Kamil Galeev Profile picture

May 17, 2024, 9 tweets

No offence, but this is a completely imbecile, ignorant, ridiculous framing. I have no explanation for all this debate except for a complete & determined ignorance of the foreign policy making class, and their refusal to learn literally anything about the material world.

"Components" framing makes sense when we are discussing drones. Why? Because drones are literally made from the imported components. You buy like 90% of them in China, and may be you make like 10% domestically. For the most part, you just assemble what you bought in China.

Not the case with missiles. Most of what the missile consists of, including its most critical, hard to make parts is produced domestically. Why? Because you cannot buy it abroad. More often than not, you cannot buy it in China. You can only make it yourself, domestically.

Take engine. This may be one single hardest to make & most demanding part of the missile. Cruise missile engine is basically the aircraft engine. Now engines for all the long range missiles in Russia (incl. Kh-101, on picture) are made by the onge single enterprise

ODK Saturn.

Rybinsk based ODK Saturn is an aircraft engine enterprise which also makes engines for Kalibr family missiles, Kh-101, Kh-555, Kh-59, etc. So, basically for all the strategic cruise missiles. Once again, cruise missile is a plane, and its engine is basically a plane engine.

It is an extremely demanding product, some of the most demanding products regarding the mechanical design and its execution that exist in this world. Consequently, you cannot buy it in China (= new industrial power). You can only make it yourself, domestically.

Consequently, the central question of cruise missile production is not where Russia gets components. It is:

How does ODK Saturn execute *extremely complicated* mechanical design of all the long range cruise missiles Russia has?

And an even better question is:

How can ODK Saturn produce some of the most complex products that exist in this world on a mass scale?

You don't just make it. You make a lot of them, and of consistent quality.

And the answer is: the integrated manufacturing solution. Integrated manufacturing may not necessarily makes sense everywhere. But it absolutely makes sense on the most complex, and most demanding parts of the MIC. Such as the aircraft/cruise missile engine production.

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