently carried exclusively by the MiG-31K, is one of the weapons unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in 2018, at which time he said it could deliver “nuclear and conventional warheads to a range of over 2,000 kilometers [1,243 miles],” flying at a hypersonic velocity, “10 times faster than the speed of sound.” The exact performance of the missile has not been verified, but, as The War Zone was first to report, it is adapted from the Iskander ballistic missile and its hypersonic velocity likely comes during the terminal phase of its attack as it dives on its target.

The Kinzhal — which has the Western reporting name Killjoy — can be used to attack ground or naval targets, with an active radar seeker enabling it to carry out anti-ship missions. While there are plans to field the MiG-31K and Kinzhal combination in Russian Navy units, so far, it has been deployed by the flight-test unit at Akhtubinsk in Astrakhan, southern Russia. The two aircraft at Khmeimim, ‘90 Red’ and ‘96 Red,’ are known to be associated with this unit, which carries out combat tests and evaluations.

Put together, the Tu-22M3s and MiG-31Ks with the warships and submarines of the Black Sea Fleet now reportedly in the eastern Mediterranean represent a very capable anti-shipping force, capable of launching a range of hypersonic, supersonic, and subsonic anti-ship missiles. In a combat scenario, these would be used in combination in an attempt to overwhelm the air defenses of a carrier group, for example.

With tensions between the United Kingdom and Russia already heightened as a result of the controversial passage of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender through waters claimed by Russia off the coast of Crimea, the situation in the eastern Mediterranean is likely to be similarly pressured.

Beyond the immediate vicinity, the stationing of long-range maritime strike aircraft in Syria has provided another vector from which to project Russian military power in various directions. While the current exercise focuses on maritime warfare, the MiG-31K and Tu-22M3 are also equally capable of attacking objectives on land, with enough range to put most of Western Europe as well as a considerable chunk of North Africa and the Middle East at risk.

As long as CSG21 remains in the eastern Mediterranean and long-range Russian aircraft are operating from their deployment base in Syria, the two sides are likely to carefully monitor each other during the days to come.

Finty wrote:Very nice, location?

The new melee air combat (BVB) missile that entered service with the MiG-31BM fighters is also known under the export name RVV-MD. It is perfectly suited not only for the destruction of high-speed maneuverable aircraft, but also for the destruction of drones and cruise missiles. The munition will increase the versatility and expand the capabilities of heavy high-speed interceptors covering the northern and remote regions of our country. This weapon will significantly increase the capabilities of the fighter to combat maneuverable targets, experts say.

Kortik for sniper

New serial missiles are already coming to aviation regiments equipped with Long-range MiG-31BM interceptors. They were first used by pilots of naval aviation at recent exercises held in Kamchatka, sources in the Ministry of Defense told Izvestia.

The fleet of such fighter-interceptors of Russia is actively modernized and replenished. According to Defense Minister Shoigu, who said at a single day of acceptance of military products on February 1, last year the troops received ten more improved MiG-31BM, which will strengthen the country's air defense.

As Izvestia has already written, these fighters receive new tasks. Now their crews will regularly practice firing ballistic missiles. The military department also reported that MiG-31 pilots from a regiment in Kamchatka last year for the first time intercepted a cruise missile fired by a modern coastal anti-ship complex.

The MiG-31BM was created mainly for combat at long distances, when the target is not visible to the naked eye. But today, in the air, they can face new adversaries, including stealthy drones and high-speed missiles. To do this, they need a universal set of weapons.

R-74M are able not only to fight enemy aircraft, but can also be used on cruise missiles and drones with a small reflective surface, and this is very important for the MiG-31 and increases their capabilities several times, told "Izvestia" Hero of Russia, former commander of the 4th Air Army of the Air Force and Air Defense, Lieutenant General Valery Gorbenko.

"The R-74M can work on faster targets, which was not the case before," the expert explained. - Close combat is the most difficult type of combat use and training. Its feature is transience, high maneuverability, large overloads. First, it used machine-gun and cannon armament, then melee missiles went. The range of application of the first reached two kilometers, but later it increased. On the MiG-31 for the BVB originally used R-60 with a heat head, then R-73, and now the development of technology led to a new modification.

