State Armaments Program 2011-2020

calripson wrote:Simple explanation: no money. At least as long as the neoliberal monetarists are in charge of Russian economic policy and the sanction regime intelligently imposed by the west retards Russia's ability to access debt markets. Couple that with US fracking, LNG and alternative pipelines in to Europe, and the noose will conveniently tighten over time.

Simple explanation huh?

As Mike said, there is an appropriate thread to discuss this. BTW if only this thing was in your mind, please read the full report again

miketheterrible wrote:But, if you guys thought they will produce hundreds of tanks a year of Armata, think again. It is a huge system with potentially a lot of flaws. There will be years of rigorous testing and then possibly fixing.

Speaking personally, I never thought that for a single moment.

Of course, transferring the whole Russian tank force to the Armata platform (or even only a single part of it) will be a lenghty process. I was only thinking about the LRIP of the system. What I think that would be the most logical schedule for this is at first an Armata battalion or regiment in an armored brigade/division for field testing/evaluations, then a whole brigade and then a division, and if the results of these tests are good, the MoD can give the green light to full-scale production. This whole process from right now would take not really more than 6-8 years, which is good IMO (we are talking about a brand new, and very unique combat system BTW.)

miketheterrible wrote:Biggest flaw of the article is about S-500. It was mentioned a while back that S-500 is priority for this sap program to 2025.

I have also heard some similar things about it, but better later than never.

miketheterrible wrote:

calripson wrote:Simple explanation: no money. At least as long as the neoliberal monetarists are in charge of Russian economic policy and the sanction regime intelligently imposed by the west retards Russia's ability to access debt markets. Couple that with US fracking, LNG and alternative pipelines in to Europe, and the noose will conveniently tighten over time.

most of what you said is debunked. Go to economic section of this forum for more details. Oil and gas accumulated is very small to overall Russian budget. And Russia's gas pipelines are already going fine (Nord stream 2, Power of Siberia and the Turk Stream). Russia is also poised to become the largest LNG producer as Yamal first stage will be operational this year, Shakalhin to be upgraded, and then eventually Baltic LNG.

Outlook is looking good. All that is being said right now is pure speculation as the armament program won't be shown or even signed until July this year.

Hell, Russia's GDP PPP is poised to increase 2% this year. So there is no economic mouse around Russia. Its like the so called noise around South Africa in 1976. Only it didn't do anything but bolster South Africa.

But, if you guys thought they will produce hundreds of tanks a year of Armata, think again. It is a huge system with potentially a lot of flaws. There will be years of rigorous testing and then possibly fixing. Same was with Su-35.

Biggest flaw of the article is about S-500. It was mentioned a while back that S-500 is priority for this sap program to 2025.

Very well said, there are a lot of trolls on here. Another point is that it takes time to modernize a army(especially the size of Russia.)

About the newest weapons, it is logical to expect low activity of procurement in the 2018-2025 State Armament Program. But this is not a trouble, a rejection or a delay, this is only consequence of the development process of new weapons. It is easy to say and to explain. Some of the newest weapons will not be ready for mass production by 2025. Only that.

What I expect of the 2018-2025 State Armament Program, was explained with decent detail, in the previous page of this topic (I improved some details with updates):

https://www.russiadefence.net/t2358p325-state-armaments-program-2011-2020#190008

In the refered to the procurement of new weapons, as said in the comment liked, it is likely more intense procurement of:

1.- Self Propelled Air Defense systems. The main reason is the lack of saturation of the reserves. This type of weapons is of recent development, and has been in expansion in the Russian Armed Forces. Now seems to be reaching stable numbers in the active service, but the reserves today are very small, unlike for other types of weapons with longer history.

2.- Infantry: With the recent process of rising in the standards for these weapons, speacially in the refered to the safety of the military personnel, this is the type of weapons where the new weapons developed have bigger difference in military terms with the current arsenals of weapons for the role. It is necessary intense procurement, to adapt the arsenals to the new standards on protection of the crew.

