The Russian military will begin receiving upgraded Tu-160M bombers in the coming years, reports local media.

In an interview, Deputy Defence Minister Alexei Krivoruchko said that the Tu-160M, an upgraded strategic bomber, should be ready to enter service in 2021.

In November of last year, a prototype Tu-160M was transferred for factory testing, which put the aircraft through ground and flight trials. Thereafter, the aircraft is planned head to state testing before being declared ready for service.

“The Tu-160M is an upgrade program for the Air Force’s existing Tu-160s. Concurrently, Russia is also looking to restart production lines for the bombers, which will be classified as the Tu-160M2.”

Krivoruchko also stated that a preliminary design of the PAK-DA — a next generation bomber — has been approved by the Russian Defence Ministry. Development of the PAK-DA was delayed given the high cost of the programme, with the military instead ordering upgrades for its existing bombers, such as the Tu-160s, and restarting production lines of the older aircraft.

However, Russian officials have continued to state that the PAK-DA program has not been discontinued.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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37 COMMENTS

    • Oh, yes.

      “multiple Bear bombers flew into U.S. air defense identification zones off California and Alaska. In fact, some of the Bears flew within 40 miles off the California coastline.”

      That is from: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/tu-95-bear-meet-old-russian-bomber-us-f-22s-just-intercepted-near-alaska-58887

      That article is a re-post so the dates go back to the earlier part of the decade I would say. The Tu-95 Bear is listed on Wikipedia as having a range of 15,000km so yup they have intercontinental range.

      You are right to say that their [jet] engines are not that efficient, hence the Bear has turboprops which are pretty efficient but it is also huge so carries a lot of fuel…

      The Tu-160 has a listed rang of 12,500km, so I would say it has intercontinental range as well. I think the Tu-160 is the biggest supersonic aircraft ever built!

      Russia has a proud history of building big aircraft (and missiles, sadly).

      I would say the Bear is to Russia what the B-52 is to the US. Both are still useful in the stand off role and both are sitting ducks if they get within range of modern air defences. But both can carried deadly standoff weapons, nuclear armed if the occasion requires.

      • The largest supersonic aircraft ever built was the BAE Concorde.

        If you exclude non-military aircraft then yes, you are correct – although it’s notable that the Vulcan had a greater wing area (because of it’s delta shape as opposed to the Tu-160’s variable wing)

        • Hi Simon,

          Actual the Concorde was smaller in weight terms being 78,800 kg empty and 111,130 loaded whilst the Tu-160 is 110,000 kg empty and 267,600 kg loaded. These figures are from the specs given on the respective Wikipedia pages.

          • Chariot rider.

            I’ll give.you that….the Concorde is lighter…..but I guess now we’re talking semantics, since both planes can claim to be “larger” dependant on how you quantify it. Both in terms of wing area and length- the Concorde is/was “bigger”.

    • Gosh, you’re absolutely right! Russians live in Siberia on Christmas trees, drink vodka so as not to freeze and scratch their furry eggs, out of boredom. Lol!

  3. With regard the comment to the 160s looking like a B2, is it me, or did the septics get some inspiration for their ‘Bones’ from the 160?

    Ideas?

  4. I believe the program encompasses about 20 – 24? aircraft. The Russians have been rebuilding derelict airframes if I recall. Their continuing problem as with many of these “new” programs is simply the numbers count. They can’t afford but a few – not enough to shift any balance of power their way. I think much of it is due to the ongoing U.S. arms buildup with an eye on China. Perhaps there’s a little bit of hurt pride on not being the number one enemy anymore. More realistically they may be also sending a message to China as well. “We’re still relevant”…

    Cheers on a busy night. Wonder what the U.S. will respond with now that the IRGC has opened fire on U.S. forces in Iraq?

    • Hi Helions,

      So the Iranians have responded, any word on casualties? Haven’t found any more information as yet. The hour of the attack suggests that these attacks at least were not aimed at escalation, of course there is always the possibility for more covert retaliation later…

      As for the Russian buildup being aimed at the Chinese, yes it would make sense. Rebuild a minimum capability so around which you can regenerate large forces if needed and then demonstrate their capailities against NATO – who are well practiced and more importantly well disciplined, so a much lower risk of a ‘mishap’ when flying straight at their airspace at mach 2 in a nuclear capable bomber!

