MOSCOW. Dec 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces commander, said that the missile systems of his forces and the Navy would be unified.
"Our systems are being unified now, and we will go on unifying them," he told a news conference at the Interfax main office Friday.
According to him, this is primarily due to economic concerns.
"The Topol-M technology having been utilized, the time for the development of the new Bulava naval system reduced by 15% and the costs of the development were cut by 20-25%, " he said.
Apart from that, the interoperability of missiles operated by the Strategic Missile Forces and the Navy helped optimize the existing manufacturing plants and retain the scientific and technological backlog, specialists and manufacturing capabilities, he added.
"The unification is beneficial for both the Navy and the Strategic Missile Forces. For instance, the Bulava features the solutions obtained in the course of the Topol development, while the future land-based system will have the innovations introduced in the Bulava," he said.
The sea-launched Bulava ballistic missile will become the basic weapon of the new strategic submarines, codenamed Project 955 Borei, currently in the jigs of the Sevmashpredpriyatie shipyard. Two such submarines, the Yuri Dolgoruky and the Alexander Nevsky, will have 12 solid-propellant Bulava missiles aboard each.
The missile is expected to equip modified Project 941 submarines. It has been tested with the Dmitry Donskoi sub (Project 941U), refitted for that by Sevmashpredpriyatie, since 2003.