Maintenance of weapons and military equipment remains a big problem
Oboronservis has sunk into oblivion, but its business lives on. Rather, it should live, but there are nuances. The tasks for the repair and maintenance of weapons and military equipment, which were assigned to the disgraced department, still need to be solved.
This was discussed in the State Duma at a meeting of the Expert Council under the Committee for Industry and Enterprise Development of the REP. The issue went beyond the originally outlined framework when it became clear: life cycle management of products supplied to the troops is necessary for all defense industry enterprises, and not just the radio-electronic industry.
What happens to a tank, gun, electronic equipment during operation and at the end of its life? Who and how should be responsible for maintenance, repair, disposal? For example, the Ministry of Defense, for example, has set the task of transitioning to a full life cycle in the maintenance of equipment and weapons for the third time. As the representative of the Main Directorate of Communications of the RF Armed Forces Yevgeny Krivoshein said, a lot of electronic equipment, produced in the Soviet Union, remains in the troops. Now it's time to write it off and change to a more modern one. But who will do it? Should servicemen participate in the repair of equipment, and if so, to what level of complexity?
It was suggested that the repair of some not the most expensive weapons and military equipment is not needed at all. There are already examples in the West when equipment is serviced to a certain extent, and then simply disposed of.
There are claims to the Defense Ministry and defense industry enterprises. They, as it turns out, are not always sure about the reliability of the contractual relationship. Vyacheslav Khalitov, Deputy General Director of Uralvagonzavod, spoke about this, in particular. For example, penalties for the T-72B3 tank for violation of the terms of the contract amount to five percent of the cost of the vehicle. This, of course, is a lot, especially since the operating conditions of the T-72 and T-90 are different. A group has been set up at the plant to develop regulations on AME life cycle management. It turns out that there are no such documents at the federal level, and this will be the first where a methodology and conceptual apparatus are created, which in the future can form the basis of documents of title.
“It's difficult to speak about the full life cycle at all, since for some models of weapons and military equipment, for example, a tank, it is 40-50 years,” says Khalitov. - Therefore, it is necessary to introduce the term "after-sales service" into circulation.
Now Uralvagonzavod accepts repair plants from Oboronservis structures into the corporation. So far, many of them have been in limbo, which means that the service support of the equipment has stalled. Therefore, the question should be posed more broadly and think about the creation of regional service centers for the maintenance of weapons and military equipment.
It is necessary to determine the maximum terms for full life cycle contracts. This situation arose when the contract for the maintenance of the ACS 2S19M2 was fulfilled. The money was spent on restoration work, but there was no money left for service. Another more recent example. As the general director of NPO Kvant (Veliky Novgorod) Gennady Kapralov said, in 2013 the enterprise supplied the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation with the first batch of Krasukha-4 mobile electronic warfare systems. But for some reason, the military department did not order any spare parts, which raises doubts about proper operation.
It is necessary to unbureaucratic the execution of contracts, to solve the problems of pricing. For example, attempts by Uralvagonzavod to interact constructively with the Legal Department of the RF Ministry of Defense have not met with a response. And mutual claims and debates in the courts only complicate the quality maintenance of weapons and military equipment. The conclusion is simple: the legal framework does not correspond to reality.
The defense industry complex and the RF Ministry of Defense should become equal partners. In the meantime, as Konstantin Kostromin, Director of the Product Lifecycle Management Department of the United Aircraft Corporation, admitted, even the essence of contracts is understood by the manufacturers and the military in completely different ways.