      • Hi C.R.

        Still too early to assess what the response from the U.S. is going to be. There don’t seem to be any American casualties but unfortunately there are Iraqi – Which ought to infuriate the Iraqi government. It was obviously a “sound and Fury” revenge attack not meant to cause heavy casualties which would ensure an overwhelming U.S. response which is the last thing the Iranians want right now.

        Their economy is in serious trouble and any U.S. attacks which shuts down their oil infrastructure would do a great deal of damage that they would have to absorb and the temper of the Iranian people is growing short. The Iranians are too cultured and intelligent a people to tolerate too much more of the mullahs…

        Iran is obviously hoping they can get away with a face saving “we’re done” and threats to attack …. everyone …. I don’t believe it’s going to work. While any U.S. response will be proportionate – and there were no U.S. casualties reported so far – The fact of the matter is Iran directly attacked U.S. facilities (as they did the U.S. Embassy) and that is going to elicit a response from us.

        I’d take a stab at missile launch sites (unless they’re just open real estate used to launch mobile missile) missile storage facilities, command and control, air defense, IRGC sites – especially small swarm type craft bases on the Gulf etc. Purely military targets that we’ve wanted to neutralize for a long time and now we have an excuse to do so. The assassination of Soliemani has really seemed to rattle the Iranian leadership and I think in their haste to respond (probably to try to dissuade more of the same) they’ve made some serious mistakes of judgement here…

        https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/iran-missiles-strike-iraq-coalition-erbil-asad-base.html

        Cheers

        • My only reservation with your comments are Trump’s tweets about targeting Iranian cultural sites, but I am confident that the professionalism and high moral standards of the US military would preclude any of those targets from actually being hit. I’ve met many and they’re a great bunch!

          • Not going to happen. Much has been made of that comment. There is a great deal of difference between attacking – say… Isfahan or the IRGC Staff College – which IS a cultural site given the role they play in propping up the mullahs much as the SS did with Hitler.

            The military leadership will resist any targeting that is not in line with the accepted rules of warfare. Unlike the Iranians by the way. It’s starting to look as though there is the possibility that Ukrainian jetliner that crashed in Tehran may have been shot down by a trigger happy air defense battery. Iran is refusing to turn over the black box…

            Cheers

          • Sorry, if I was implying I thought that the US military would actually target true cultural sites then I apologise- I have no doubt that they would refuse such an order. I genuinely do hold the US military in high regard. My reservation was that Trump would think it was an OK thing to say in the first place.
            Yes, I’ve seen some of the reporting, it is certainly suspicious. I do struggle to see how it could have happened though, despite some similarities to the Crimea mess, there are also some quite significant differences. The forces in control of the BUK were not regular Russians but militia (albeit trained by regulars), with a pretty shaky chain of comand, operating in a contested region, over which “enemy” aircraft regularly overflew. In that kind of environment, there’s definitely scope for the kind of enormous cock-up that occurred.
            This potential Iranian shoot down would have been carried out by regular forces (as far as I know, the only groups with SAMs in Iran), in an area close to an international airport, in airspace that was not a conflict zone. They’re unlikely to have been a stand alone launcher too, but part of the integrated Tehran air defence system, which I assume would have much greater facility for identifying and keeping track of a commercial aircraft that had just taken off from the city’s primary airport.
            I’m not saying for sure that it wasn’t a shootdown, I’m just trying to get my head around how this happened (if it turns out to have).

          • Hardly any need to apologize Joe! Just back and forth discussion. It sometimes seems some posters forget that this is a forum for civil discussion and debate on military matters- not for Ad Hominem attacks due to opinion differences…

            Cheers!

        • Hi Helions,

          Looks like the heat is coming out of the situation at the moment – although the situation with the Ukrainian airliner is looking increasingly iffy.

          I have seen reports that US officials are saying it was not a missile – possibly because the US would have been watching Iran very closely for missile launches. One thing that occured to me was that the aircraft was just out of maintenance, so could have been something related to that, mistakes happen.

          There were also two people who reportedly did NOT get on the plane – always a cause for concern.

          Not discounting your point about the trigger happy SAM battery, but if it was the case then they could have just as easily shot down an Iranian internal flight couldn’t they?

