Disruptions in the supply chain for advanced electronic components continue to cause increasingly longer lead times for delivery of almost every category of manufactured products, including those of the defense industry. For example, the first example of the Lockheed Martin F-16V Block 70/72-series ordered by Slovakia will arrive at least a year late due to the lack of availability of items from numerous suppliers. Most of the defense firms around the world find themselves in similar circumstances.
“What we are seeing are the consequences of how electronics technology has changed in the past several decades,” said the director of a defense enterprise in Kiev. “If we go back to Cold War times the defense industrial firms around the world had their own captive electronics production lines. They were the only buyers for these products and did not have to compete with any other customer base because only the defense industry could afford to pay the prices the manufacturers charged.”
Now, the “pyramid” that once existed in this industry has become inverted. Defense firms now have to purchase their electronic components “commercial-off-the-shelf,” meaning they get their parts from the same pool as automobile manufacturers, commercial aircraft and private jet firms, and advanced computer systems companies.
Russian defense firms must contend not only by the supply-chain kinks, but Western sanctions that prevent them from buying advanced electronic components. The restrictions cover not only chips made in the U.S., but also any chips made in third nations produced with U.S. machinery and/or design technology.
That has hindered the production of current model Russian radars and other major onboard systems, as well as crippled the development of an affordable, state-of-the-art AESA radar. Most of the major Russian defense electronics firms appear on the U.S.-EU sanctions list, as does the corporate holding company, KRET, which controls the defense electronics sector. Even senior defense industry executives like Rostec general director Sergei Chemezov appear on the sanctions list.
The situation has affected some of Russia’s leading weapons platforms and it makes it difficult—if not impossible—for Moscow to deliver on export orders.
One of the programs adversely affected is the Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker:
• The Su-35’s radar is the NIIP N035 Irbis-E passive electronically scanning array (PESA) design. This design represents a generational leap beyond the N001-series of designs installed in the older Su-27 models. This radar is even a significant step above the other famous PESA design from NIIP, the N011M Bars radar set that appears in the Indian Air Force (IAF) Su-30MKI. Sources in Russian industry tell AIN that production lead times for some of those radars can extend to at least 18 months—if the production center can obtain the parts they need.
• The Su-35 also comes with avionics and onboard systems that represent the state-of-the-art of Russia’s defense electronics industry. Some are so advanced that they will share commonality with the configuration of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter program.
• The same NIIP design bureau that produced the N035 radar has been working on an AESA model, the N036 Byelka. Sources familiar with the program tell AIN that a small number of prototypes exist, but that the transmit/receive modules (TRM) in the active array itself were built with foreign, U.S.-content chips acquired through surreptitious channels. Russian defense firms rely almost entirely on a small number of suppliers for components, like the firm Istok, located in Frayzino outside Moscow. Unfortunately for the Russians, that company cannot come close to meeting demand.
Air defense systems like the famous S-400 account for some of the biggest-selling items in Russian industry. However, the OEM for that weapon system, Almaz-Antei, also falls under the sanctions regime. Meanwhile, India stands as one of the customers for the system that Moscow would like to keep as a client. But the possibility of India falling under the Counter America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) “looms large over India’s decision to purchase the S-400,” said a late December 2021 report from an Indian defense think tank.
Numerous analyses in both New Delhi and Washington, D.C. warn of the potential rift that the India-Russia S-400 deal could cause in U.S.–India relations if the current administration were to impose sanctions on India. Indian officials have expressed confidence to U.S. defense firms that they will receive a waiver from the sanctions by the Biden White House, but no word on a decision has come yet.
A reliable supply of components from electronics firms is only a temporary problem for U.S. and other Western defense companies. Production of computer chips and other high-technology items will eventually recover and the delays and other problems experienced by the U.S. and other nations will eventually no longer present an issue.
But Russian firms will remain on the sanctions list—put there over Moscow’s 2014 illegal invasion and occupation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea and a war in the Donbas that its mercenaries began almost eight years ago. Unless the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin finds some way to strike an agreement with the West over its actions in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere, a lack of critical production inputs will continue to cripple weapons makers.