Both cases are of land warfare. It makes likely then, to see more intense procurement on land weapons than on sea and air weapons. It is a need, not other thing, and it is a need in this two types of weapons, not in others.

For the rest of types of land, air and sea armament, while there are some differences, the situation is stronger, and as consequence the procurement will be less intense than for Air Defense and Infantry, but also in agreement with the situation of every type of armament.

Unlike in the case of the Air Defense, in the case of the Infantry vehicles for combat roles, there is previous warfare (BTR-60, BMD-1, BTR-70, BMP-1, BRDM-2) that can become a surplus. This is not a problem because the oldest vehicles can be used as help to allies that need them, or as vehicles for the Russian security forces (making less likely the purchase of other semiarmoured vehicles for them). Surely Russia will be focused in the procurement of powerful Infantry vehicles that meet the modern protection standards, based on Armata, Kurganets, Bumerang, BMD-4M and Typhoon 6x6 platforms. The Bulat 6x6 and the BMP-3 can remain also in production. The production of MT-LB and BTR-80(/82) can be ruled out.

PS: Smaller projects of semiarmoured or unarmoured vehicles can have a chance to export or as land auxiliary vehicles for roles out of contested areas (land transport, light utility, engineering roles out of contested areas,...), if they prove to be better than the GAZ Tigr and the UAZ Patriot.

That 20-30 Armatas per year figure is based one what? I would actually be quite happy with 50. Considering that Western European powers like France, the UK and Germany only have 200-300 each, not to mention that Armata is going to stay top of the line for decades to come.

Most people don't even realize that Russia doesn't have 15,000 or 20,000 MBTs in actual active service (it's roughly 2500), the US with 6000 is equally BS. As an example, when is the successor of Abrams going to be revealed? 2030 at the earliest? That is what, a lifespan of more than 50 years? MBT generations are certainly not going to get any shorter (with upgrades, obviously).

But 20-30? That is like 300 by 2030...

Also, isn't S-500 "almost" ready? And indeed it has to be a priority.

It's quite of an exaggeration to say that oil & gas are a very small part of the federal budget. And in that case I think the federal budget (in other words, the one that is 40% of oil & gas) is the most important indicator when it comes to military spending. That said, I do agree with the main point. Contrary to the western propaganda, it's clear that the Russian budget or military modernization have not been massively affected, largely because of the devaluation of the ruble.

How exactly is that going to get worse in the future? Russian economy is growing already and IMO, oil prices are going to be quite a bit higher in the early 2020s than they are now. I'm not an expert, but global oil consumption will continue to grow, it's really that simple.

A quarter of the funds of the new state armament program will be allocated to the army and airborne troops

As Ivan Safronov and Alexandra Djordjevic write in the article "Landing troops and infantry will make financially sustainable," published in the newspaper Kommersant, on May 17, President Vladimir Putin discussed with the leadership of the Defense Ministry and directors of defense enterprises the development prospects for land and airborne forces in the formation of the state program Arms (GVP) for the years 2018-2025. According to "Kommersant", general attention will be paid to it in the field of general attention: up to a quarter of all funds pledged in the GPV can be used for rearmament. In the current program, the purchase of weapons for the Army and Airborne Forces was not a priority.

The key issues of yesterday's meeting at the presidential residence Bocharov Ruchey were the state and prospects for the rearmament of the ground forces and airborne troops. Vladimir Putin said that by the end of 2017 the share of modern weapons in the ground forces should be 42%, and in the Airborne Forces - 58%. "It is important not only to continue to increase this indicator, but also to give the general-purpose weapons system a new quality," the president said. According to him, when implementing the planned plans, a scientific and technical reserve will be formed for the development of fundamentally new types of weapons. The main speakers were General Andrey Serdyukov, commander of the airborne forces, and General Oleg Salyukov, commander-in-chief of the ground forces, then representatives of industry expressed their comments in a closed mode for the press.

