Interesting, thanks. I was well aware of the Kh-22’s power but I wasn’t aware they’d been doing upgrades to it. What are the differences between Kh-22, Kh-22M and Kh-32? Also thanks for the info on the Kh-15 – would Backfires have been armed with these regularly or only in missions where Blackjacks were unavailable?
Still I do have to think that even if Kh-22 has been modernised it would surely be efficient to at least have the option of replacing them with multiple smaller ones. I doubt you’d want to waste a Kh-22 on a frigate or patrol boat or something after all if you had the option of carrying two or three Klubs that could fit on the same pylon instead. While I’m aware that’s not what the Tu-22M3 was intended for, times have changed, and future export possibilities would seem to demand some versatility in loadout.
At any rate that’s probably an off-topic point, though I do have one question remaining, which is whether PAK DA will draw on Tupolev’s strategic experience or Sukhoi’s ambitious concepts – or, as they’re now both part of UAC, will it be a joint effort?

Well a frigate isn’t too “small” of a target, but for patrol boats you could use anything else smaller that carries anti-ship weapons. Be it Su-24s, Tu-142s, Su-34s, other multi-role Flankers/Fulcrums with anti-ship or anti-radar weapons.

The Kh-22 was supposedly upgraded to the Kh-22M in the 70s, and the current one you would hear about has a range of 440KM and an improved attack profile over the predecessor, and a datalink for mid-course updates.

The Kh-32 missile is believed to be either turbojet or ramjet powered, with an active radar seeker, digital avionics and a new warhead. Kh-32 is believed to have a maximum range of 500 km when released from high altitude. The missile is believed to have both anti-ship and land attack capabilities, and possibly nuclear and HE warhead options.

http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/delivry/raduga.htm
http://www.janes.com/extracts/extract/jsws/jswsa034.html

The upgraded status in total is not know, but we do now know that this year the there is a large bomber upgrade program that will be complete, so maybe we’ll have more info as this year goes on.

Flex, point this towards sfertard if he wants a link with info on how much more the Blackjack can carry as opposed to the Lancer.

Speed 2200 km/h (maximum), 1030 km/h (ground)
Ceiling 16.000m
Weight (empty) 110.000kg
Fuel weight 148.000 kg
Maximum take-off weight 275.000 kg
Normal load 9.000 kg
Maximum load 40.000
Range 14.000 km (with a load of 9.000kg)
10.500 km (with a load of 40.000 kg)
Armament 12 H-55 or 24 H-15 missiles
free falling bombs

globalsecurity page for the bomber.

SOC, you said earlier that Tupolev had been doing work on the Tu-22M3 fleet. What sort of work would this entail? A logical step would seem to be the integration of multiple smaller anti-ship missiles (something like Klub, Yakhont or even BrahMos) in place of the monstrous and extremely aged Kh-22s they currently carry, at least on the AV-MF examples. Yet they’ve been photographed with Kh-22s even very recently and I’ve never seen them carrying anything else externally. Are the upgrades mostly internal, overhauling avionics and whatnot as I heard they were doing with the Tu-160s?

You are really missing the ball game here. The Kh-22 is “old” – but the Kh-22 has also been upgraded twice. To the “M” variant and then to the Kh-32 retrofit variant. Each missile looks identical, yet has much better capability than the predecessor. Each missile is also capable of rendering any naval vessel useless in even a single hit basically.

Your discussion is quite pointless. Under Western designation SS-N-16 there are actually two complexes: Vodopad in 533mm (various torps) and Veter in 650mm (nuke depth charge). There are no cruise missiles which can be fired from 650mm tubes. As you can see, Borei has no justified need for 650mm tubes. Anyway, if it’s engaged in shoot-out, it’s lost the main quality – stealth, and will not be able to launch strategic missiles.

What are you talking about?

What is the RPK-7 then? I wouldn’t call it a cruise missile, but it’s a torpedo or depth charge delivery vehicle.

Is it confirmed that the Borei will not have 650mm tubes?

