September 03, 2012

Andy Nativi Genoa

Eager to get Western defense technology to fill its defense gaps without having to spend years and billions of rubles developing it locally, Russia is increasingly partnering with cash-strapped Italy.

Russia's acquisitions have already benefited Europe—it is, for instance, acquiring French Mistral helicopter carriers—and Moscow is now on the hunt for Western armored fighting vehicles (AFV). Officials evaluated several European designs, including the Rheinmetall Boxer, the GD-Mowag Piranha and the French VBCI, before aiming for the Italian Freccia VBM (Veicolo Blindato Medio) infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), as well as the Centauro AFV, which can be armed with a 105-mm or 120-mm gun. A trial campaign is going on in Russia involving a 105-mm version.

The Russians' approach is methodical. They conduct an initial market and technology assessment, then select the vehicles that best suit their requirements and visit factories to evaluate them. Then they ask for a test campaign to be carried out in the harsh Russian environment (meaning extreme heat and extreme cold, deep mud, river crossings, swamps, etc.).

If all goes well, the Russians finally sit down to craft an acquisition program. Often a straight buy is ruled out, given the numbers involved and the desire to allow Russian industry to learn state-of-the-art technologies. In the AFV arena, Russia is interested in advanced mobility solutions, protection and armor, firepower, the latest fire control and communications. Russia would like to customize foreign systems by adding its own subsystems, and asking the contractor for specific modifications of the basic design.

For instance, Russia has decided not to change its standard weapon systems calibers. The current ones will be retained. Some preliminary assessments are being carried out to see if Russian guns can be modified to fit into modern, remotely controlled turrets. Oto Melara is involved in these technical evaluations, including automatic reloading systems for heavy guns. At the same time Russia believes it does not posses a light, short recoil gun which can be fitted on an 8 X 8 AFV.

Russia wants to allow its own AFV industry to be involved in the production and support of the foreign vehicles and to acquire the skills to produce new designs. At the same time, Russian military authorities are resisting the pressure from their industrial complex to get Russian funding to develop required systems locally. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is adamant he does not want to commit time and money to an all-Russian approach, unless there is a reasonable prospect of quickly getting state-of-the-art systems that provide the required capabilities.