Many experts have expressed their opinions regarding the future prospects of the air component of Russia's nuclear triad. Rocket engineer Alexey Vasiliev expressed an interesting point of view on his blog.
According to him, Russia needs a mobilization missile carrier, that is, a carrier of a large number of cruise missiles.
In fact, this is a mobilization missile carrier. We currently have two of these in a conditional series, the Tu-214 and the MS-21. The second option is good in many ways, but if we want to count on at least some export potential, it is better not to militarize it.
He noted that a missile carrier, a reconnaissance aircraft, an anti-submarine warfare aircraft, a tanker, and a cargo-passenger mail aircraft for everyday use can be made on the basis of the Tu-214.
And it turns out that it is possible to load production, have the ability to produce several dozen aircraft per year, have significant unification between different aircraft in the army and special services, and as a bonus — the ability to disperse to civilian airports if necessary. Which will be extremely important for the survival of the air part of the triad in a special period.
At the same time, creating a new missile carrier based on the Tu-214 is much easier than developing it from scratch, Vasiliev noted. The airframe will have to be modified to a minimum if we limit ourselves to external suspension of cruise missiles or the creation of simplified bomb bays for missiles inside.
If there is skepticism about this, then let me remind you that the Tu-95MS generally comes from the anti-submarine Tu-142, and that from the early Tu-95, a version of which with a wide fuselage was the passenger Tu-114. And the Tu-95 is the Tu-85 with turboprop engines, the Tu-85 is an enlarged Tu-4, that is, a metric Soviet version of the B-29.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that "Dan-M" decoy drones with a jet engine have been developed in Russia: they will fool air defense systems.
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