For maneuverable combat

The new missile in small quantities has been delivered to the troops since 2015. Photos from Syria, distributed by the Ministry of Defense, show that the new ammunition was tested there on multi-purpose Su-30SM fighters. To increase supplies allowed the commissioning in 2018 of a serial plant for their production in Kurgan.

The design of the R-74M was created on the basis of the redesigned R-73 missile. According to the developers, the new model has improved dual-band infrared homing head. It sees small hot objects from a greater distance and is more difficult to deceive with traps and interference. Due to the addition of gas-dynamic rudders, the maximum possible overload and grip angles have increased dramatically. This increased efficiency in highly arenafied combat.

The maximum launch range has increased from 30 to 40 km. But if necessary, you can shoot it "at point-blank range", from a minimum distance to the object of three hundred meters. The homing head can capture the target after launch and switch in flight from one to another.

There is a variant of the R-74M, created for use from the internal compartments of the fifth-generation Su-57 fighters. New ammunition can be equipped with attack aircraft, as well as combat helicopters. They are already armed with the latest Mi-28NM helicopters.

Upgraded interceptor

Since the end of last year, the MiG-31 began duty at remote Arctic airfields. They were placed in Anadyr in Chukotka and Rogachevo on Novaya Zemlya. Transfer to other sites along the route of the Northern Sea Route was also worked out. For a short time, they were sent to the archipelago of Franz Josef Land.

High-altitude all-weather MiG-31 is the most powerful fighter-interceptor in the world with unique indicators in terms of speed, range and altitude.

The aircraft was developed in OKB-155 (now JSC RAC "MiG") on the basis of the MiG-25 in the 1970s. The first Soviet combat aircraft of the fourth generation first took to the air in 1975 and on May 6, 1981 was put into service.

Most of the vehicles in service have been upgraded to the level of the MiG-31BM. The first contract for the improvement of 60 interceptors of the Ministry of Defense was signed in the summer of 2011. In the autumn of 2014, a contract was signed for a batch of another 54 air ships. They expect to completely update their entire fleet by 2023.

During the modernization, not only the service life of aircraft and engines was extended at least until the mid-2030s, but also the combat capabilities were radically increased. According to the developers, the effectiveness of the new version has increased by 2.6 times compared to the base MiG-31B.

The MiG-31BM received a complete update of on-board electronics and an improved Zaslon-M radar, which allows detecting the enemy for 320 km, simultaneously tracking ten air targets and firing at six of them. From a distance of 160 km, the fighter can hit them with long-range R-33 missiles.

After modernization, the MiGs acquired the ability to work closely with other fighters and ground services. They can receive information from ground-based radars and automated control systems, effectively exchange it with A-50 long-range radar detection and guidance aircraft.

AMCXXL wrote:In 2020, 4 MiG-31BMs from Savaslayka appeared in Lipetsk
Now, according to the satellite (google maps), there are up to 15 operational MiG-31s at Lipetsk,
https://www.google.com/maps/place/55%C2%B026'24.0%22N+42%C2%B018'36.0%22E/@52.6381378,39.4602227,206m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d55.44!4d42.31?hl=en


It seems that the whole squadron of 12 MiG-31BM has moved from Savasleyka to Lipetsk and maybe there are also some MiG-31K

It is possible that now, the Savaleyka base has become available to host the Su-57

Does anyone know how to obtain recent satellite images of the Savaslayka air base ?? (for free)
the images from google and yandex are the same for 2 or 3 years

any information or image about it will be welcome

George1 wrote:

what about numbers in total?

AMCXXL wrote:In 2020, 4 MiG-31BMs from Savaslayka appeared in Lipetsk
Now, according to the satellite (google maps), there are up to 15 operational MiG-31s at Lipetsk,
https://www.google.com/maps/place/55%C2%B026'24.0%22N+42%C2%B018'36.0%22E/@52.6381378,39.4602227,206m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d55.44!4d42.31?hl=en


It seems that the whole squadron of 12 MiG-31BM has moved from Savasleyka to Lipetsk and maybe there are also some MiG-31K

It is possible that now, the Savaleyka base has become available to host the Su-57

Does anyone know how to obtain recent satellite images of the Savasleyka airbase ?? (for free)
the images from google and yandex are the same for 2 or 3 years

any information or image about it will be welcome

franco wrote:

Perhaps the Savaleyka airfield is getting a facelift.