Russia plans to upgrade 3 nuclear-powered cruisers by 2020

Why four Kirovs? 😮 I think this decision is beyond the Russian economic capability. Or just they may want to replace Slava and keep a cruiser fleet just with the Kirovs.

Benchmark tests for the mighty USAF: Iran.

Surely the western air forces can level the country. But if the Persians manage to unleash its asymmetric retaliatory strikes, the attack will backfire. The USA is very might, but from a relative point of view is less mighty than yesterday and more than tomorrow. Once the Persians acquire the capability to place NMD on Sejil’s noses, all air forces of the world will be irrelevant and the western bravado toward Persia will become bizarre.

Explanatios a-posteriori are just pretexts. The SA-3 tech was developed in the 50s and deployed in the 60s. May be it hurts to know that the old stuff downed the wonderweapon of this decade, but who cares! Just egos badly damaged.

On the other hand If NATO men feels brave because they won by bombing civilian buildings, let it be. After all, after the NATO bombing of civilian building in Belgrad and the obvious failure of the SEAD campaing, Russians and Chinesse start to left behind the fear to the NATO bombing methods they got during GW-I. That had a deeper geo-political impact a posteriori. I.e. Russia started smashing the Chchen terrorists whitout care of a western intervention.

It is not optimistic. It’s reality.

And these are dated stealth aircraft that I’m talking about (F-117 and B-2). The technology behind the F-117 was almost 30 years old at it’s retirement!

F-117 was downed by a 50 yeards old technology SAM. That’s 20 years older than the “wonderweapon” F-117. That is a fact and cannot be disputed.

Fuel is not a problematic issue for Russia.

The inter-theater redeployment of aircraft during Vostok-2010 was one of the key events of the strategic war games, which end today. The Su-24 Fencer and Su-34 Fullback tactical bombers used midair refueling to fly to the Russian Far East.

In-flight refueling, routinely used by the world’s leading powers, including the United States and NATO countries, allows for the quick build-up of air power in a given zone of conflict.

To efficiently implement that maneuver, a country should have a sufficient number of flying tankers, combat aircraft equipped for midair refueling, transport planes to carry auxiliary personnel and cargo, and crews capable of fulfilling such missions.

None of these elements are sufficient in Russia.

The Il-78 (Il-78M) Midas, based on the Il-76 military transport plane, is Russia’s only flying tanker. Russia has 19 such planes equipped for midair refueling of the Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers and the A-50 Mainstay early warning and control planes. This is certainly not enough.

The U.S. Air Force has 250 KC-10 Extender and KC-135 Stratotanker air-to-air tanker aircraft and there are more in-flight refueling planes in the National Guard and in reserve. This allows the United States to project its military might by quickly redeploying large Air Force units from one theater of operations to another.

Russia also lacks aircraft capable of being refueled in midair. For example, the Su-27 Flanker and the MiG-29 Fulcrum multipurpose combat planes are not equipped for this, mostly because in the Soviet era there were enough military airfields with a large number of aircraft in all the strategic locations.

Modern Russia cannot keep so many planes at so many airfields, which is why it is becoming critically important to equip fighter planes for midair refueling. All new and all modernized planes have such equipment, and some tactical aircraft can be used as flying tankers. In particular, the Su-24 Fencer has outboard fuel tanks and a refueling system.

But this is not a good solution as these planes usually have a shorter range and cannot be used as bombers, which would undermine a bomber squadron’s potential.

The Tu-22M3 Backfire-C long-range bomber has no refueling equipment for political reasons: if it had a flight refueling probe, this would have made it an intercontinental plane and hence subject to START reductions.

Equipping a bomber with midair refueling equipment is fairly simple.

But the biggest problem concerns the crew. The most responsible missions in Russia are still assigned to crews led by senior officers (majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels) who have considerable practical experience. The ability of other pilots to fulfill such missions is not assured.

