Russia’s Military Technology Is Outdated

Russia’s Military Technology Is Outdated

It is not really true that Russia’s military technology is outdated, one single incident of MiG-29 Jet fighter can not project the outcome of entire military industry. (DTN Defense-Technology News)

(NSI News Source Info) Moscow - March 21, 2009: Russian President Dmitri Medvedev this week announced a large-scale military rearmament program, which he says will require considerable resources despite difficulties associated with the current global economic crisis.

The new missile also boasts enhanced reliability and ease of repair and maintenance. In present-day conditions, this factor is as important as flight characteristics. Although the Favorit system is a multi-component weapon, target-destruction depends primarily on the air defense missile, on its reliability and capability of efficiently fulfilling guidance commands in heavy jamming, high-speed and overload environments. The Fakel Design Bureau has implemented in practice the principle of guaranteed reliability of missiles, which has added a basically new quality to them: the possibility of their test-free service in the Army for a long warranty period. This goal was achieved via the use of a set of technologies, among them the full cycle of ground missile tests on Fakel test beds. Missiles are tested in transportation, storage, alert and even target-approaching modes in climatic and anechoic chambers, on dynamic and static test beds, and on shakers. Other innovations used in the 48N6E2 missile include the use of fundamentally new guidance algorithms, more advantageous flight trajectories and new military loads. The development of the missile proceeded in several directions simultaneously and lasted several years. Fakel specialists selected the prototype which showed overwhelming advantages over others both in ground and flight tests. The combat capabilities of the new system were first tested on August 10, 1995, on the Kapustin Yar testing range in an encounter with Scud ballistic missiles. Several 48N6E2 missiles were launched to intercept Scuds. During the interception, the explosion of the air defense missiles' military load detonated the high-explosive charge of the ballistic missiles. Russian scientists and specialists were the first in the world to achieve so remarkable a result. The best achievement of Patriot missiles during Operation Desert Storm was the interception of Scud missiles after which the latter deviated from the termination point by four to five kilometers. Throughout the Gulf war, Patriots never managed to destroy a single Scud missile in the air.

There are political and economic realities that could be driving as well as hindering Mr. Medvedev’s proposal. Tanks and missiles paraded across Red Square last May for the first time since the Soviet collapse in 1991. But Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov recently said 90 percent of Russia’s military technology is outdated. This includes most of the hardware on parade. On March 17, President Dmitri Medvedev unveiled an ambitious rearmament plan to modernize Russia’s military. Mr. Medvedev says Russia’s primary task is the enhancement of troop combat readiness; not the usual enhancement, but rather qualitative enhancement - above all through the strategic nuclear forces. The Kremlin leader says Russian security is threatened by NATO expansion, local crises, and international terrorism. He adds the conflict against Georgia last August revealed flaws in Russia’s conventional forces as well. Independent Russian military analyst Viktor Litovkin says Russia lacks combat support systems rather than firing units, and notes that such systems consist of drones, precision weapons, reconnaissance, navigation, communication, and guidance systems, etc. He adds that Russia in this field is far behind what he calls the modern civilized world. President Medvedev says Russia will devote considerable resources to develop and purchase new weapons, despite a tight national budget affected by the declining price of Russian oil exports. But independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer notes that Russia may not only lack the money, but also the industrial capacity for large-scale rearmament. Felgenhauer says Russia most likely will need to buy technologies and components from the West, as well as entire weapons systems. He notes, however, that such purchases are impossible to do if the Kremlin continues to envision a conflict with the West. Military observers say Mr. Medvedev’s rearmament program is designed in part to offset dissatisfaction in the ranks with a Kremlin plan to downsize Russia’s armed forces. This could eliminate as many as 200,000 officers. In February, more than 1,000 officers, veterans, and civilians rallied against military reforms in a protest sponsored by the Communist Party on Defender of the Motherland Day, a Russian national holiday. Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said the reform proposal threatens the future of Russia. Zyuganov says protesters on that holiday first of all want to say no to mediocre [army] reform, which he characterizes as a betrayal of the Motherland. Analysts say the armed forces and its supporters are a political constituency that the Kremlin cannot afford to ignore. But Pavel Felgenhauer says Russia cannot afford large-scale rearmament either and that Russian authorities have not reconciled this contradiction. The analyst says there is no consensus in society or among the elites on what they really want to do. He says that everyone agrees in principle that rearmament is necessary, but he raises various questions: how and what; with the West, or against the West; should Russia buy in the West because its own industry cannot do it, or should the country somehow try to manage on its own? Felgenhauer says decisions about such matters in Russia are made behind closed doors and are not always fully thought through, which he characterizes as a feature of authoritarian regimes. President Medvedev says some military units have already been modernized and he expects large-scale army and navy rearmament to begin in 2011.