Salvage post Soviet Russian naval & airforces

[CV12Hornet]

But what should they do with almost 600 mig29 and 400 SU 27 in 1991 ?

Keep them. They're going to be the backbone of the air force until new planes can be built, which is not going to be until the 2000s at the earliest.

There are 17 kresta II / Kara can they be modified in more multi roll ship for the Soviet Navy or just better to sell them? As mentioned above maybe too expensive for smaller navies

Obsolescent, expensive to run, get rid of them.

SSGN like Oscars and Charlie’s should be kept but the older echo and juliett can be scrapped

Can't afford that. The Charlies were mostly decommissioned during or after the Fall, and the ones that weren't probably should've been discarded faster.

 

[Giant Man Eating Rabbits]

What is the best way russians could have salvaged their airforce and navy after 1991
Specifically what platforms to keep operational and how many ?
Which weapon systems to sell
Which ones to retire ?
How could they have done it better ?

For the AF, get rid of all the old school Mig's and Sukhoi's and go with just the two Mig 29 & Su-27 (later Mig 29, Su-27 and Su-30 Series). Just going to two or three types cuts down on the logistics chain and money regarding the parts and maintainance.

For the Navy, get rid of all those corvettes, coastal patrol and attack boats and put the numbers back into blue water ships such as the Udaloy & Sovremenny Classes.

 

[CV12Hornet]

For the AF, get rid of all the old school Mig's and Sukhoi's and go with just the two Mig 29 & Su-27 (later Mig 29, Su-27 and Su-30 Series). Just going to two or three types cuts down on the logistics chain and money regarding the parts and maintainance.

For the Navy, get rid of all those corvettes, coastal patrol and attack boats and put the numbers back into blue water ships such as the Udaloy & Sovremenny Classes.

They’ll want to keep at least some Su-24s for long-range strike - given the financial situation it’s an easier sell than upgrading the Su-27 to do it.

 

[Band in China]

I think that’s the key Russia or even USSR IMHO should have recognized by the early 1980s that there is simply no point in competing with NATO and United States and barring their nukes their military power should be a distant 2nd after USA


The situation is similar to that elderly couple who refuses to downsize the big house until one of them breaks a hip. They are behind payments and they have to sell their house and cash out their retirement at the worst possible time.

Well it's a lesson they still haven't learned, they were and still are proclaiming their superiority while getting stopped by Ukraine. For contrast if one looks at the Chinese defense white papers they'll see much greater awareness of their own strength and relative weakness to the United States.

 

[DrakonFin]

Finland? The country that IOTL couldn't go Western-aligned fast enough?

Add to that the fact that the Finnish Air Force has been the most Western/US-oriented of our military branches since before the end of the Cold War. You could conceivably see the army or the navy get more than OTL Russian equipment in the 1990s, to help Moscow pay off their Soviet-era debts to Finland, but when it comes to fighter aircraft, the FAF would go Western by default.

 

[mack8]

^^^ I’ll add Finland , Indonesia , Algeria , Peru and Sri Lanka to the list

Like others said, these countries don't count because either they didn't wanted to buy russian gear, or they already bought some but couldn't buy more because they couldn't afford it or whatever.

China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, DPRK, Cuba, Yugoslavia (maybe Venezuela too should be added? they got some russian gear but maybe they could have gotten it earlier and more of it) definitely WANTED russian gear, but couldn't because they were on the US s*it list, and Yeltsin obediently did whatever the americans told him to do (ie not sell to these countries, or not sell high end stuff they really wanted).

Perhaps another possibility might be Egypt, they got some modern SAMs in the early 2000s i think, but presumably there was US- israeli pressure on Russia not to sell them high end stuff (and pressure on Egypt not to buy). They might have wanted MiG-29SMT and Su-30MKIs, Kilo subs and so on a decade before OTL.

 

[mack8]

Nobody was interested. The Russians offered a major upgrade of the MiG-23 in the 90s and there was no interest at all. If they wanted Russian aircraft, they wanted Su-27s or MiG-29s.

Like i made the point earlier, imo politics was the major obstacle. I would say countries like Syria, DPRK, Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia etc. would have been definitely interested in the MiG-23-98 upgrade. Or indeed the MiG-21-93 upgrade.

