For more than two months, the Russian Air Force has lost two valuable A-50 aircraft, which is "adding insult to injury" for Ukraine's already few remaining air forces, as they have lost an effective airborne early warning system.
In this context, Russia's state-owned military-industrial complex Rostock recently announced that it will continue to produce the A-50U early**. Why did Russia still build such an early warning device two years after the war, but it still had such an early warning device?
Russia reported that Sergei Chemezov, chairman of the Rostock Group, made this statement during an interview at the Novosibirsk VIP Hall Hotel. He claims that Russia will not only resume the production of the initial fighter of the A-50U, but also send it abroad to cater to the needs of the **.
Chemezov said that the reason is that on January 14 this year, Russia lost two A-50 aircraft in succession, one was shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force on January 14, and the other was shot down by the ** Air Force on February 24. At present, there are only a dozen or so airborne early warning systems in Russia, and only a few people can be put into battle, which has greatly affected Russia's air power.
In fact, Russia only has the A-50, a fixed-wing early warning aircraft, and the other models are American Ka-31 early warning helicopters, which do not help Ukraine in the land battle. To make matters worse, despite the fact that there is no aviation alert in Russia, they have already stopped production of the A-50 warning a few years ago. The A-50U is actually an upgraded version of the A-50, and it is not a completely new model, but a complete improvement on the A-50.
In fact, at the end of the 70s of the 20th century, the former Soviet Union and Russia combined built a total of more than 40 A-50s, and there may be more than 20. Because the original Il-76 fighter is very old, and Russia will not manufacture the Il-76 in large quantities, so many A-50 early warning fighters are deteriorating due to insufficient materials. In addition, due to technical reasons, the old A-50 has only been upgraded to 8 A-50s, and many are still waiting to be upgraded on the production line, so there are not many aircraft available on the battlefield in Ukraine. The Russian Army currently has only 144 separate long-range early warning units stationed in Ivanovo Sever.
Although it has been upgraded, the performance of the A-50U is not too good. The A-50U is powered by an older Vega-M fighter jet that is said to be capable of tracking more than 150 targets, and has been upgraded with an electronic device that speeds up data processing. In general, whether in radar reconnaissance or information processing, the A-50U is inferior to the FC-2000, E-3 and so on.
It is the new Russian anti-aircraft missile, the new A-100 fighter. The aircraft uses the airframe of the Il-476 with a large engine thrust and a new set of active phased array antennas. However, because the product contains a large number of parts imported from the West, it has been jointly sanctioned by Europe, the United States and other countries, resulting in its production being at a standstill. Originally, the AWACS fighter of the A-100 was supposed to enter service in 2022, but the exact date is unknown. Because of this, Russia does not have so many AWACS fighters.
Judging from the current situation, Russia's development of the A-50U early warning device is completely a technological retrogression, and in fact it is just an expedient measure to deal with the inability of the A-100 early warning device to be mass-produced. The Russian A-50U is equipped with the Il-76, which was originally produced in Kazakhstan, and due to the interruption, Russia simply has no ability to produce a brand-new Il-476.
In other words, it is also questionable what kind of body Rostock's so-called "remanufactured A-50U" used. There could be two possibilities: one is the Il-476, with the old Doppler radar, and the other is the use of the existing Il-76, which already has hundreds of models, and there will be no problems.
The body is ready, but there are still many problems with the modification. Due to sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States, the Russian A-100 early warning aircraft cannot be mass-produced due to the lack of relevant key components, such as phased array radar, electronic control system, etc. However, the same problem arose with the A-50 U.
The A-50U fighter was in service for ten years, and it was not until September last year that eight aircraft left the factory, and this year it was hit hard, and in early March and early March, nine aircraft were urgently replenished, and the progress is so slow, it is likely that its key components are dependent on Europe and the United States.
One of the important reasons why Russia did not carry out the research and development of the A-50U until two years after the war in Ukraine is because the localization level of components is too high. Therefore, the Rostock company simply replaced part of the old A-50 with new ones with a part of the parts and raw materials, and there was simply no extra money for the production of such new alarm equipment. All this is a consequence of the decline of the Russian industrial system.
Now, Rostock, announcing the "resumption of production of the A-50U", has also conveyed the same message. After experiencing technological regression, Russia has almost no problems with the air defense and missile defense system of the previous generation, and even if it lags behind a little, it can ensure that the vast majority of components are domestic. In the war in Ukraine, even the fighters of the older generation can play a huge role, and I don't know how many times better than "opening the skylight".
Researchers speculate that Russia is likely to accelerate the upgrade of its early warning equipment this year, which will be upgraded from the current more than 12 A-50 aircraft to A-50U aircraft, and the Il-476 and Il-76 A-50U aircraft will be modified.
Although it will take a year and a half on the Russian side, it will not be less.