A cheap alternative for submarine launched ICBMs

Dec. 5, 2009 the SALT-1 Agreement is expired. I want to be wrong, but personally I think there is only a few possibility to finalize the new Strategic Weapon limitation treaty between US and RF. The difference in positions is too wide and the time remained is too little. So, the ideas about what to do if a new nuclear race starts, are still actual as well despite some progress occurs in US-Russia relations during Obama presidency. This article is the opinion of a Russian military expert in the Russian English-language magazine 'National Defence', issue 1, 2009.

Army transformation. Part 2.

Part 1.

It's the article of Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, the Chief ot the Main Combat Training and Service Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, published in Russian English-language 'National Defence' magazine, #1, 2009.

'Teg' and 'Chakra' are almost ready

As 'Arms-TASS' reports, the launching ceremony in Kaliningrad for 4th 'Trishul'-class FFG for India will be Nov. 27. The next two, 'Tarkash' and 'Trikand', are under construction. The Indian delegation will take participation in the ceremony. Also the Russian officials have confirmed 'Nerpa' tests were finished in September and the submarine will over to Russian Navy soon according to the schedule in December 2009. Starting from April 2010  the transfer of the sub to India is expected RIAN reports today.

European guru: 'Let's go for common army'

Franco Frattini, the Italian Foreign Minister, made the day. In an interview with The Times at his office in the monumental marble-halled Foreign Ministry on the banks of the Tiber, Mr Frattini said:

"If we do not find a common foreign policy, there is the risk that Europe will become irrelevant. We will be bypassed by the G2 of America and China, which is to say the Pacific axis, and the Atlantic axis will be forgotten. We need political will and commitment, otherwise the people of Europe will be disillusioned and disappointed  (...) It was a necessary objective to have a European army".

- I ask myself why politics in Russia, India and Brasil, who have even more cause for being threated or marginalized by strengthened China-US axis   don't bother to think about more active cooperation in foreign politics and military sphere? Don't they see the changes in the world? Even Japan has changed its foreign politics radically last months...

T-90S tests in India and Malaysia

This video is from the Russian 'Culture' TV-channel program about the national tank industry. The fragments of T-90S tests in Malaysia and India are demonstrated. A man from UVZ, which took part in T-90 program speaks about these trials. The essentials of his interview:
1) T-90S has overcome the most hard sectors of the route which deterred the Ukrainian T-84.
2) Crew was able to extract and fix up the engine in the field conditions.
3) Pakistan T-80UD purchasing pushed India to seek more advance tanks abroad.
4) For India T-90S is a second deterrence factor after nuclear weapon (cited an Indian General words).

Army transformation

This is an interview with the chief of the armament/deputy DM General of the Army Vladimir POPOVKIN in Russian 'Army & Navy Review' magazine. 

Interview by Oleg Vasilenko

Su-35 MULTIROLE FIGHTER

This article is from Russian 'National Defence' English-speaking journal. The author is a well known military and air-space technology journalist and the Editor-on-Chief of the 'Take-off' magazine.

Prospects of Russian avionics

The article of 'Russian Avionics' concern chief is about the prospects of the branch, last consolidation events, merging and the most prominent projects.

Russian intention towards China: "We want such an approach no more"

The 'Saturn's chief says about his great unsutisfaction from Chinese pirate coping politics: 

"Our relations with China often represented the following pattern: we sell a number of engines, whereas the other party uses them for copying. We want such an approach no more. In current talks with China  we are proposing to build such relations where none of the partners would have either possibilities or desires to cheat. It would hardly be possible to cooperate with China in the same manner as with France  under the SaM146 project. We need to look for another ver­sion". 

Buk-M2E Air-Defence system

Workaday reading. This article is taken from 'National Defence' Russian Arms & Military Technologies review 7.2008 and is actual today as well. 'Buk-M2E' - has the same missiles as its navalised version 'Shtil', installed on the 'Talwar'-class frigates. The OCRed text is fetched below.

Armor's Prospects

Russian tankers are facing the future with optimism. "Armor - is an effective means of proactive, decisive and dynamic ground operations on both the conventional and nuclear battlefields", - says Lieutenant-General Nikolay Yershov, Chief of Main Automotive and Armour Directorate ('Army & Navy Review', 5, 2008. English).