The current SΑP 2011-2020, the volume of which by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation exceeded the record 19 trillion rubles, was adopted in December 2010. The largest expenditures were related to the acquisition of aviation equipment (about 4.5 trillion rubles), the rearmament of the fleet (4.7 trillion rubles), and the purchase of aerospace defense (3.4 trillion rubles). The remaining funds were to be spent on the modernization of strategic (About 2 trillion rubles) and carrying out research and development work. In this configuration, only 2.6 trillion rubles were left to equip the ground forces and airborne troops with new weapons. It was believed that this would be enough for the purchase of BTR-82A armored personnel carriers, BMP-3 infantry armored vehicles and BMD-4M armored vehicles, Iskander tactical missile systems, T-90S tanks (and modernization of T-72 tanks), Iveco LMV armored vehicles, "Tiger" and "Wolf", as well as small arms and communications.

According to "Kommersant", in 2015 there was an adjustment: some funds were redistributed in favor of general-purpose forces. This was due to the situation in the southeast of Ukraine and the battles between the formations of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics with the Ukrainian military. To strengthen the border of the RF Ministry of Defense, it was necessary to shift the connections of constant readiness, which required serious investments. Then it became clear that the role in military conflicts assigned to the ground forces and airborne forces does not fully correspond to the means laid for their rearmament. The head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Ruslan Pukhov, believes that the existing LG was initially heavily skewed towards the fleet and the nuclear deterrence forces: "The impression was that the ground forces and the Airborne Forces were a" Cinderella "who simply did not have the means to re-equip."

According to a senior Kommersant source in the military department, a total of one quarter of all funds will be allocated to the general-purpose forces in 2018-2025, which will correct the bias of its predecessor (according to the Vedomosti newspaper, the total volume of the new SAP will be approved at 17 Trillion rubles). This money will go primarily to the purchase of military air defense systems (including within the framework of the ROC "Standard"), T-90 and T-14 "Armata" tanks (the first batch of 32 cars is now undergoing state testing), the armored vehicles of the infantry "Kurganets-25 "and armored personnel carriers" Boomerang ". Emphasis will also be placed on adaptation of armaments to the Arctic territories: in particular, it will deal with the S-300V4 anti-aircraft missile system and the Tor-M2 anti-aircraft missile system. Colonel Viktor Murahovsky of the reserve is confident that in the new SAP 2018-2025 will also be purchased already in service with weapons such as BMD-4M armored vehicles, BTR-MDM armored personnel carriers and self-propelled anti-tank cannon "Sprut-SD". He also believes that the military will continue to improve the tactical management of the troops, and also take the sets of military equipment "Ratnik" in a configuration optimized for the airborne troops.

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2615909.html

Yeah, isn't that actually slightly more per year? Because originally that 19 trillion was supposed to last until the end of 2020? Also, I think they might even increase the spending by the mid-2020s, as long as the economy develops well. Let's say that it will grow by 3.5% per year on average. In that scenario 2 trillion roubles could actually be quite low (as % of GDP)... by the end of the program. How large is the Russian economy in roubles atm?

One thing I also realized is that the program for 2018-2025 is very much the continuation of the current one. The main priority - as it should be - is to simply increase the share of modern equipment (as it's currently defined) from 2020's 70-80% to 100%, so that after 2025 they can fully focus on totally new generation equipment, like PAK-FA, MiG-41, Mikoyan LMFS (?), PAK DA, Lider, S-500 and Armata.

So by 2025 they will have everything upgraded, and that stuff will last atleast until 2040s, or even longer... Of course it depends on the system, MiG-31s, Su-25s, the older SSNs and other ships like Slavas and Sovs must be replaced by the mid-2030s or earlier, while the new Su-30s are probably going to last until 2040s, and so on.

That will give them another 2 decades (roughly 2025-2045) to equip... let's say 60-80% of the armed forces with next-generation equipment (on hand hand some of that will already be in service by 2025, while on the other some older equipment might last even until the 2050s).

