MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax-AVN) - According to the Russian Defense Ministry, only 70% of major types of arms and materiel in service with the Armed Force meet reliability requirements at the present time.
"Only 70% of major types of arms and materiel meet reliability requirements specified at the moment," Lieutenant General Alexander Rakhmanov, deputy chief of the Armed Forces Armament Directorate for research, said in an interview, published in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper on Thursday.
Maintainability of most arms is also inferior to that of arms and materiel in service with armed forces of developed countries, Rakhmanov said. For instance, integrated control and troubleshooting systems are at a very low level, which does not allow malfunctions to be detected and rectified on time.
"If we take into consideration frequently poor skills in operating weapon systems, caused by high personnel turnover and ill training, it becomes obvious that the scale of the disaster is huge," he emphasized.
Rakhmanov admitted that the number of claims to mass-produced weapons in the state defense order framework totaling one billion Russian rubles ($36 million) was decreasing. However, he pointed out that present time problems, pertaining to arms and materiel deliveries, could not even be compared with those before the 1990s, thus, the number of claims per system delivered remained very high.
According to Rakhmanov, the major reason for poor quality of arms and materiel consists in the inability of the existing quality-control system in the defense industry to operate efficiency in the new economic environment.
In order to increase the Defense Ministry's influence on the quality of arms and materiel delivered by the defense industry, it refines the competitive basis of placing contracts, establishes the single customer system, has introduced the special program approach to arms and materiel development planning, has planned the arms standardization program, and has introduced CALS technologies for registering arms and materiel. "All these steps can increase the quality of defense products," Rakhmanov said.
He noted that in 2005 major efforts would be focused on completing development of new-generation arms and materiel, which are to constitute the backbone of weapon systems until 2030-2050.
"This year is expected to see completion of research and development of up to 300 weapon systems, including the Iskander missile system, the Rostok APC, the Mikoyan MiG-31 upgraded fighter, the Project 677 Lada submarine, etc.," he said.