The Greek word "strategy" expresses the concept of a meaningful plan to achieve the main goal. In the military aspect, this means a directed sequence of actions with the aim of achieving victory in an armed conflict as a whole, without detailing and concretizing individual stages. To accomplish this task, the modern armed forces of some countries have special means. These include special reserves, missile forces, nuclear submarines and strategic aviation. The Russian Air Force has two types of long-range bombers capable of striking remote targets almost anywhere in the world.
A brief history of domestic strategic aviation
For the first time in the world, strategic bombers appeared in the Russian Empire. The requirement for this class of aircraft was the ability to deliver a sufficiently large amount of ammunition to the target and inflict significant damage on the economy and industry of a hostile country.
60 Ilya Muromets-type bomb carriers, which constituted a special air squadron, remained invulnerable and posed a serious danger to the cities and factories of Austria-Hungary and Germany throughout the First World War, during which only one aircraft of this type was lost.
The Revolution and the Civil War set back the development of the aviation industry. The school of aircraft construction was lost, the designer of Muromets, Sikorsky, emigrated from the country, and the remaining copies of the world's first long-range bomber died ingloriously. The new authorities had other concerns; their plans did not include defense. The Bolsheviks dreamed of a world revolution.
Defense aircraft
Strategic aviation of Russia, in its conception, was a defensive weapon, since the capture of a destroyed industrial base, as a rule, is not included in the plans of the aggressor. In the prewar years, the unique TB-7 bomber was created in the USSR, surpassing the B-17 Flying Fortress, the best example of this class at that time. It was on such an aircraft that V. M. Molotov visited Great Britain in 1941, freely overcoming the airspace of Nazi Germany. However, this miracle of technology was not mass-produced.
After the war, the American B-29 (Tu-4) was completely copied in the USSR, the need for this type of aircraft became urgent after the emergence of a nuclear threat, and there was not enough time to develop our own design. However, with the advent of jet interceptors, this bomber also became obsolete. Newsolutions, and they were found.
Rocket or plane?
Along with nuclear submarine missile carriers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic aviation also solves the problem of countering global threats. According to the class of carriers, Russia's nuclear weapons are divided into these three components, which form a kind of triad. After the appearance of sufficiently advanced ICBMs in the 50s, the Soviet leadership had certain illusions about the universality of this delivery vehicle, but the design work that had begun under Stalin decided not to turn off.
The main stimulus for continuing research in the field of building a heavy machine with a long range was the adoption by the US Air Force in 1956 of the B-52 bomber, which had subsonic speed and a large combat load. The symmetrical answer was the Tu-95, a four-engine swept-wing aircraft. As time has shown, the decision to develop this project was the right one.
Tu-95 vs. B-52
After the collapse of the USSR, the Tu-95 strategic carrier of nuclear weapons became part of the combat structure of Russian aviation. Despite its venerable age, this machine continues to serve as a missile carrier. The large, powerful and durable design allows it to be used as an air-launched launcher, like the overseas analogue of the B-52. Both aircraft entered service almost simultaneously and have approximately similar technical characteristics. Both Tu-95 and B-52 at one time cost the states dearly,however, they were designed and made to last, therefore they are distinguished by a very long motor resource. Bulky bomb bays can accommodate cruise missiles (X-55) that can be launched from the side, which creates the conditions for a nuclear strike without crossing the border of the attacked country.
After the modernization of the Tu-95MS and the dismantling of the dropping mechanisms for free-falling ammunition, the long-range aviation of the Russian Federation actually received a new strategic aircraft equipped with modern navigation equipment and guidance systems.
Air-based missile bases
Apart from the US, only the Russian Federation has a fleet of long-range bombers worldwide. After 1991, he was practically inactive, the state did not have enough funds to maintain technical combat readiness and even for fuel. Only in 2007, Russia resumed strategic aviation flights over the most diverse regions of the planet, including along the American coasts. Tu-95 missile carriers spend almost two days non-stop in the air, refuel and return to the air base, demonstrating the ability, in the event of a nuclear conflict, to contribute to a global retaliation strike. But not only these machines can perform the task of deterrence. There is also Russian supersonic strategic aviation.
Don't shoot white swans, it's useless
The adoption of the widely announced by the US Air Force back inthe seventies of the B-1 strategic supersonic bomber could not go unnoticed by the Soviet leadership. In the early eighties, the Soviet air fleet was replenished with a new aircraft, the Tu-160. After the collapse of the USSR, Russian strategic aviation inherited most of them, with the exception of ten pieces cut into scrap metal in Ukraine and one "White Swan", which became an exhibit of the museum in Poltava. According to its technical and flight characteristics, this bomber-missile carrier is a model of a new generation, it has a variable sweep of the wing, four jet engines, a stratospheric ceiling (21 thousand meters) and a combat load much greater than that of the Tu-95 (45 tons against 11). The main advantage of the White Swan is its supersonic speed (up to 2200 km/h). The radius of combat use allows you to reach the American continent. Interception of an aircraft with such parameters seems to be a problematic task for specialists.
Conditionally strategic Tu-22
The structure of strategic aviation in the USSR and Russia has much in common. The aircraft fleet is inherited, it can serve for a long time, but basically it consists of two types of aircraft - Tu-95 and Tu-160. But there is another bomber that does not fully correspond to the strategic task, although it can make a decisive contribution to the outcome of a global conflict. The Tu-22M is not considered heavy and belongs to the medium class, it develops supersonic speed and can carry a large number of cruise missiles. This aircraft does not have a flight range characteristic of intercontinental bombers,therefore it is considered conditionally strategic. It is designed to strike at the bases and bridgeheads of a potential enemy located in Asia and Europe.
Will there be new strategic bombers?
Russian strategic aviation currently consists of dozens of aircraft of three main types (Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22). All of them are no longer new, they spent a lot of time in the air and, perhaps, it may seem to someone that these machines need to be replaced. Journalists who are far from military issues sometimes call the Bear Tu-95 a relic machine. However, any phenomenon should be considered in comparison. The Americans are not going to send their B-52s for scrap yet, sometimes the grandchildren of the first pilots who mastered them fly on them, but no one calls these air giants junk. As far as we know, our probable adversaries do not plan to build new types of strategic bombers, considering them, perhaps, a rapidly aging class of equipment. Most likely, the Russian side will not initiate a new arms race either.