Correct. And yeah, I meant that those 19 trillion were supposed to last until the end of 2020, so when you calculate the average yearly spending, it's around 2 trillion, and that will remain the same going forward.

And that 100% modern is indeed according to current standards... they will of course slightly change by 2025, but nothing dramatic. They'll will achieve 80% modernization, or close, by the end 2020, so they'll easily achieve "100%" by 2025, as they continue procuring 4++ generation aircraft, S-400s, corvettes, missile boats and submarines and so on...

So I did a very simple calculation using my incredible math skills: Russian GDP could be around 115 trillion in 2025, which means that the military spending would be 1.7% of GDP!!! Okay, so that estimate is very rough, but yeah... Or let's be pessimistic and say that it will be 100 trillion roubles... even then that's only 2%! Even 4 trillion would only be around 3.5%, obviously.

In a positive scenario, 2 trillion roubles would go below 2% by around 2022-23. So if nothing dramatic happens, the spending should and must increase above that 2 trillion by the mid-2020s.

FAKE EDIT:

Okay... I'm really confused here. I was just browsing through the military budget thread and noticed that the original projection for SAP-2020 was 23 trillion roubles... not 19 trillion, so around 19 trillion by 2018... not by 2020. Although that seems to include MICs modernization... So they don't have to do that anymore? That 2 trillion is the whole spending?

In any case, that 2 trillion would indeed be very conservative as the economy grows... and very far from any kind of militarism (Western propaganda narrative). Far from 3% of GDP throughout the period on average, and actually could be even less than 2%... It just doesn't entirely add up.

franco wrote:Modernization rates envisioned by the end of 2017 (present budget):

- Ground Forces 42%
- Airborne Troops 58%
- Aerospace Force 68%
- Strategic Rocket Forces 72%
- Naval Forces 55%


- Overall 62.5%

Do you know which are the criteria to consider something modern or not?

The share of expenditures for the fleet and strategic nuclear forces in the new GPV-2025 will be reduced

The newspaper Vedomosti published an article by Alexei Nikolsky "From the Sea to Land" on May 19, 2017. The new state arms program will have new priorities: the share of expenditures for the fleet and strategic nuclear forces will be reduced, "which reports that at a regular meeting on rearmament, Held on Thursday in Sochi under the chairmanship of President Vladimir Putin, the issues of two types of the Armed Forces and one kind of troops - the Air and Space Forces (VCS), the Navy (Navy) and the Strategic Missile Forces Appointment (Strategic Missile Forces). The day before, the rearmament of the ground forces of the general purpose - the Airborne Forces and the Land Forces was discussed, and a series of meetings will be concluded on Friday with consideration of the issues of the military space program (in the Armed Forces it is the responsibility of the VCS, which includes the Space Forces).


According to the man close to the military industrial commission, the priorities of the meetings are determined by the Defense Ministry and they reflect the most topical issues of the new state armaments program (GPV) until 2025. So, this time there was no discussion of rearmament of air defense, and the VCS, the Navy and the Strategic Missile Forces In one meeting, since the issues of land forces and military space are particularly relevant. Conflicts of recent times have shown the need for priority re-equipment of land travelers, since they carry a heavy load, the interlocutor explains. And the urgency of space problems is caused by recent failures: they were expressed in the temporary cessation of the launch of Proton rockets due to a defect in the engines, as well as in the fact that the production of satellites was most affected by Western sanctions due to the use of imported electronic components. In addition, in the context of a reduction in the civil part of the space program for planning the work of Roskosmos, an understanding of military plans is required, and Roskosmos and the Ministry of Finance still have disagreements over the amount of funding for the program for the construction and maintenance of spaceports.

