Tu-95MS "Bear"

With the Tu-85 Tupolev learned that they would need a much bigger plane to reach intercontinental range. Which meant they would need a stronger eninge. After that engine was developed they realised that the new plane could be much faster than the old ones and changed the design of the wings.

More than 60 years later…

Exactly!

That chart suggests the origin of all Tupolevs is the B-29... where is the exaggeration?
A few flying boats & transports with bigger range were developed & used before WWII, so the Americans had not only Soviet land planes for inspiration:
With bigger range than what?

The Tupolev bombers shown r descendants of the B-29/Tu-4, but more accurately, each succeeding model was based on the preceding 1.
Those earlier transports had bigger range than B-17/-29s.
The record set by the Soviets was broken by two British Vickers Wellesley bombers which flew from Egypt to Australia in November 1938; a distance of 11,523.9 kilometres (7,160.6 mi). ..
Fuel was 52% of the takeoff weight,.. According to the archives, the idea of a military variant of the RD first came to the engineer Zhemchuzhin of the 7th sector of the Soviet Air Force Scientific Research Institute. Its slow speed, low altitude, poor maneuverability and large wingspan made it a perfect target for fighters and anti-aircraft guns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_ANT-25
The ANT-25 had to land & refuel to fly back, so even as a bomber it would be 1 way mission if there were no airfields nearby for that.
So it wasn't just that flight that inspired to continue with the B-17.

The ANT-25 had to land & refuel to fly back, so even as a bomber it would be 1 way mission if there were no airfields nearby for that.
So it wasn't just that flight that inspired to continue with the B-17.

Are you kidding... we are America... everything we do and have is the best, yet these dumb half asian Russians flew a plane direct from their country to ours... an actual flight distance of 11,500km and still had 1.5 tons of fuel left on board when it landed.

It was a single engined aircraft and no where near their biggest.

It was slow and an easy target for defences, but it was a distance record aircraft not a prototype strategic bomber.

It scared the shit out of them that the Soviets could have such aircraft technology and potential and they realised they needed to catch up.

It was very much like Sputnik getting an American to the moon...


Also to be fair any Tu-95 flying today has new wings... in the 70s and 80s they further upgraded the wing and fuselage design to improve performance... the first beneficiary was the Tu-142 maritime patrol model but all the in service Tu-95s were pretty much made after the design change and included the improvements.

Western experts consistently underestimated the performance of the Bear throughout its operational life because they assumed a much higher rpm rate for the blades, which would have made them super noisy and rather less efficient.

The blades are actually coarser in terms of pitch angle and run at something like 750rpm which prevents supersonic blade tips, which would dramatically reduce thrust performance...

But western experts have always just seen it as a WWII B-29 rip off that didn't warrant being worried about.

But western experts have always just seen it as a WWII B-29 rip off that didn't warrant being worried about.

Not all of them. I have an old AF magazine warning against viewing the Tu-95 as antiquated. Many other, if not most, original planes were modernized & redesigned but that doesn't cancel their origins:
An-2, An-24, Il-18, Il-76/-86, Tu-95 itself, Tu-104, DC-3, L-188, C-130,
C-141, B-707/-737, etc.

Not all of them. I have an old AF magazine warning against viewing the Tu-95 as antiquated. Many other, if not most, original planes were modernized & redesigned but that doesn't cancel their origins:
An-2, An-24, Il-18, Il-76/-86, Tu-95 itself, Tu-104, DC-3, L-188, C-130,
C-141, B-707/-737, etc.

Yeah... in my family we have granddads hammer... the best tool anyone in our family ever owned... it was well used and had a hard life... the head was replaced four times and the handle replaced 6 times but it was the best hammer money could buy in the 19th century.

Thing is that most people don't realise what an advantage it is to have a hammer with WiFi that is fully Bluetooth compatible... amazing what those people could design all those years ago...

Just like the B-29... I am sure they never expected it to fly 16,000km with one inflight refuelling stop, and to carry up to 16 x 5,500km range cruise missiles... hell I expect they never thought they would have to sweep the wings back to reduce the chance of supersonic compression drag for the wings... it is just amazing how far ahead of their time they were... NOT.

AMERICA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DESIGN OF THE BEAR... Grow up for fucks sake.

You sound worse than Hollywood claiming D Day won WWII, or the US won WWII because they captured an enigma machine... in 1953...

Tu-95 Bears Air International / Pitor Butowosky

Kh-BD was a known thing for some time ...its range was mentioned as 6000 km.

I suspect they are increasing the range of Kh-101 much like they are increase range of Kalbir to 4500 km from 2500 km

Very good info, thanks!

Well the Calibre are basically similar to the 1980s 2,500km range Kh-55, so they increased the weight and size of the missiles to create the kh-101/102 which increased their range to 4,500-5,500km and are doing the same with the sea launched Calibre.

But the Kh-101/102 are only 7.5 metres long and the weapon bays in the the Blackjack are almost 12m long so this new weapon is designed to fill the available space with long range and a big warhead... a 1 ton warhead is pretty impressive...

Old Kh-45 that the article mentioned.

Another two Tu-95MS were modernized and delivered to VKS on April 11 and April 13.

You mean Tu-95MSM not MS.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:You mean Tu-95MSM not MS.

Nope. Official name is still MS. From the factory's website: http://www.beriev.com/rus/pr_rel/2019_04_13.html

ТАНТК им. Г.М. Бериева передал ВКС России модернизированный самолет Ту-95МС (бортовой номер "19")

Old Kh-45 that the article mentioned.

Looks a bit like the old SS-N-14... but it was a rocket with a torpedo on top for anti sub or anti ship attack...

Hole wrote:
Old Kh-45 that the article mentioned.