          Thing is given the current situation I doubt we will find out anytime soon if at all as I suspect there is a desire all round to dial things down so no one is going to push too hard I suspect. All too often the innocent pay a price…

          If this is another shoot down, then international aviation needs to seriously look at the safety of airliners in regions where tensions are high as clearly the current processes / standards are failing!

    • Thanks, do you happen to have any information on what the actual upgrades are..?
      I’d agree, that Russia is trying to maintain its position as someone to take note of. I hadn’t really thought of the China angle, but was certainly thinking of the Baltics, Eastern Europe and Black Sea (including Turkey). I guess central Asia was also historically an area of influence where they’d now also be butting up against Chinese expansion, although it’s not much talked about anywhere, so I don’t really know whether that’s an issue or not. Having upgraded Blackjacks that are able to undertake maritime patrols across the Baltic and Black Seas and even out towards Iceland and Greenland would fit in with their increased submarine activity. May even see a couple doing some highly publicised 100% accurate strikes as part of one of their major exercises near Lithuania in the next few years?
      As far as the Iranian strikes in Iraq go, I hope that no one was killed. As you say, it doesn’t look like they meant to cause a lot of casualties, no-one really wants much ascalatin in this. I imagine that the US forces were fully expecting this response- it was really the least they could do to save face. Using ballistic missiles from Iran, rather than the rockets via militia proxies that they have been using, is probably another way of making the retaliation look beefier than it really was.
      It’ll be interesting to see what political fallout there is from this for both sides; I think we can safely say that there isn’t much hope for the Iranian nuclear deal now, so Iran is now going to slip back to being a western pariah for a while- I don’t think the disatisfied portion of the population has the numbers and the capability to change the regime. As for the US, they may end up burning some bridges with Iraq and maybe even getting kicked out. But Trump has sort of wanted out of there for a while anyway. The problem is, maintaining the balance of being involved (and thus maintaining global political and economic influence) and not risking American lives and money abroad (and likely losing a level of the same global and political and economic influence to another party who is willing to risk it). At the moment, it seems like Trump and the Pentagon are somewhat at odds in their balancing of this, but I’d be interested in your thoughts as an American?

      • Hi Joe,

        IMO as with much of Russia’s “new” (often utilizing the bones of ex Soviet programs) weapons modernization programs, I guess the term “I’ll believe it when I see it” applies. I have no doubt a small number of Blackjacks will be modernized and upgraded but – as noted in this article – looking at the struggles of the U.S. military to maintain Cold War era weapons systems and obtain spares from a much shrunken industrial base – I’m going to remain skeptical about these claims. Remember the firm declaration they were going to build the world’s largest nuclear aircraft carrier – the Storm – a couple years ago. The reality we’ve seen, especially with their existing (semi) carrier, has been far more in line with the reality of their economic condition…

        https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-russia-may-never-get-new-tu-160-supersonic-bomber-40212

        Please see my reply to C.R above as to your other question.

        Cheers

        • Thanks for the link. I guess the UK experience (on a smaller scale) with Tornado could also be analogous; a cold war beast that was becoming too expensive to keep up to date and competitive…!

          • The issue with Tornado was that we had exceeded the planned life of the airframe. The life of the airframe was planned for the cold war and was supposed to be replaced by the future offensive air system by 2010. After the cold war the actual use of the aircraft went up. Operations over former Yugoslavia, the Gulf wars, patrolling the no fly zone post Gulf war and Afghan. These deployments ate up a lot of the airframes life. When the aircraft went through the upgrade program to GR4, a lot of the wing box sections were found to be f***ed. This was put down the constant training at low level. BAe proposed a program to replace the wing boxes but this proved too expensive. This was another part of the reason why only 2/3 of the Tornados were upgraded to GR4 standard. A significant portion of the lower life Tornados have gone to Cosford as training aids.

            What this goes to prove is that it is very costly to keep a cold war era aircraft current, especially if a lot of the airframe needs replacing. I suppose the climate also has a lot to do with the problem. The recent return to flight of the B52 that had been in boneyard for 30 years shows how a dry climate can preserve aircraft. However, the aircraft still needed to have all the of the fuel and hydraulic lines replaced.

            If we look at how the Blackjacks were looked after and stored in Russia (in the open), I suspect there will a great deal of airframe repair and replacement to make the aircraft airworthy again, let alone the installation of new engines and avionics. The upgrades and return to flight will not be cheap or quick.

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