Monthly Archives: April 2016

S-500 in 2016?

Posted on April 18, 2016 | 2 comments

Predictions of the imminent appearance of the new anti-air, anti-missile S-500 system come with regularity.  Last week’s press reports aren’t novel in this respect.

Deputy Aerospace Forces (VKS) CINC and Chief of Air and Missile Defense General-Lieutenant Viktor Gumennyy [Goo-MYO-knee] says Almaz-Antey is completing development work on the S-500, and the VKS will receive it “soon.” Hard to argue. We know it’s in development, and he doesn’t say what “soon” means.

TASS and RIA Novosti covered Gumennyy’s comments on Rossiya 24 television.

The prevailing forecast is that the S-500 will complete development, and appear with operational units on an “experimental” basis in 2017.

As recently as early 2015, Deputy Defense Minister and procurement chief Yuriy Borisov predicted the S-500 wouldn’t complete development until 2017.

However, TASS reminds that VKS CINC General-Colonel Viktor Bondarev has said deliveries will start in 2016.  He’s an inveterate optimist; in 2012, he said 2013.

In any event, it’s a chance to review what’s claimed to date about the S-500.

The typical advertisement for the S-500 calls it a new generation, long-range surface-to-air missile with increased capability for high altitude (200 km) intercepts against ballistic missiles and RVs.  It can reportedly engage ten ballistic missiles simultaneously at a range of 600 km.  The S-500 is supposed to be superior to both the S-400 Triumf and U.S. Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3).

The system is supposed have 40N6M (possibly a longer-range mod of the S-400’s 400-km missile?) missiles as well as hypersonic 77N6-N and 77N6-N1 missile interceptors.  TASS reported that these anti-missile missiles were successfully tested in mid-2014.

According to Interfaks, GPV 2011-2020 calls for procurement of ten battalions (or five “regimental sets”) of the S-500.  Almaz-Antey’s original contract called for initial deliveries in 2015.

Noted by the regime or not, this is “GOZ breaking.” Some producers get in trouble for it; important ones sometimes don’t.

General-Lieutenant Gumennyy also reported that testing of the S-350 Vityaz SAM continues, and initial launches confirmed the system’s performance.  The S-350 will replace older Russian S-300PS SAMs.

Gumennyy said the share of “modern” SAMs and radars in Russia’s inventory is 45 percent.  Last December, the MOD indicated that 52 percent of all VKS weapons and equipment was “modern.”

P.S. President Vladimir Putin’s assistant for military-technical cooperation confirmed for Izvestiya today that Russia is negotiating sales of the S-400 system to China and India.

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Posted in Aerospace Forces, Force Modernization

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Thinking Twice

Posted on April 9, 2016 | 3 comments

Is the Russian MOD having second thoughts about modernizing Kirov-class CGN Petr Velikiy?  Or its sole aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov?  What about Kirov-class CGN Admiral Nakhimov already in the modernization process at Sevmash?

Kirov-class CGN Petr Velikiy

Kirov-class CGN Petr Velikiy

OSK President Aleksey Rakhmanov himself raised the issue in a recent interview, according to a recap by Militaryparitet.com.

Militaryparitet cites Vpk-news.ru (currently launching a Trojan called Web Attack: Venom Activity 3 blocked by Norton thankfully).

Vpk-news referred to TASS, which itself indicated Rakhmanov’s statements came on Ekho Moskvy.  In any event, the original transcript of his remarks has eluded your author.

OSK President Aleksey Rakhmanov

OSK President Aleksey Rakhmanov

As Militaryparitet puts it, the efficacy of repairing old, large surface ships like Petr Velikiy and Kuznetsov isn’t obvious.

The web resource quotes Rakhmanov:

“For us the existing approach toward the repair of large-tonnage ships — Admiral Kuznetsov, Petr Velikiy — isn’t quite straightforward and optimal for one simple reason — the scale of expenditures for the repair of ships which are already 30-35 years old approaches the cost of building a new ship, and their service lives are much shorter than that of a newly constructed ship.”

And, according to Rakhmanov, this is “being openly discussed with the MOD.”

He continues:

“And is it necessary to do this, and if it is, then under what conditions?  It’s a question of the general life cycle concept — if a ship’s service life is 30 years, then is it necessary to extend its life?  For us the question of repairing particularly large, technically complex ships isn’t obvious.  Therefore, before talking about where to do this, we need to ask why we are doing it.”

“There are exceptions, but even one-of-a-kind ships, for example, Kuznetsov, have limits to their lives.  There is metal and equipment fatigue.”

According to Vpk-news.ru, Rakhmanov feels contemporary approaches toward shipbuilding should take into account “economically justifiable” repairs and use of each ship and vessel.

Of course, OSK and its enterprises make money off repairs, modernization, and construction, but the conglomerate makes more off — and is therefore more interested in — building new ships.  For its part, MOD wonders if it can fund expensive construction projects, and whether OSK and Russia’s shipbuilding industry can actually deliver the new ships.