 

[mack8]

I think one of their priorities would not necessary be what type or how modern the aircraft is, just that the 4 big companies have enough orders to keep them afloat until the economy improves. Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Yakovlev and Tupolev. And it should also make sense monetarily, without dozen of different developments for one company and zero for the other, so, MiG 29M (9.15) entering production as the cheapest fighter aircraft that could touch upon the performance of the Su-27? No further Su-27 production until a major improvement is achieved to warrant its introduction? Or focus more on the export market and ride any success from there until the 2000s? YAK 141 is probably a must to keep the company alive. Don't think Tupolev really needs the Tu-160 production going, they already cornered the civilian airliner market, perhaps rather in this case just maintain the other military Tupolev aircrafts until the economy improves. (Don't really see much point in a bomber when the Su-24, Su-25 and Tu-22 are doing the job well enough in large enough numbers, requiring just modernization packages)

Perhaps with more focus on modernization and at a smaller scale, they could force their microelectronics industry to produce higher performing equipment, maybe?

I do agree on the need to support the OKBs and factories. At a minimum, Sukhoi concentrates on their Su-27 family much like OTL except having even a few dozen planes built /upgraded for VVS/PVO (talking about the 1990s/early part of the 2000s IN ADDITION to whatever work received OTL), MiG on the MiG-29 family again much as OTL except a few dozen orders for new/upgraded for VVS. Yakovlev should focus on the Yak-130 trainer as well as whatever civilian work they can like Yak-55 and whatnot, Tupolev on bomber upgrades, some new Tu-160s and their various civilian planes, and Ilyushin same with their various transports/civilian planes. There is also Antonov but that ended up in Ukraine so no concern of Russia (except of course in the case in which USSR survives including Ukraine), on the other hand some of it's aircraft like the An-124 are very useful to the VVS.

There was also the problem of infighting/competition between some aircraft factories (see the too many Su-27 flavours, also two different Su-24 upgrades), engines factories (see two flavours of AL-31 engines), and avionics companies (the initial MiG-29SMT and MiG-31BM upgrades had to be reworked to incorporate avionics fronm another company). So all this needs to be rationalized and bickering stomped on for more efficiency.

Same i'm sure applies to various shipyards, though i'm not very familiar with them, they need orders from the state or export before anything else so that at least ships being built are not left to rot for decades and then scrapped, or indeed ships eventually finished taking decades to do so.

 

[Monk78]

Like i made the point earlier, imo politics was the major obstacle. I would say countries like Syria, DPRK, Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia etc. would have been definitely interested in the MiG-23-98 upgrade. Or indeed the MiG-21-93 upgrade.

I’m not talking about the MiG 23-28 upgrade , just selling existing floggers at discounted prices
$20 f-16
$ 6 mig23
In mid 80s prices in OTL, I doubt ratio will change much by 1991

 

[Monk78]

Add to that the fact that the Finnish Air Force has been the most Western/US-oriented of our military branches since before the end of the Cold War. You could conceivably see the army or the navy get more than OTL Russian equipment in the 1990s, to help Moscow pay off their Soviet-era debts to Finland, but when it comes to fighter aircraft, the FAF would go Western by default.

Can FAF take mig29 and upgrade them with western avionics and weapon systems?

 

[CV12Hornet]

Can FAF take mig29 and upgrade them with western avionics and weapon systems?

Why bother when they can get brand-new Hornets for only modestly more money per plane?

 

[CV12Hornet]

I’m not talking about the MiG 23-28 upgrade , just selling existing floggers at discounted prices
$20 f-16
$ 6 mig23
In mid 80s prices in OTL, I doubt ratio will change much by 1991

Except… after 1991 the USAF is selling off F-16s at a discount. So are the European F-16 partners.

 

[Sasza]

Maybe, following France's example, they should withdraw ICBMs. Let SLBMs, SRBMs and Aircraft Missiles become the nuclear threat.

 

[Band in China]

Maybe, following France's example, they should withdraw ICBMs. Let SLBMs, SRBMs and Aircraft Missiles become the nuclear threat.

But that might hurt their egos.

 

[Giant Man Eating Rabbits]

Why bother when they can get brand-new Hornets for only modestly more money per plane?

I think the main problem with Russian aircraft is that they very quickly become extremely, extremely expensive to run if you then run up 'Western air force style' flying hours.

I think it was an article in 'Flight International' 2010-ish were I read that Malaysia was horrified about the cost and hours needed to service their Mig-29's as they were running them like a Western fighter would be and not how the Russian's would with their limited flight hours per year.

It completely off set the cheapness of the aircraft so it was way more expensive than buying a Western aircraft in the first place.