Kommersant has reported on the resumption of production. Bliznyuk was reported back in 2007 as saying that they had unfinished airframes and that one of them was being completed for delivery (which has occurred). With a desire to only end up with 25-30 jets in total Figure 6 from Engels, 8 from Priluki, one new jet, one test jet returned to service, subtract one that was lost…you get 15 total with 10 to 15 left to make. Two or three of them are going to be incomplete airframes that are finished. That leaves at least 7 to 12 jets to make. If they restarted the plant it wouldn’t take until 2030 to build them, which is when the RusAF has stated they want to have them all available so they can have two units. That leaves one to assume that they’re using components left over from 1992 when they still thought they were building 100 of them until Yeltsin said nyet. Otherwise, a new Tu-160 airframe with modernization applied would be the perfect solution rather than looking for an all-new platform. It just seems that things don’t match up right for them to be building brand new jets out of brand new components, but I could be wrong. Hence why I said “the current theory”.

100 airframes or not, how would you expect there to be ready materials for all of them at the plant? Are there 100 wings? Noses? I would expect them maybe to have some parts for some airframes, but other than that they would need to manufacture parts. Which is hardly a stretch.

AFAIK current fleet is: 16 in service, 2 test aircraft?

This is according to warfare.ru // What are the test aircraft – anyone got any idea?

B-2s were obnoxiously expensive because you had all of the R&D costs spread out over 21 airframes rather than the 75 or 150 they wanted at various points. Cutting edge aircraft produced in very small numbers are going to be absurdly expensive, it’s a fact of life.

The problem with a low level penetrator with moderate LO is that in certain environments you may still need EW support or a robust onboard EW suite. That can be expensive in the latter, and a giveaway of your position in the former. Plus, low level greatly reduces the range of any standoff weapons, meaning you have to get closer to a threat system which will increase your probability of detection/engagement.

If you are going for low penetration, what do you need long range weapons for? One would assume you are using some sort of Kh-15 variant.

Because they can’t make BLACKJACKs in the numbers they’d need I’d guess. The current theory is that the new aircraft being made are being fabricated from existing components or are incomplete airframes left at Kazan that are being finished. At this point the BLACKJACK is a 30 year old design so adding a few of them to bulk up the strategic bomber force on the cheap and then pursuing a new design makes sense given the total situation they have before them.

I don’t buy it. There is nothing to say they aren’t making new air frames.

What is this? Where is the evidence? Something Russian I hope.

What they are looking for is a new airframe for the future.. Was the Tu-95 dumped when the Tu-160 came out?

17,400km range? ROFL!!! Ah-ha-ha-ha. That’s a good one. I’d be surprised if it was even 10,000km.

Engine power doesn’t have squat to do with anything. Basically all it says is you need a huge plane to do less than what the smaller B-1 can do.

Payload capability. Technically the B-1Bs is quite a bit higher if external stores are allowed (when START runs out). It’s current limit is 75,000lbs internal.

How about survivability? The B-1 was good for Mach 2.2 (faster than the Blackjack) but the USAF gave that up to reduce the cross section to the point that it was better to have the low RCS than to have the speed.

Here are a few facts for you to ponder (you can look at fai.org):

The B-1B carried 30,000kg for 5000km faster than the Blackjack did (1054km/hr vs 920km/hr for the Blackjack). Since the Blackjack record was flown later the crew obviously knew what the existing record was. They failed to break it.

The Blackjack holds NO records in the 10,000km category. The B-1B holds the 10,000km record with no payload.

Speed 2200 km/h (maximum), 1030 km/h (ground)
Ceiling 16.000m
Weight (empty) 110.000kg
Fuel weight 148.000 kg
Maximum take-off weight 275.000 kg
Normal load 9.000 kg
Maximum load 40.000
Range 14.000 km (with a load of 9.000kg)
10.500 km (with a load of 40.000 kg)
Armament 12 H-55 or 24 H-15 missiles
free falling bombs

“First flown in 1982, the Tupolev Tu-160 ‘Blackjack’ is a counterpart to the American B-1B. Both share a similar configuration, but the Soviet designed bomber is about 30 percent larger and considerably faster. Its initial combat radius of 7300 km is estimated on a mission profile of subsonic high altitude cruise, transonic penetration at low altitude.”

From globalsecurity

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Note, that, the upgraded Tu-160 can carry 45,000KG of payload.