Putin said on Thursday that "the share of modern weapons in the military hardware is now brought to 66%, and by the end of this year should increase slightly and amount to 68%." In 2016, the fleet replenished with 24 new ships and supply vessels, including frigates and submarines equipped with long-range cruise missiles Caliber. The share of modern Navy models is now 47% and should increase to 55% by the end of the year. As for the Strategic Missile Forces, modern mobile and silo-based complexes "already make 62%, by the end of 2017 their share will increase to 72%," the president noted.

According to the top manager of one of the holdings of the defense industry, on the subject of the meeting held on Thursday, there is a problem with the production of weapons for the Strategic Missile Forces, where the main task is to maintain the timing of the creation of the new heavy rocket "Sarmat", created instead of the "Voevody" developed in Ukraine. There are serious problems in the VKS - in particular, the failure to modernize long-range bombers and production of Il-76MD-90A transport aircraft. But most of the questions to the shipbuilders, and, apparently, it is not by chance that in the GPV until 2025 they face not the most ambitious and costly tasks.

Source (in Russian, translated to english with Google Translator): http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2618399.html

Vedomosti is almost close to yellow journalism and they have been wrong on plenty of times. As well, there seems to be massive confusion as to what they are planning as everyone is saying something different.

franco wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Vedomosti is almost close to yellow journalism and they have been wrong on plenty of times.  As well, there seems to be massive confusion as to what they are planning as everyone is saying something different.

Are you familiar with the Russian word in my signature?

Actually I am (a bit). This may be a little bit off-topic, but there is a video about it:

miketheterrible wrote:Vedomosti is almost close to yellow journalism and they have been wrong on plenty of times.  As well, there seems to be massive confusion as to what they are planning as everyone is saying something different.

If we take for instance the highest price for Armata as I have found (7min$) it takes 17.5bin$ to produce 2500 of them and in 8 years its 2.2bin$ per year for a 315 T-14 per year in average. I think Russia can easily do it and as ground forces are priority in the next 8 years I think this is pretty close to what we will see.
This could allow to raise 5 Tank Armies with 50% T-14 availability and another 50% T-90AM for instance.

T-14's prices were reduced to something like $3.4M per tank. That was the latest of the reports on it quite some time back.

On that same note, the article talks about the importance of Proton Rocket. While Proton is important the Soyuz-2 is still operational and is used to launch satellites from both Russia and that Sea launch port. So Russia isn't dependent on the Proton for military use as Soyuz-2 is enough to launch satellites into space. Angara is being worked on so it is safe to presume that Angara will get its intended budget and is already undergoing production tests at the Omsk plant in Siberia so I think they are gearing up for production very soon. They may just try to speed up the process.

As well, Sarmat, there is very little info about it. Very little info about where it is at in terms of development. So we cant comment on what was said about problems. Although, they didn't mention what the problem was other than "the timing of the creation of the new rocket". Sarmat was already tested. Or at least some kind of test unit was. There may be a bit of delay but the delays seem to be mostly about making sure that the instruments are working. As for the Il-76-90MD having slow development, someone else pointed out that the production releases have been steadily growing over the years with 6(?) deployed last year.

miketheterrible wrote:.........
On that same note, the article talks about the importance of Proton Rocket.  While Proton is important the Soyuz-2 is still operational and is used to launch satellites from both Russia and that Sea launch port.  

Had Proton been necessary for Russian space launches Russia would have no military satellites to speak of.

As for SeaLaunch it is not in use currently and does not use Soyuz. If they do bring it back it will use Angara.  

miketheterrible wrote:....As well, Sarmat, there is very little info about it.  Very little info about where it is at in terms of development.  So we cant comment on what was said about problems.  Although, they didn't mention what the problem was other than "the timing of the creation of the new rocket".  Sarmat was already tested.  ........

Sarmat has not flown yet, only it's glide vehicle but that one was launched from Voevoda/Satan.

We should not expect too much information on that one even after it is deployed. Very hush-hush material.

miketheterrible wrote:T-14's prices were reduced to something like $3.4M per tank.  That was the latest of the reports on it quite some time back.