Don't know how Russian aircraft fare nowadays tbh or if air forces that have purchased Russian aircraft face the same problems.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

1. There, Is, No, Money.

2. There is no supply chain.

If you want to maintain system X and that requires component Y which only comes from Ukraine or the Baltics ( which is the case for something on every system) they will require payment in something they find valuable - see 1.

The alternative is you set up a replacement for the missing part of the chain - see 1.

The longer it takes to source the necessary components the greater the deterioration in the existing system due to weather and salt water unless you properly mothball them, see 1.

Now you could sell surplus hull to India or somewhere who could pay rupees or something valuable to get the component from Ukraine or the Baltics ( which happened with marine diesels and Antonov).

In terms of developing a new system see 1.

New systems require well new things, electronics, machine tools, materials skills. Its really difficult to see any scenario where someone rich enough to make this investment this is also dumb enough to pay you so for the privilege of doing so and then buying the finished product. India certainly won't. They may screw it up but their policy is to develop local industry so any high tech investment and upskilling will be in the Indian workforce.

 

[Band in China]

1. There, Is, No, Money.

2. There is no supply chain.

If you want to maintain system X and that requires component Y which only comes from Ukraine or the Baltics ( which is the case for something on every system) they will require payment in something they find valuable - see 1.

The alternative is you set up a replacement for the missing part of the chain - see 1.

The longer it takes to source the necessary components the greater the deterioration in the existing system due to weather and salt water unless you properly mothball them, see 1.

Now you could sell surplus hull to India or somewhere who could pay rupees or something valuable to get the component from Ukraine or the Baltics ( which happened with marine diesels and Antonov).

In terms of developing a new system see 1.

New systems require well new things, electronics, machine tools, materials skills. Its really difficult to see any scenario where someone rich enough to make this investment this is also dumb enough to pay you so for the privilege of doing so and then buying the finished product. India certainly won't. They may screw it up but their policy is to develop local industry so any high tech investment and upskilling will be in the Indian workforce.

Maintaining the infrastructure is the goal, but yeah good refocus. Some of the issue with arms exports is reliability, considering the supply situation in the 90s it's a tough sell to any country that Russia can reliably supply new jets at the point in time. Add to the issue that a Russian airforce will probably lose against a Western airforce and we're left with countries that just need a rudimentary airforce against opponents with none like the Syrian civil-war.

What can change easily however is how poorly the industry was treated in the 2010s-2022, despite having the budget Putin historically set low-prices for domestic manufacturers that left them over-indebted, prevented them from accumulating much capital stock, and caused a long-term flight of skilled workers overseas/to the petrochemical/IT industries. The education system is decent but no one wanted to work for a pittance and the pompous state simply didn't bother until reality smacked them in the face.

The simple answer was that they should've just funded it more with less corruption once the economy rebounded, but that requires them to actually eat humble pie and take a good look at their airforce before a major war.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Boomers were credible as second strike weapon. But learn from UK - you only need 4 (or maybe 5 if you have Soviet reliability). IRBMs work well for most purposes and are cheap as chip compared to boomers and ICBM. Go slow on decommissioning nuclear SS-20. Build a few SS-25 / Topol but scrap the bulk of the warheads and look good in the West.

Northing wrong with MiG-29 and Su-27 - take the Super Hornet route and keep them competitive with incremental upgrades replacing the older models. Do the same wit hTu-22/22M and scrap the Tu-16 and Tu-160 (missiles are cheaper and more effective)

Mothball T-80 (or sell them off cheaply) and standardise on T-90. Do same with BMP-3

Wait 20 years for the economy to improve and then look at modernisation.

 

[Monk78]

I think the main problem with Russian aircraft is that they very quickly become extremely, extremely expensive to run if you then run up 'Western air force style' flying hours.

I think it was an article in 'Flight International' 2010-ish were I read that Malaysia was horrified about the cost and hours needed to service their Mig-29's as they were running them like a Western fighter would be and not how the Russian's would with their limited flight hours per year.

It completely off set the cheapness of the aircraft so it was way more expensive than buying a Western aircraft in the first place.

Don't know how Russian aircraft fare nowadays tbh or if air forces that have purchased Russian aircraft face the same problems.

That’s probably why they made so many of the mig23U , mig25PU just to give their pilots enough flight hours

 

[Gunnarnz]

That’s probably why they made so many of the mig23U , mig25PU just to give their pilots enough flight hours

It's possible, but I doubt it. I think it's more that if/when they had to go up against a serious opponent (such as NATO) they had enough aircraft that even with poor readiness rates they could count on enough being operable for the four weeks the campaign would last (after that, either they had won or the nukes had flown).