VVS Russian Air Force: News #1

For me is strange that they look to replace Su-25 and not MiG-29 whose service life has already expired

-Article says aircraft will use better radar, but the implication is strange since Su-25 does not have any radar.

After perfecting air to ground radar and air to air radar for their main two attack helos, I would suspect fitting them to their new CAS would make sense even just so that the CAS pilots can see what the Helos that they will be operating with can see.

The Su-25TM was fitted to carry a belly mounted radar pod to give it all weather day and night performance, but it was not accepted into service.

There were plans to fit the Su-25SM with a fixed nose mounted radar (which would give it a better forward view compared with a belly mounting position), but those plans didn't seem to progress either.

-What engines will power it, surely not R-195?

Depends how much weight the new aircraft gains... the turbojet engine is supposed to offer better throttle response (ie winds up faster... which can be critical when flying low in the mountains), but they could easily go for something radical like a contra rotating pusher propeller which would be efficient at low level.

-What is the extent of LO features, since presumable the payload will still be external?

Being a subsonic aircraft I would expect modified fixed air intakes would be a cheap and effective change, and likely redesigned structure to hide important components, and allow DIRCM turrets a nice wide field of regard.

For me is strange that they look to replace Su-25 and not MiG-29 whose service life has already expired

The replacement program for the Mig-29 was called LFI to match the MFI program that eventually became the PAK FA program. I rather suspect that the replacement for the Mig-29 was delayed because Sukhoi wants to reduce the success of the new fighter... whose goals of low operating cost and relatively low purchase costs with a light 5th gen fighter bomber should sell like the Flanker sells now.

AFAIK they have quite a few Mig-29s in storage and with minor upgrades they could be put into service fairly cheaply, so I think there is no real urgency in spending money on a replacement. The Mig-29 is a perfectly adequate numbers aircraft right now, and with a proper upgrade its operational costs are fairly low... reportedly in the 5-6,000 per flight hour range.

Su-25's are just as old as MiG-29s, even more in fact.
Also completely different roles.
VVS is getting several A2A assets: PAK-FA, Su-35, Su-30, etc.
But only one A2G asset, the Su-34. So this makes sense.

Also a key consideration is that Frontal Aviation lost all those single engine fighters/bombers like the Mig-27, the Su-17 and the Mig-21s and Mig-15s etc etc that had a swing role of basic ground attack.

Currently with greatly reduced aircraft numbers the Su-25 and Su-24/34 are becoming critical, though their upgrades make them orders of magnitude more powerful and effective than the older model jets...

Actually the VVS has some very much new MiG-29s. The ones they got back from the cancelled Algeria order.

Would like to see them give more aircraft upgrades however...

Russia to Reopen Arctic Airbases

Selected air units of Russia’s Western military district will start this year preparations to return to abandoned Arctic airfields, the commander of the district’s aviation Maj. Gen. Igor Makushev said on Wednesday.

Military airfields in the Arctic were used extensively in the Soviet era, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 they have been generally mothballed.

“We will start reopening airfields on Novaya Zemlya and in Naryan-Mar as early as this summer,” Makushev told a news conference in St. Petersburg.

Plans for next year include the reopening of a military airfield on Graham Bell Island, which is part of Franz Josef Land.

Russia has announced plans to deploy a combined-arms force to protect its political and economic interests in the Arctic region by 2020, including military, border and coastal guard units to guarantee Russia's military security in diverse military and political circumstances.

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said in July 2011 that two arctic brigades would be stationed in “Murmansk or Arkhangelsk or some other place.”

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20120530/173757083.html

MTA and An-70 are in different classes.

The MTA is a direct replacement for An-12 and does not really exceed the payload capacity at all, so it will likely just be more sophisticated and cheaper to operate replacement for an older platform.

The An-70 is a bit like the Su-34 in that it might have been designed to replace the Su-24 (AN-12) but its improved performance and capabilities means it can actually replace the next model up.. which in strike terms is the Tu-22M3 and in transport terms is the Il-76.

The An-70 should be easily better than the early models of the Il-76, though it might lack speed performance... though when dropping things by parachute that is a good thing.

I think both aircraft will be very useful and internationally the An-70 will offer air forces an aircraft significantly more capable than any model Herc (C-130) but without the peak performance and also without the enormous cost of a C-17. To take a 30 ton payload from A to B it would be much cheaper to use an AN-70.

For countries not operating 70 ton tanks the An-70 would be fine.

Nice, Andy, thanks for posting.

Are both spreadsheets the same? I assumed so and only downloaded one.

Also... might be a dumb question, but why make a spreadsheet in Word instead of Excel?

Thanks again for posting.

Edit: I just read you posting the same spreadsheet on MP.net, and after reading a complaint about problems downloading on a mobile phone from Artjohm a joke reply popped into my head... "Take a tablet".... of course because a tablet computer would be easier to use than a phone... OK I didn't say it was a good joke.

So can we say tablets didn't help?

Maybe you need prescribed tablets...