Because 5000 T-15 sounds even better. I bet Russia intends to use T-14 as a command post to control swarms of ground robots like Uran-9.

PapaDragon wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:.........
On that same note, the article talks about the importance of Proton Rocket.  While Proton is important the Soyuz-2 is still operational and is used to launch satellites from both Russia and that Sea launch port.  

Had Proton been necessary for Russian space launches Russia would have no military satellites to speak of.

As for SeaLaunch it is not in use currently and does not use Soyuz. If they do bring it back it will use Angara.  

miketheterrible wrote:....As well, Sarmat, there is very little info about it.  Very little info about where it is at in terms of development.  So we cant comment on what was said about problems.  Although, they didn't mention what the problem was other than "the timing of the creation of the new rocket".  Sarmat was already tested.  ........

Sarmat has not flown yet, only it's glide vehicle but that one was launched from Voevoda/Satan.

We should not expect too much information on that one even after it is deployed. Very hush-hush material.

Sorry, not sea launch, I meant to say Guiana Space center.

Vedomosti again, or is this the "maskirovka" in action again?

---

Financing of defense research in Russia will increase

The newspaper Vedomosti published on May 22, 2017 the material of Aleksey Nikolsky "Science for War: Financing of Defense Research Projects Will Increase, Despite the Reduction of the Total Cost of the New State Arms Program," which says that the final meeting of the traditional series of meetings in Sochi on problems The rearming of the army on Friday [May 19] was devoted to research and development (R & D). "I propose to focus on the issues of creating a long-term technical reserve based on breakthrough technologies. Of course, we will also discuss the progress in the implementation of the most important research and development activities," Vladimir Putin, who presided at the meeting, quoted the President's website. Previous meetings were devoted to the formation of a new state armament program up to 2025 (GPV-2025) in general and procurement of weapons for certain types of Armed Forces and combat arms. This program should be finally approved in September, and its cost can be about 17 trillion rubles.


The share of R & D funding in GPO-2025 will definitely grow in comparison with the level that is laid in the current GPO until 2020, Colonel Viktor Murakhovsky is sure. Its total volume in 2011 was planned at a rate of 19 trillion rubles. To create new generations of weapons, scientific and technical resources are needed, which to the present day have largely been exhausted, he explains. The share of R & D will grow due to a reduction in procurement of weapons, which has been acquired over the last decade, the expert believes.

Exhaustion of the scientific and technical reserve for the creation of a new generation of weapons makes it unnecessary for the experimental design work to create their samples for further mass production, says expert of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Konstantin Makienko. In his opinion, in order to fill the scientific and technical backlog, more work is needed, which could be called closer to basic research. Therefore, the current system for the management of R & D defense purposes requires adaptation to the current situation, summarizes Makienko.

Tools for conducting such studies are, for example, the Foundation for Advanced Studies, but the expenditures for its programs are almost two orders of magnitude lower than for military R & D, and are billions, not hundreds of billions of rubles a year, says a former Defense Ministry official. The question arises whether, in the current situation, it is really necessary to have expensive R & D for the reproduction of weapons platforms, even during the Soviet era, even if equipped with new systems, or at least some of these funds are really better spent on the development of new technologies, the interlocutor argues. However, the development of new platforms, which has long entered the decisive stage and is close to the beginning of mass production, will in any case be continued and completed, he said, it is also a question of a new fifth-generation fighter T-50, and a new generation of armored vehicles, Missile systems and frigates project 23350.

Source (in Russian, translated to english with Google Translator):  http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2623149.html

They are using old data once again. S-500 will start to enter service in this gpv simply because it was stated by the president himself and they also have a full training facility up and going to prepare troops for S-500.

News on training of personnel for S-500:

http://tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201702251242-4gxn.htm

Borisov mentioned S-500 in 2018:

https://tvzvezda.ru/news/opk/content/201704061453-qmzl.htm