It’s interesting that there isn’t the same level of angst when it comes to modernizing older nuclear-powered submarines and not as much — although clearly a certain amount — in the case of building new ones. The real worry sets in when major surface forces are considered.

But it all comes down to this:  building and maintaining a navy is an expensive proposition.

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Posted in Defense Industry, Naval Modernization, Navy

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Not OK in the OPK

Posted on April 3, 2016 | 14 comments
OAO Radiopribor

OAO Radiopribor

Recent news reports indicate all is not well in Russia’s defense-industrial complex (OPK).  This despite several years of budgetary largesse in the form of an ever-increasing state defense order (GOZ).

Exhibit No. 1

Defense plant OAO Radiopribor in Vladivostok is officially bankrupt, but some remnant will be preserved in an 11th hour deal turning the company into a subsidiary of OAO Dubna Machinebuilding Plant (DMZ) in Moscow Oblast. How effectively DMZ can operate a money-losing business 6,500 km to the east is anyone’s guess.

Local press indicates that labor authorities in Primorskiy Kray are already working to place or retrain some Radiopribor employees (i.e. not all of them have a future at the old plant).

The industrial holding company AFK Sistema and its electronics subsidiary OAO RTI own DMZ.  DMZ makes components for military aircraft including external fuel tanks.

Radiopribor’s 1,500 workers hadn’t been paid in eight months, and the enterprise’s wage arrears amounted to 224 million rubles along with general debt of 3.5 billion rubles.

The figures on the salaries are interesting — the average employee may have been making a little more than 18,000 rubles per month. That was probably about two-thirds of average pay in Vladivostok last year.

Exhibit No. 2

Russia’s sole manufacturer of infantry fighting vehicles — BMPs, Kurganmashzavod (KMZ) in the Urals recently defeated a Moscow-based creditor’s attempt to have it declared bankrupt for failing to pay on 41 million rubles of arrears on its leasing contracts.

It defeated the effort because, as a subsidiary of Kontsern Tractor Plants, KMZ is a “strategically important enterprise” and can’t be bankrupt according to a longstanding presidential decree.

KMZ apparently also owes its gas supplier.

It has a state order for 200 BMPs in 2015-17 which should help it some.  It’s been a big supplier of civilian heavy equipment in the past, but that must not be going too well either.

Exhibit No. 3

Press from late March described OAO United Instrument-building Corporation’s effort to come up with an “anti-crisis” plan for its enterprises in Tambov Oblast southeast of Moscow.  OAO OPK is itself part of Rostekh.

OAO OPK’s Revtrud factory has 1 billion rubles worth of debt.  Revtrud’s wage and tax arrears come to about 150 million rubles.  It makes communications and electronic warfare systems.

OAO OPK says it plans to amalgamate affiliates Revtrud, Oktyabr, Tambovapparat, and Efir into a single production complex.  It will spend 4 billion rubles to recapitalize and reequip these enterprises.  Tambovapparat doesn’t seem to be doing too well either. Efir is doing the best; the MOD is buying its Borisoglebsk-2 jamming system.

Exhibit No. 4

On 22 March, TASS quoted Jan Novikov, general director of S-400 maker Almaz-Antey, who indicated he was considering a 30 percent cut in his workforce for economic reasons.  A week later, he walked this back saying savings might come through other means, according to a TASS report of an interview he gave Rossiyskaya gazeta.  Novikov stated that cost-cutting is needed to pay the bills for financing and starting up production at new plants in Nizhegorod and Kirov.  This from what is arguably Russia’s best-performing arms producer.

On top of these reports from various corners of the Russian OPK, we have interesting news from important characters in Moscow.  They seem to agree that the GOZ is turning downward, and taking the fortunes of these companies with it.

On 5 March, Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova, who oversees the military’s budget, said its financing would be trimmed by 5 percent this year, but claimed weapons procurement would be untouched.

A week later, Rostekh Chief Sergey Chemezov told The Wall Street Journal that the GOZ could be slashed by 10 percent in 2016.

On 26 March, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Rogozin — tsar of the arms sector — told TASS that Russia needs “patriots of industry” ready to do everything necessary to renew not just the armed forces but industry too.  He continued:

“Then we won’t depend on the oil and gas needle, because we’ll rely on industry.”

President Putin’s administration chief Sergey Ivanov traveled to Tula on 29 March to preach about a time when the GOZ will decline and defense enterprises will have to diversify.

On 31 March, the chairman of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee Viktor Ozerov admitted there could be problems financing military procurement in 2017, but insisted the Defense Ministry would not abandon its goal of 70 percent modern weapons and equipment by 2020.

At the outset of the armaments program in 2011, more than one or two wise observers said Russia’s industrial obsolescence and its reliance on hydrocarbon rents needed fixing before making heavy investments in defense industry.  Why?  Defense industrial investment has a smaller multiplier effect in the overall economy.  The time and money to make these changes has been wasted, and now is an inauspicious time for them.

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Posted in Defense Industry

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