I would add I think I read somewhere that Klimov were working on the new 2,700hp engines for the new Russian helos in the 10 ton class... ie Mi-28N/M, Ka-52, Ka-32 etc and they would be ready for production in 2014/15 with the new engine so that they don't need to buy the engines from the Ukraine...

Important skill in reading news reports is to actually read what is written...

Lesson 1 ignore anything that might be in the title as it is the sales pitch and is almost always misleading.

Note this bit at the end:

"The parties have agreed to test the helicopter and then make a final decision about their purchase," - said.

In other words the title says they are going to buy while this quoted part suggests they haven't even tested them yet and will not make a decision till after they have tested them.

Claims that local helos can't be made quickly enough is bullsht because if they want these European helos they will have to build facilities to make them... which will make them pretty expensive unless they make thousands.

Instead of buying these European helos I suspect they will test them and reject them on some minor drawback... like they don't operate well at minus 40 degrees C.

The money they would spend on building a factory to make these foreign helos they could spend on a factory to make domestic helos, and in making them they will reduce the costs of these helos to make them more attractive on the export market.

The point is that making domestic helos keeps Russian cash in Russia and invests money into Russian companies that can then expand and improve and grow and create better products and hire more Russians in skilled jobs etc etc.

Few NATO countries will buy Russian products to help out Russia... they certainly didn't during the economic collapses of the 1990s.

As far as I am concerned foreign purchases made sense in terms of French Thermal Imagers, and French helicopter carriers, but in terms of armoured vehicles and small arms and tanks and pretty much anything except electronics then Russian is best.

I'm aware that this deal isn't signed as of yet. All I'm saying is that considering all of the somewhat pointless foreign purchases lately, it would come as no surprise if the MOD actually went through with the purchase.

If you look carefully at the actual deals that have gone through... even 60 years ago, the goal wasn't to put the product into service in Russian, it was to get the product type into production in Russia.

The Russians aren't idiots, but they have gotten a little behind because of a well known gap of funding and support.

Just after WWII the Russians realised the power and performance of British jet engines and despite working on their own jet engine types and also getting access to several German engine types, they still purchased British engines and bought production rights... for the Derwent and Nene jet engine types. The production facilities that were set up to build these engines were used to further develop new engines , so in a way they were actually buying a foreign model of a system and then buying production facilities to make that model and then using the experience of assembling and producing that model to base new designs and models upon.

It will be the same with the Catherine Thermal Imagers, though the lack of a cold war means that the Russians can continue to work with Thales on new models of improved performance.

The Russian Mistrals will be different from French Mistrals... for a start they will have very different aircraft and weapons systems fitted. More importantly the shipyards that build the two Russian Mistrals will be upgraded and ready to produce a range of ships using modern techniques that were unavailable to them even right now.
More importantly they will have experience in new building techniques and a skilled work force able to use the new tools and production methods.

If the Russians had decided to build an all Russian ship it would be 10 years before 2-3 designs could be drawn up and tested and prototypes put in the water and even then there could be huge problems. Look at the Lada class sub... they didn't realise there would be problems till they actually built a boat and put it in the water. They have worked out the problems and come up with solutions and will apply those solutions to two other Lada class subs already laid down but they have a lot more experience building conventional subs than helo carriers.

By buying a French carrier that is proven and tested in service they can get it into useful service quicker, and they get to make two of them in their own shipyards so they get the building experience.

The only problem there is that the ship designers are left out of the loop, but they are still required to redesign the Mistrals for Russian use... strengthened hulls for operations near ice and enlarged hangars for coaxial rotor helos, and of course significant fire power increases.

And of course there will be support ships that will be needed for the Mistrals and other new ships to operate properly.

Considering the purchases of the Iveco despite it's less than pleasing performance on rugged train or in deep snow during testing, I don't know if we can be so sure of that.

But how many have they actually bought? AFAIK they bought 10 for testing. To cover territory the size of Russia they need thousands of different types of vehicles, and for all we know they might intend to sell them to CSTO partners anyway. Put this in perspective... the maximum number I have seen even suggested is something like 1,500 vehicles... and the Italian military use 7,000 according to Wiki.

I rather suspect these vehicles... even if they do buy them, will go to the MVD border patrol in places where there is no deep snow, or sold on to third countries.

Just my opinion of course.

Of course politics is always an issue and I suspect if any real purchases of Ivecos take place it will be because Italy is going to buy x number of AK-12s in 5.56 and 7.62 x 51mm or perhaps RPO-A launchers for Afghanistan, or Pecheneg in 7.62 x 51mm calibre...

Found this article from Arms-Tass that suggests production/assembly of 150 this year...

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Farmstass.su%2F%3Fpage%3Darticle%26aid%3D105951%26cid%3D25&sl=&tl=en

I suspect the Italian vehicle likely uses ceramic armour that the Russian military wants access to. There is no point in being safe if you can't drive off road for 8 months of the year because the snow or mud is an obstacle...