Russian corvettes for Vietnam

Sunday reading. Although closing the Russian Navy base in Kam-Rahn during Putin's first presidency, Vietnam is remained a key Russian ally in South-East Asia and an important counter-balance against growing China's power. After a bloody incident around disputed Spratley islands, Hanoi activized the purchases for its Navy. A number of Russian-made project 1241.8 'Molniya' fast missiles boats equipped with Kh-35 misiles were bought. The 2006 contract for two '2000 t displacement 'Gepard'-class corvettes is under way too. This is an article about the project from Russian 'National Defence' journal:

Russian HMS for attack helicopters

As it's well known abroad, the first world HMS was developed in USSR - 'Shchel' (Kiev, Arsenal). A long time after USSR dismissal Russian AF and military aircrafts manufacturers used 'Sura' HMS variants of the same Ukrainian vendor without trying to develop Russian own capability in this issue. However, the political problems in Ukraine, economic instability there and the Western efforts to break territorial and ethnic integrity of this Orthodox state, which transitionally  had good relation with Moscow, pushed Russia to development of its own HMS, for not to be dependent from Kiev. This helmet was developed by GRPZ (BARS radar serial manufacturer from Ryazan), and used on new Russian attack helos - Ka-50/52 and Mi-28N:

Russian chip makers. Part 2.

This is the 2^nd part of review about Russian manufacturers of core military electronic components. The 1^st part is here.

'Elvees' – is a fab-less electronic chips design house holding the leading position in developing micro-chips, digital signal processors and controllers, for different military, space, domestic security and civilian applications. 

The peculiarity of the Elvees-designed microchips distinguishing them from many other competitors are – system-on-crystal (SOC) and net-on-crystal (NOC) high integrity design. There are both regular (scalar) and DSP (vector) processor cores with all needed controller in one chip. The DSP cores have high code-density (8-10 times higher than the main world competitors TI and ADI). So, extremely low specific power consumption (Watts per MFlOPS) and high performance is achieved. Up to 5 vector and scalar cores in one chip is used on current Elvees' production. This leads to very compact and light military communication devices (personally communicators, UAV DSP units and communication units) with long period of autonomic work. The enterprise has its own patented architecture platform 'MultiCore', broadly used on the Russian systems of intellectual vision, radars, sonars, digital TV, spacecrafts, prospective mobile communication standards.

Russia's strategic nuclear forces development

Sabbatical reading. An interview of Commander of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (SMF) Col. Gen. Michail Solovtsov, and an article about Russia's SMF development plans, published in English-language 'National Defense' issues.

Russian naval diesels and gas-turbines. Part 2.

The second part of Russian naval propulsion review. Part 1 is here. This is the specification of RUMO Open Joint-Stock Company (Nizhny Novgorod) product line. Manufacturer information:

Russian chip makers. Part 1.

After repeating questions in my blog and BRForum I decided to make a brief review about Russian chip-makers. Generally the situation with electronic parts the Russian military authorities characterize as 'far from to be satisfying'. They complain on growing foreign components and rising prices. However, their complaints must be taken in proportion. The current world trends, exponential multiplying of the hardware nomenclature, the market globalization objectively pushes to international cooperation in military production even between the former rivals. Recently even in US they raised the authorities' attention to dependence from Chinese electronic parts and the poor quality of China-made components. So the situation reflects rather a global problem then specifically Russian one. 

Russian AAMs. Part 2.

RVV-MD – is a new Russian short-range AAM. The abbreviation means in Russian literally 'a missile air-to-air of  the short range'. It was presented first time this summer in MAKS-2009 Air Show in Zhukovsky, near Moscow. It's intended for high-maneuverable combat and can hit both fixed-wing and rotor-wing aircrafts from any direction at day or night and despite heavy jamming. Its maximal range is 40 km (R-73E has 30 km). IR sensor is 2-color, +-60 deg angle of seeking (R-73E has  +-45 deg) . The maneuver control is aero- and gas-dynamical. The maximal AoA of this missiles is significantly higher than of R-73E.   It can hit targets maneuvering with 12 G. Besides MiG-29/35 and Su-27/30/35 families the missile can   equip Su-25 , Yak-130, helos and  other different planes.