Wow, it is really starting to feel like military Thursday. Here’s another story from Wired’s Danger Room reminding us that why Washington isn’t really all that concerned over Russia’s frequent gestures of hostility:
Depending on whom you ask, Moscow’s bomber threat is about to get a lot more dangerous — or it was never all that dangerous to begin with.
Lately, Russia has had to make do with aircraft left over from the 1980s. The Russian strategic bomber force — 16 Tu-160 Blackjacks and 64 Tu-95 Bears — is roughly half the size of the U.S. bomber force, but more importantly, the Russian birds have not been significantly upgraded in 20 years. Most of them cannot use any kind of precision-guided bomb, making them mostly useless for anything but a full-scale nuclear war.
To remedy that, bomber-maker Tupolev is reportedly developing a new “fifth-generation” bomber for the Russian air force, for service after 2020. “The new plane will use a wide selection of high-precision weapons, and will have a whole range of new combat capabilities, allowing it to apply new methods to carrying out deterrence tasks,” Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said.
Before you start building a bomb shelter in your backyard, considerthis: in the impoverished Russian aerospace industry, talk is cheap.Moscow has been promising to show the world an F-35-like stealthfighter prototype for years, but so far no one has seen so much as a Testors model kit. An order placed this summerfor 64 older Sukhoi fighters by 2015 represents the biggest Russianaircraft buy in 15 years. In the same time-frame, the Pentagon will buyprobably 10 times that many fighters, of more modern design.
And according to one Russian general, new bombers aren’t even a wiseinvestment. Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, who has commanded many of theNorth American flights, told Air Forces Monthly just a fewweeks ago that no new bombers were needed. Instead, he said, hisexisting bombers require “deep upgrades” to improve flight safety,navigation and bombing accuracy. He said he wanted his bombers to beable to drop unguided munitions to within 60 feet of their targets.U.S. bombers, you might recall, can reliably put guided bombs throughwindows and air shafts.
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“Lately, Russia has had to make do with aircraft left over from the 1980s. The Russian strategic bomber force — 16 Tu-160 Blackjacks and 64 Tu-95 Bears — is roughly half the size of the U.S. bomber force, but more importantly, the Russian birds have not been significantly upgraded in 20 years.”Incorrect.Approximate number of Strategic Bombers on active duty for US and Russia.US:76 B-52s67 B-1Bs20 B-2sTotal of 163 strategic bombersRussia:64 Tu-95s161 Tu-22Ms (author forgot about this formidable baby)16 Tu-160sTotal of 241 strategic bombersIf anything, it’s the US strategic bomber force which is almost half the size of Russia’s.There is no such thing as a fifth-generation bomber; there are talks about a fifth generation fighter. US has the F-22 already in service, and the F-35 is expected to come out soon. Sukhoi PAK FA is expected to make it’s first flight this year and to be introduced in 2012. Although fifth-generation technology is mostly talk right now (no trial by fire yet) I myself am not a fan of the so-called fifth-generation fighters; they are extremely expensive and arduous to maintain. Cheaper more effective alternatives would be to equip older platforms with modern radars, avionics and weapon systems. Just look what India is doing with it’s large fleet of indigenously produced Mig-21s (1960s technology), upgrading them with newest BVR weapon systems and integrating their computers with recently purchased Israeli Phalcon AWACs. Get a fleet of these old puppies to fly with a Phalcon and they can undoubtedly shoot down F-22 or F-35s like flies without E-3 Sentry support. Can you imagine the embarrassment, a 1960s Soviet platform that not even the Russians field today with a market value of $50,000 shooting down “fifth generation fighters” costing $100-200 million each? Think economics guys.
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Think economics guys.
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