Why has the domestic military-industrial complex become dependent on foreign components?
Table of contents
- Why backwardness
- Why imports became inevitable
- The unobvious superiority of NATO
- What now?
Not so long ago (guess why) started wideto discuss the dependence of the domestic defense industry on imports. More precisely, about new problems due to the fact that all military imports to Russia have ceased. Although, in fact, the problem has become serious not since February, but much earlier, since the sectoral sanctions of 2014.
Why this happened, what are the roots of the problem, what threatens it and whether it is possible to get out of the situation - we will figure it out today.
Why backwardness
Catch-up principle of technology development in Russiahas gone since the time of Peter the Great. Of course, we will not dig so deeply, but we will indicate: falling behind is our good old tradition. By the way, the late USSR lagged behind least of all in technology - the Union learned to produce everything and everything itself. If some military bells and whistles were not developed from scratch, then they were carefully purchased through third or fourth hands.
Suffice it to recall high-precision Toshiba machines,allegedly purchased for the oil sector, but in reality sharpened parts for nuclear submarines. In the same way, chips, boards, microcircuits got into the Soviet Union - they were quietly (or quietly) mined, disassembled, copied and introduced into production. And in this way, some component from TEXAS INSTRUMENTS was “developed” and produced by Vasilek NPO under a tricky index.
You can click your tongue accusingly, but in fact it issmart strategy. This is what Japan did at the dawn of its “technological miracle”, and after it South Korea, and now China. And you don’t have to look for examples - thanks to this strategy in technological states, I am typing this article on an inexpensive computer, and you are reading it on inexpensive laptops and, moreover, penny smartphones. It would seem, what prevents modern Russia from doing the same?
It interferes with the market, or rather its speed.Even the most impudent method of stealing and copying requires a research and production base, specialists and, of course, time. But there is no need to disassemble a lot of mind. In the "dashing 90s" ™ with the collapse of the public procurement system, the collapse of funding and staff turnover in the direction of Turkish sheepskin coats, there was almost no one to even copy and almost nowhere.
And even then, earlier copying was in the first placethe need of the defense industry - you can watch the Vremya program on a TV set with 10-15 years backwardness from world analogues, but with military products it will not work that way. Copying helped develop the military industry and have their own products either slightly lagging behind, or on a par, and sometimes even better than their foreign counterparts. This is the main reason why the defense industry (and closely related cosmonautics) became the main technological export of the Russian Federation - it's just that most of the developments for industrial and domestic purposes turned out to be outdated junk.
Why imports became inevitable
Why did imports crowd out domestic developments?Very simply - any technology requires time and money to develop and test. Then it is mastered by the industry - in mass production, lines are created where technological processes can be automated as much as possible. For what? To reduce cost.
When goods are produced in large quantities, andthere is a market for this product and buyers who can easily buy something similar somewhere else, manufacturers very quickly correct deficiencies, modernize, and prevent defects. The new problem of the domestic manufacturer was the principle "and so they will take where they go" coupled with useless marketing. Bottom line - prices are overpriced by 20-100 times (according to the nomenclature of civilian products), while the quality ... if not a marriage, then get 80% of the maximum tolerances, sign it.
Valery Matytsin / TASS
Business leaders make ends meet andtherefore, they are trying to rip off the customer to the maximum (because who knows when the next one will appear), while small-scale and unstable loading increases the cost. And what adds fuel to the fire is a low culture of production, and specialists with equipment ... often of the same year of birth.
And last but not least, marketing.You make an article about NATO weapons, you go to the BAE or General Dynamic website - what do you want? Here you have all the background information, infographics, here are high-resolution pictures for you ... are there not enough pictures? Well, here you have high-quality detailed videos with the application, or a 3D model, or a 3D movie.
What can we say about domestic manufacturers - some do not have a websitegenerally. And those who have will greet you with a designin the style of "bring back my 98th", with muddy photos with a resolution of 180x100, and the general mood in the spirit of "well, what are you staring at ... you chivo?". At the same time, of course, unctuous mantras about having no analogues for 60 years of development are right there. Not that it’s a rule – Rostec, for example, has excellent websites, but you can’t find everything there.
Let's tighten our belts
In general, our people don’t know how to present themselves withthe right side. Therefore, imported components gradually seeped into all aspects of the defense industry. How else? As a last resort, Taiwanese parts were purchased, and the label of Radio Bonding Technologies JSC was exchanged for them. import substitution! The only thing we produce completely independently is, perhaps, only AKs.
The unobvious superiority of NATO
No, of course, superiority is not in sites withcool photos and infographics. Increasingly, NATO weapons are being developed and supplied by transnational military corporations. Wow, terrible transnational corporations plotting for Israel's world domination, drinking the blood of the Orthodox and eating unbaptized babies!
In fact, everything is more prosaic - each companyspends a huge part of the funds on development, trying to squeeze competitors out of profitable sectors. Each is strong in its own way, but strives to be in time everywhere: here's an aiming system for tanks, here's a ballistic computer, here's an anti-tank system, here's a walkie-talkie, and so on up to "smart tactical tampons for the male vaginas of gender-diverse super-soldiers."