Another problem concerns transport planes, something the Air Force needs to support distant operations that involve the redeployment of combat planes. Russia has one of the world’s largest fleets of transport aircraft, but they are still not enough given the country’s huge territory and the need to transport a large amount of military cargo.

These problems can only be resolved comprehensively; a simple supply of flight refueling probes will not do. The country’s leadership and military should approve the production of refueling planes and the training of the necessary crews for the Air Force. Taken together, this should increase the number of planes capable of long-range missions.

At the same time, the Il-78 Midas is too big for refueling tactical aircraft, which need a smaller, cheaper plane, possibly based on the civilian Tu-204 medium-range airliner. A few dozen such planes in the Air Force would dramatically improve its position.

Besides, the purchase of large batches of flying tankers based on the Tu-204 would save the airliner, which is breathing its last breaths.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik)

On the Russian “new” army.

The large-scale Vostok-2010 military exercises which were conducted over a vast area between the Altai Territory in Western Siberia and Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East were the largest war games in post-Soviet Russia.

The exercises involved over 20,000 officers and men, 75 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, as well as 40 warships and support ships, all working to assess the three-level troop-control organization comprising strategic commands, tactical commands and brigades, other new elements of the troop-control and logistics-support system and to expose any shortfalls.

Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), said the latest military exercises had completely refuted widespread allegations that the Defense Ministry was destroying the armed forces with its reform measures.

“Obviously, the army is alive and continues to develop. Units involved in the exercises proved quite battle-worthy, although they arrived from second-line military districts and didn’t have the most advanced equipment,” Makiyenko said.

High officer morale should be singled out. Most officers want the current army reform to succeed and are hoping for success, Makiyenko told RIA Novosti.

While agreeing with this viewpoint, it should be noted that the situation with junior personnel is somewhat different. Much depends on specific branches and basic training levels. Officers from motorized-rifle units, including battalion commanders, say a reduction in the number of contract soldiers has negatively affected platoon-and-company training programs.

While trying to find out whether current top Defense Ministry officials are up to the mark, it should be noted that Russia currently has the most competent military leaders since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

At the same time, it is obvious that the radical military reform, its tough deadlines, the inevitable resistance of military personnel and a difficult economic situation make it impossible to avoid mistakes.

Major setbacks include the government’s failure to facilitate 100% contract service, the social tensions caused by the rapid discharge of officers, a hasty and ill-conceived military-education reform and lots more.

And, finally, Russia’s armed forces, doubtless, lag behind the industrial world in terms of technical-equipment levels. All these mistakes affecting the army’s basic combat capability must be corrected.

What type of wars should the Russian army prepare for? Obviously, protracted wars between the great powers are now history because nuclear weapons completely rule out such scenarios. The most realistic scenario is the Russian army becoming involved in a local conflict on the border between Russia and another post-Soviet republic and would have to repel regular enemy forces or large insurgent or terrorist units.

Makiyenko said Russia was primarily concerned about Central Asia in the context of a hypothetical low-intensity or medium-intensity conflict involving Russia.

“The United States and NATO are obviously losing control over the situation in Afghanistan and will probably have to leave that country in the foreseeable future. The return of the Taliban movement to power seems to be the most plausible scenario, if this happens. The radical Islamic comeback in Afghanistan will inevitably trigger contention in the conflict-ridden regional post-Soviet republics. The weak authoritarian regimes in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, not to mention Kyrgyzstan which has almost become a ‘failed state’ may fall prey to the Taliban. Consequently, Russia will have to face the prospect of a huge Asian conflagration and will have to prevent such developments. If Russia fails to do this, then it will have to put out that conflagration in order to preserve its own domestic stability. Hopefully, this reform can yield results before this situation becomes reality,” Makiyenko said.

The current military reform has to succeed because Russia will face problems in the next few decades.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik)

Can the YF-23’s compressor blades be seen while looking straight down the intake? From my understanding, you have to look at them from an angle.

Yes. The picture is clear. If you move your line of sight to align to the fuselage you can still see the aft.