Can we catch up with weapons of future?

Russia is not far behind the United States in terms of the establishment of hypersonic weapons. This was stated on Monday to TV channel "Russia-1" by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. In May of last year, his assessment was very different. Then Rogozin said that Russia was significantly behind.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, it is no secret that Russia and the U.S. are conducting research in the field of hypersonic technology. Dmitry Rogozin stressed that Russia and the U.S. were "going nose to nose on these technologies."

Last year, his assessment was less optimistic. During his visit to the state Machine-Building Design Bureau "Raduga" in May of last year, Dmitry Rogozin said that the current developments would allow the U.S. to obtain hypersonic missiles in 2015-2018. This was "particularly dangerous from the point of view of the defense of Russia."

Then Dmitry Rogozin said that Russia was lagging far behind the United States in this area. He recalled that in 2009, on the orders of the Russian Defense Ministry, the work in the field of hypersonic systems has been renewed. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, this work will provide a framework for the creation of competitive models of hypersonic weapons.

The United States is conducting work on hypersonic missiles under the framework of X-51 program, Falcon and few others. In late August, CEO of "Tactical Missiles" Boris Obnosov said that Russia has created a hypersonic missile, but so far its flight lasts no longer than a few seconds.

It has been suggested that he was referring to a cruise missile Kh-22 "Burya" that was part of the aircraft missile complex  -22. The missile entered service in 1971. However, this is only speculation because Boris Obnosov did not share the details about the missile.

According to experts, Russia has the capability equal to that of the United States to lead the development of military technology. However, they differed in the estimates of the scale of these opportunities.

Chief Editor of National Defense magazine Igor Korotchenko believes that Russia now has the capacity to lead the development of military technologies on an equal footing with the United States. "This applies to the developments in the field of military aviation systems and missile defense, etc.," he told Pravda.Ru.

"Of course, in conducting this work we base it on our own understanding of the place and role of these weapons systems. Nevertheless, the potential is there, it is being actively developed with the support of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Government of Russia and the Foundation for Advanced Studies," said Igor Korotchenko.

"Of course, the budgets are not comparable. The Americans have huge budgets, while we are quite limited. But I think that even within the appropriations allocated to us, we will be able to create a weapon system that will reliably ensure Russia's safety," said the Chief Editor of the National defense.

According to military expert Boris Podoprigora, the margin of safety achieved in the USSR allows Russia to maintain equality to this day. "In fact, and this is acknowledged by the Americans, the equality achieved in the early 1980 s as a whole is maintained in all key areas of military activity between Russia and the United States," he told Pravda.Ru.

Chief Editor of Arsenal of the Fatherland Victor Murakhovski believes that competition is impossible in principal, primarily due to the difference in the budgets. First of all, the budgets allocated to the research and development work.

"In key areas we maintain some equity, while in some areas we are lagging behind. It is no secret that in some areas we have been lagging behind since the Soviet times. This applies primarily to the component base in electronics, some aspects of information technology, and robotics," he told Pravda.Ru.

"In other areas, particularly in hyper-sound, so far we are indeed able to compete on an equal footing," said Viktor Murakhovski.

Anton Kulikov

Pravda.Ru 

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