One always wins, but developments are not wasted and often find new applications in other weapons or devices.
Of course, they are all closely related to the states -many developments are classified, sometimes inaccessible even to the closest allies in the alliance. But in general - no painful patriotism: if a foreign company does better, we will buy from them. Not a single army of the bloc is fully equipped with its own military-industrial complex, even the American one.
For example, NLAW grenade launchers / ATGMs in the media are oftencalled British, although in fact the flesh of the flesh is a Swedish development based on the Swedish systems of past generations. It's just that the British ordered the development, and then they hosted the production - they formed the terms of reference, first of all, for themselves. The same Swedes calmly buy them with the marking "made in Britain". Yes, and other systems: Dutch-German, Spanish-Austrian, American-Canadian, etc.
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The same Abrams tank, in different generations andmodifications included English Chobham armor, French thermal imagers, and a German cannon. Much, of course, is produced under license, but at the level of development, the American tank has never been purely American.
Yes, even the American army, the very first beforesecond in military power, does not consist entirely of its own developments! Swedish grenade launchers, Belgian machine guns, Canadian armored personnel carriers, German guns and over 9000 of any other nomenclature. Even the M777 super-luxury howitzer, which is so much talked about, was actually developed in the UK by BAE Systems, and is produced by just a division of this company in the state of Mississippi.
Large companies absorb smaller ones, often fromother countries, leaving them with their former names, or renaming them to their divisions. After all, it often happens that a great developer of anti-tank systems is going through hard times, spending a lot of money on a tender that loses, or losing a lot of customers.
The office is not closed and employees are not sentwork at McDonald's - it is bought by a larger player who does not have anti-tank systems in their products, but a major competitor successfully sells them. The parent corporation gives money for new developments, becoming the owner of new patents, and often successfully crowds out competitors, forcing them to do the same.
howitzer M777
Conditionally, an American company, can orderdevelopment in its Spanish division, and the production of components in Poland and Sweden. About the fact that among these conditionally "Spanish" engineers there are 25-35-year-old graduates of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Baumanka or MAI, we, having sighed deeply and heavily, will keep silent.
Why all this?And to the fact that NATO countries have weapons created in close cooperation with each other, and even with countries that are not part of the bloc. This allows you to purchase the most top-end weapons produced by the leader in the segment, and the most optimized in terms of price and quality. That is, the US Army is fed not by its own military-industrial complex, but by the united transnational military-industrial complex of all advanced European and Asian countries. In other words, the most advanced military technology in the world. Wow so wow.
What now?
The army of the Russian Federation and its allies in the CSTO are served by allthe most advanced developments ... of the Soviet Union. Yes, Russia produces a lot of weapons in cooperation with allies and other partners, which come down, in general, to Belarus, and until recently to Ukraine (hehe, and after 2014 too). But this cooperation is connected, rather, with the fact that the Soviet military-industrial complex was dispersed throughout the republics of the USSR, so Russia did not get all of its fragments.
© Alexey Kudenko RIA Novosti
Taking into account the state of Russian manufacturers,dependence on imported components only grew, and for purely rational reasons - its cost was expensive, unreliable and long. For example, Russian tanks in the early 90s were equipped with Agava-2 thermal imagers, which weighed 65 kg each, and with a first-generation matrix and low resolution.
Due to their size and weightonly gunners were staffed, and the commander was out of work. At the same time, in the 94th year, the American M1A2 Abrams received a combined all-round thermal imager for the commander and its own thermal imager for the driver. And in the 99th they switched to the second generation, whose parameters in terms of quality, viewing angle, and image detail improved almost twice.
Joint Russian-Belarusian tank sightSosna-U produced by Peleng already had thermal imagers based on the basic elements of French production. At the same time, after the sanctions of 2014, he ran into the third generation. At the same time, other countries with access to new technologies were switching to the fourth generation - and this is superiority in both detection range, target recognition range, and final combat effectiveness.
© Evgeny Kurskov/TASS
The suspension of tank production in Russia is quiteThis is probably due to the fact that there is simply nowhere to get modern sights for them. But they are far from the only thing in the T-90M and T-14 Armata that required imported components. At least take Agave-2, with the first generation of teplaks… but everything is yours. And even then, the question will arise whether even old technologies have been lost today.
Guided missile for MLRS Tornado-S(modernized Tornado) needs an American fiber optic gyroscope. Missiles for air defense, cruise missiles of the Caliber type, operational-tactical missiles for Iskander-M require British components for on-board computers. Radio communications, UAVs, and even vehicles from KamAZ and Il-76 need imported components, which today there is nowhere to get.
Finally, the Sarmat intercontinental missile, our most feared nuclear sledgehammer, does not have a satisfactory control system.
Trials Sarmat
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Fuels are added to the fire by news from foreignsources - chips from refrigerators and washing machines were found on Russian tanks! That is, civilian elements that are little adapted at least to the dynamic and thermal loads of their military counterparts. It is possible that this is just a lie and stuffing, but the situation itself is symptomatic.
Of course, under the current conditions there will begray import schemes are organized, but these are different terms and volumes, completely different. Well, obviously, the question is how the arms barons will carry them under the hood of the CIA and other special services in the current situation.