Um, no. You should subscribe to Janes. Russia's Satans are being retired in 2007.
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2 October 2000 |
RUSSIA'S STRATEGIC nuclear forces have entered the millennium with a broad range of financial, technological, diplomatic and organisational problems. By the middle of this year future prospects were further clouded by the politicisation of the reform debate, linked to the succession struggle for the post of minister of defence. It seems unlikely that the Kremlin will be able to stabilise the operational capabilities of the force. The question is whether the force will continue to erode in a controlled or haphazard way. Strategic nuclear forces
As with all combat branches of the Russian armed forces, the strategic nuclear forces face the future severely hamstrung by financial problems. This was demonstrated on 27 June when Strategic Rocket Forces (Raketnye voiska strategicheskogo naznacheniya - RVSN) troops from the base at Sibirskiy were forced to stage a commando raid on the neighbouring electric power company, which threatened to shut off power to the base due to a continuing failure to pay its bills. As in the rest of the armed forces, monthly pay for the missile troops has been erratic.
The RVSN remains the main element of the Russian strategic forces, being responsible for about 90% of the strategic missions even though it possesses only about 60% of the missiles and warheads. Funding for RVSN operations has been meagre, as has the maintenance budget.
Russia currently fields 780 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), of which about 60% are beyond their warranty life. Most Russian liquid-fuelled missiles of the fourth and fifth generation have a warranted life of seven to 10 years in operation. At the end of this period they must be removed from their silo and sent back to the plant for remanufacture as the corrosive oxidant can begin to leak, electronics deteriorate, and the warhead has to be serviced. This cannot be done in the silo due to the use of transport-launch containers that envelope the missile.
In the past, missiles have been rebuilt several times, extending their life to 25 years. The problem is that 226 of the missiles - Voevoda (SS-18 'Satan') and Molodets (SS-24 'Scalpel') - were built in Ukraine and so cannot be sent back to their original plant for rebuilding. A limited reserve of missiles can be substituted, but this is a finite resource that will be exhausted. The older UR-100NU (SS-19 'Stiletto'), built at the Khrunichev plant near Moscow, is being rebuilt to extend its useful life until about 2010. The 360 Topol (SS-25 'Sickle') mobile ICBMs that make up almost half the force are the newest missiles to enter service. Their manufacturing plant at Votkinsk is still in operation, and there is a reserve of about 50 missiles that can be substituted for time-expired missiles.
To further complicate matters, the main manufacturer of inertial-guidance platforms, Khartron, is also in Ukraine. When missiles are left on active alert with the inertial guidance unit fully operating, the system has an expected life of about three years. Since spares on these guidance units are dwindling, the RVSN has to face the choice of removing a significant portion of the missile force from ready alert, or allowing the force to become non-functional due to worn out guidance platforms.
Although figures have not been published, it is assumed that a smaller portion of the current missile force is kept on ready alert than a decade ago, if only to conserve spares. As a result of these trends, the Voevoda force will have to be retired by 2007, when it will become unsupportable. This will drop the total RVSN missile force size to about 600 ICBMs and drop the warhead count from the current 3,540 to about 1,740. This is planned under the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) in any event.
At the moment, the only new missile entering the force is the Topol-M (SS-27), an evolved version of the Topol. In view of the current debate over procurement funding priorities, it is not certain that Topol-M production will continue at recent levels - barely 10 missiles a year. As a result, the RVSN ICBM force is likely to shrink regardless of treaty considerations.
The 1997 appointment of Igor Sergeyev, former commander of the RVSN, as defence minister helped to focus attention on the need for RVSN modernisation. Sergeyev is the first RVSN commander to have served as defence minister. He has argued forcefully that it is the strategic nuclear forces that make Russia a great power.
Sergeyev's procurement priority was the Topol-M ICBM effort, with the aim not only of halting the erosion of the force size but of firming up the defence industries on which the RVSN is so dependent. Priority or not, Topol-M funding has been barely adequate and, to date, only two regiments (20 silo launchers) have been deployed. Tests of a more survivable, but more expensive, road-mobile version were scheduled to begin in July 2000, only to be put off indefinitely due to a lack of funds and the current controversies over future Russian force structure.
Dead in the water
If the funding situation for the RVSN has been poor, it has been catastrophic for the navy. Funding has been so low that missile submarine patrols have become uncommon. Of the 62 strategic-missile submarines in operation in 1990, by 2000 only about 20 are still nominally functional, armed with 348 missiles. The state of the Project 941 Akula-class ('Typhoon') nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines is parlous. At least three are non-functional. Plans to rehabilitate the surviving three have been constantly delayed. The R-39 (SS-N-20 'Sturgeon') missiles on board will be age expired by 2003. This class may disappear over the next few years from neglect and lack of funding.
The Project 667BDRM Delfin ('Delta IV') is in slightly better shape. The lead boat of the class, Verkhoture, was supposed to go back to the Zvezdochka yard in 1993 for a major overhaul. Due to lack of funding it received only a medium-level overhaul seven years behind schedule, which was completed in July this year. These delayed overhauls will lead to a decline in reliability and premature retirement.
The missile situation for these submarines is not much better. The plant in Krasnoyarsk that manufactured the liquid-fuelled R-29RM (SS-N-23 'Skiff') closed in 1996 due to a lack of orders. The other submarine-launched ballistic-missile (SLBM) plant at Zlatoust that produced the solid fuel R-39 has also been idle due to a lack of orders.
Modernisation of the submarine force is dead in the water. Although the keel for the first submarine of the new Borey class has already been laid, the programme was halted by the cancellation of the troubled 3M91 Bark (SS-NX-28) missile in 1999. The missile development effort was 73% complete and the conversion of the first Akula-class submarine was 84% complete when this happened, throwing the entire submarine programme into turmoil.
Work has begun on a solid fuel follow-on missile called the Bulava, a co-operative effort between the Moscow Institute of Thermotechnology, which developed the Topol, and the Makeyev bureau in Miass, which has designed most Russian submarine ballistic missiles. The Makeyev design bureau, which has never been fond of solid-fuel propulsion, is pushing a liquid-fuelled alternative, the Sineva, derived from the earlier R-29RM. Either way, it is unlikely that a new submarine will be completed until near the end of the decade, if at all.
Unless funding patterns change it is possible that the submarine missile force could either disappear or shrink to insignificance by the end of the decade.