The drawing is that of a Kh-80 (3M25 "Meteorit"/AS-19 "Koala") with and without it's booster :  

GarryB wrote:

Old Kh-45 that the article mentioned.

Looks a bit like the old SS-N-14... but it was a rocket with a torpedo on top for anti sub or anti ship attack...

The RPK-3 "Metel"/ SSN-14 "Silex" is a really different missile :

That is why I said it only looks a bit like it...  

Nice pics though... that is the late model Metel with the optical port on the top portion that is used when it is used against enemy ships.

Normally it is just flown to a point in space where the torpedo is released to fall in to the water to then start searching for the sub.

In anti ship mode the missile still flys to the general area of the target and then the seeker looks for a surface ship to attack... from memory it is IR rather than TV, which makes it comparable in many ways to the NSM... but with a much shorter range of course, though the ability to carry a torpedo and attack subs is an advantage, and its passive guidance makes it semi stealthy I guess at a time when that was not considered important.

In particular, state tests of the Tu-95MSM with the modified NK-12MPM engine are being completed, Interfax reports. Advanced engines will expand the range of the missile carrier and take on board up to 16 units of the latest X-101 cruise missiles.

https://topwar.ru/165102-rossijskie-stragegi-poluchat-novye-vozmozhnosti.html

magnumcromagnon wrote:

In particular, state tests of the Tu-95MSM with the modified NK-12MPM engine are being completed, Interfax reports. Advanced engines will expand the range of the missile carrier and take on board up to 16 units of the latest X-101 cruise missiles.

https://topwar.ru/165102-rossijskie-stragegi-poluchat-novye-vozmozhnosti.html

Good news, and yet more evidence that the Bears will be flying for decades to come. Idiots might disparage these aircraft as "Cold War dinosaurs" but they do their job exceedingly well. IMHO they won't be replaced by the PAK DA but will instead supplement the stealthy bombers.

Big_Gazza wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

In particular, state tests of the Tu-95MSM with the modified NK-12MPM engine are being completed, Interfax reports. Advanced engines will expand the range of the missile carrier and take on board up to 16 units of the latest X-101 cruise missiles.

https://topwar.ru/165102-rossijskie-stragegi-poluchat-novye-vozmozhnosti.html

Good news, and yet more evidence that the Bears will be flying for decades to come.  Idiots might disparage these aircraft as "Cold War dinosaurs" but they do their job exceedingly well. IMHO they won't be replaced by the PAK DA but will instead supplement the stealthy bombers.

We could potentially see Bears modified to launch air-droppable equivalents of Poseidon.

Big_Gazza wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

In particular, state tests of the Tu-95MSM with the modified NK-12MPM engine are being completed, Interfax reports. Advanced engines will expand the range of the missile carrier and take on board up to 16 units of the latest X-101 cruise missiles.

https://topwar.ru/165102-rossijskie-stragegi-poluchat-novye-vozmozhnosti.html

Good news, and yet more evidence that the Bears will be flying for decades to come.  Idiots might disparage these aircraft as "Cold War dinosaurs" but they do their job exceedingly well. IMHO they won't be replaced by the PAK DA but will instead supplement the stealthy bombers.

Those idiots wouldn't their mouth form their a**. The B-52 is a dinosaur. The Tu-95 cruises not much slower than commercial airliner
(over 700 km/h) and has probably the best range for the payload of any strategic aircraft. Jet engines even with high bypass turbofans
suck a lot of fuel. The specific fuel consumption is 219 g/kW-h which is like other turboprops. But turboprops don't typically
fly as fast.

I note that Wikicrapia has downgraded the Tu-95 specs. Its top speed is 925 km/hr not 830 km/h.

The hint is the swept wings... the Bear actually needs swept wings because of the speed it flys at.

Sadly there is a lot of ignorance amongst the general public regarding aircraft and when they see a Bear they think they see a WWII propeller driven aircraft.

Most of them don't even realise it is actually a jet engined aircraft... it is a turboprop.

It was, when it entered service, and still is today, the worlds fastest propeller driven aircraft in the world... Americans probably think that is a Mustang... but it isn't... the hint there is that a Mustang has a straight wing and a Bear NEEDS a swept wing.

This is good news that the new engines means it becomes a Tu-95MS16... the amusing thing is that no level of thrust increase will make these aircraft faster... they really do operate at the limit of speed for a propeller driven aircraft, so improvements with new engines normally means higher thrust for better acceleration and ability to carry higher drag heavier payloads and lower fuel consumption for greater flight range.

The internal weapon bay on the Bear is too small to carry the Kh-101/102 so it this model with these engines can carry 16 of them that means 8 missiles under each wing, so it should be able to carry another 6 Kh-55SM or Kh-555 conventional land attack missiles internally too... so that would be 22 cruise missiles per aircraft... which would be quite a payload.

Of course it might instead carry a variant of the Zircon to act like a Kh-15 kickback that can be launched as the Bear is flying along to reach forward and destroy SAM sites or air bases... the Kickback was a mach 5 rocket powered 250-300km range weapon with a nuclear warhead used to penetrate into enemy territory to launch missiles... a Zircon based missile would be twice as fast and with more than three times the range so it would be rather useful even in the small version intended for tactical fighters...

Hypersonic missiles have opened up a new era of range. Their speed is so high that they cannot have a small range. This
has rejuvenated "dinosaurs" such as the Tu-95 and Tu-160. They don't need to fly over Washington, they need to get 1000-1500 km
from the coast to roast all the prime US targets. The slower Bear can be assigned cruise missile duty since then it does not even have
to cross the Atlantic. The yanquis are seriously underestimating Russia (a common western disease). Russia is not an opponent that
cannot develop countermeasures and rather fast. There is no one way street in the military sense. Something the brain-rotted
yanqui elites and their EU minions have a hard time grasping and dealing with.