China Buys Tu-22MB Bomber Production Line from Russia

I'll believe it when I see it. The Russians have cried wolf far too many times for their word to be taken at face value when it comes to major arms sales to China.

Besides, the likes of the Tu22 and even Tu160 are based on obsolete technology and tactics that are increasely irrelevant in modern warfare. Stealth is far preferable to speed, and even if you want to go down the speed route, the future lies with hypersonic vehicles instead of 'fast but not fast enough to make a difference' kind of speeds the Tupolevs can achieve and maintain.

Appear even a formal denial from Rosoboronexport of this BS.

"Rosoboronexport" has not received and does not consider any offers to purchase China's long-range Tu-22M3 bombers, told "Interfax" January 24 company spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko.

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MOSCOW, January 24. / ITAR-TASS /. In the "Rosoboronexport" denied the information of several Russian media and unofficial Chinese websites about the alleged upcoming Russia supply China 36 long-range bombers Tu-22M3.

"Rosoboronexport" does not have any information about the discussion of this subject the two sides, "- told Itar-Tass Corporation spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko.

"There are no negotiations on this issue with China has taken place and there is no," - he stressed.

"This comment is made ​​in exceptional cases - said Davidenko. -" Rosoboronexport "strictly follows the practice to comment on posts only official sources of information, to what these sites do not include the Chinese."

Another source in the "Rosoboronexport" on condition of anonymity told Itar-Tass that the common non-official Chinese website about the upcoming supply China 36 Tu-22M3 "is pure newspaper duck." "Someone crook desperate to wishful thinking," - said the source. "Meanwhile, the supply of Tu-22M3 foreign countries are in principle impossible, because these aircraft are a strategic weapon," - he said.

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Deino

Having reading this thread for rather long time though very few replies, I think this thread has been concluded! So.....

And...

MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian arms export agency Rosoboronexport has not received and has not considered any proposals from China on buying Tu-22M3 long-range bombers, Rosoboronexport spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko told Interfax-AVN on Thursday.

"No negotiations on this issue have been held or are being held," Davidenko said in commenting on media reports referring to Chinese websites claiming that China may buy 26 Tu-22M3 planes from Russia for $1.5 billion.

Rosoboronexport has no information on this score, Davidenko said.

Chinese websites may publish almost anything, but this information "most often is not worth any attention," he added.

Vasily Kashin, an expert from the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), said earlier that reports suggesting that Russia could sell a shipment of Tu-22M3s looked doubtful to him.

"At the present time, the sale of new Tu-22M3 bombers to China, of which media have reported, is hardly physically possible. The manufacturing of these planes was stopped in 1993 and has not been resumed. Nor are the NK-25 engines with which this plane was equipped being manufactured. The resumption of the production of these planes after a 20-year pause would require gigantic investments and years of hard work if it is technically possible at all," Kashin said.

"Rumors suggesting that Russia is selling a shipment of Tu-22M3 bombers to China have regularly appeared on the Internet in China and in Western media outlets over the past ten years. As far as I know, China was earlier interested in these planes, but negotiations did not reach any result," Kashin said.

"Russia could technically ship only old-made Tu-22M3s to the Chinese," he said.

"But even in this case, this would involve a lot of work on their maintenance and re-equipment to make them compatible with Chinese weapons, communications, control systems and so on. And even so China would get an old plane with old engines at a very significant price," he said.

"The project looks even more doubtful considering that China is currently pursuing a program of building modernized H-6K bombers, for which it has been making large-scale purchases of D-30KP2 engines from Russia," he said.

Deino said:

And...

MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian arms export agency Rosoboronexport has not received and has not considered any proposals from China on buying Tu-22M3 long-range bombers.

"No negotiations on this issue have been held or are being held," Davidenko said in commenting on media reports referring to Chinese websites claiming that China may buy 26 Tu-22M3 planes from Russia for $1.5 billion.

"At the present time, the sale of new Tu-22M3 bombers to China, of which media have reported, is hardly physically possible. The manufacturing of these planes was stopped in 1993 and has not been resumed. Nor are the NK-25 engines with which this plane was equipped being manufactured. The resumption of the production of these planes after a 20-year pause would require gigantic investments and years of hard work if it is technically possible at all," Kashin said.

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As suspected.

Although a modern TU-22M3 woud still be a very powerful weapon, restarting prodcution and all of the infrastructure necessary to make them would be nigh on to impossible. Given the cost and time, why wouldn't anyone just invest all of that into building a new, better aircraft?

Jeff Head said:

As suspected.

Although a modern TU-22M3 woud still be a very powerful weapon, restarting prodcution and all of the infrastructure necessary to make them would be nigh on to impossible. Given the cost and time, why wouldn't anyone just invest all of that into building a new, better aircraft?

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Thank goodness. China already made a goof with the Sovremenny destroyers. It doesn't need to repeat the mistake again.

t_co said:

Thank goodness. China already made a goof with the Sovremenny destroyers. It doesn't need to repeat the mistake again.

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Not really, the Sovremenny DDGs filled a vacuum at a time when Chinese shipbuilding industry is not capable to meet, and some of its weapon suite ended up being reverse-engineered and locally produced.

But Tu-22MB...like I've said before, it's a "supersonic dasher" from a bygone era, when these days one would need a high-payload, multi-mission profiles, sub-sonic weapon platform capable of launching cruise missiles and en-mass delivery of JDAMs.

SteelBird said:

Having reading this thread for rather long time though very few replies, I think this thread has been concluded! So.....

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Cased closed.

antiterror13 said:

Just open our mind ... imagine China would improve everything and it would be a good bomber, perhaps not as good as B-2 or B-1B .. but heyyyy, good enough

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MwRYum said:

Not really, the Sovremenny DDGs filled a vacuum at a time when Chinese shipbuilding industry is not capable to meet, and some of its weapon suite ended up being reverse-engineered and locally produced.

But Tu-22MB...like I've said before, it's a "supersonic dasher" from a bygone era, when these days one would need a high-payload, multi-mission profiles, sub-sonic weapon platform capable of launching cruise missiles and en-mass delivery of JDAMs.

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Sharing my $0.02...



The Tu-22 production line from rumour could be an answer to shorten the gap to compensate the lack of offensive long range weapons.

Like some of the guys here, a modern China with her own indigenous adavnce avionics and radars could could the Tu-22MBs (some say it to be H-10) into an all new breed of bombers. This if it turns out true, the whole new fleet of H-10s could been seen as a game changer to the US Pacific policy to surround China with F22 and F35 as well as CBGs and troops. In order to counter China's new breed of H-10s, the US got to redeploy troops and add more logistics resources more weapon aids for her allies countries, which in turn needs money to finance these ops. For China, its a strategy of an answer to her own 'war of attrition' with the US in the pacific region.

Also with the increasingly focus of second artillery in missile attack, range and striking distance have achieved a new heights. But the second artillery is land based, mainly. The need of Tu-22s is to increase the chances of second strike capability before the full deployment of the Type 093 SSBNs which is still in research and development phase. Furthermore, as China seeks to gain a striking ability, to buy a nearly out of touch Tu-22 production line means a speeding up of researching on bomber tech.

Some might say with the H-6 already in services for more than 30 years, it is a capable airframe with modernised equipment, However, the H-10s would add extra delivery power to the PLAAF and PLANAF. What they have been done and gained experiences on the H-6 provides an all new lifeline for this outdated bomber. There are already examples in the USAF that refitting an airframe with advance aviation avonics plus cruise missile with conventional/nuclear warheads.