The legendary PAK-DA in Russia is why the Aerospace Forces are so concerned about the resumption of production of the Tu-160 strategic bomber. After all, on the one hand, the strategic requirements of the Air Force are quite urgent, on the other hand, the size of the Air Force fleet is not strong enough, and on the other hand, new equipment cannot be produced within ten years. The combination of three factors determines that the transition of the Tu-160 strategic bomber and the effective restoration of Russia's aviation industry's ability to manufacture large bombers through the Tu-160 is the best option.

Don't be fooled by Russia's current enthusiasm for resuming production of the Tu-160M strategic bomber, but as we mentioned earlier, Russia's resumption of production of the Tu-160M is essentially for the purpose of "emergency response" in terms of equipment and air force strategy, and does not necessarily mean that the Tu-160M is truly suitable for the requirements of future strategic air forces. On the contrary, from the experience of Russia, including the US Air Force, it is unanimously believed that the Tu-160, including similar B-1 strategic bombers, is already outdated in design.

In terms of design configuration, both the high-altitude supersonic penetration advocated by the Tu-160 and B-1A strategic bombers, as well as the low altitude supersonic penetration advocated by the B-1B strategic bomber, have paid a considerable cost and performance price for supersonic performance.

It is necessary to adopt a heavy and unreliable variable sweep wing structure, such as the use of titanium alloy to manufacture the variable sweep wing shaft in Tu-160, and the use of advanced electronic control modules to control the sweep angle of the variable sweep wing in B-1A; The cost of designing the strength of the aircraft is too high, as shown in Figure-160, which extensively uses titanium alloy milling to cut the overall wall panels, titanium alloy wing boxes, etc., all of which make the manufacturing cost of the aircraft astonishingly high, just to withstand the huge dynamic pressure during supersonic flight; It is also necessary to develop high-performance thrust turbofan engines, such as the NK-32-01 engine of the Russian Kuznetsov. This type of engine weighs an astonishing 3.4 tons and has a maximum afterburner thrust of 226 kilonewtons, making it one of the most powerful turbofan engines with afterburners currently available. And this type of engine has been optimized for supersonic performance, which cannot be compared to engines with a single bypass ratio for thrust exchange.

Optimizing and even specializing for supersonic performance is not enough. In fact, the supersonic performance of the Tu-160 strategic bomber is also subject to strict limitations. With the use of afterburners throughout the supersonic flight, the combat radius of the Tu-160 strategic bomber will be greatly reduced, from over 7000 kilometers to about 2000 kilometers, which is similar to the flight distance of a Concorde supersonic passenger plane; Not to mention during the Cold War, the Soviet Union planned to use the Tu-160 as a single rider to penetrate and "tear" a hole in the US North American air defense interception line with its supersonic performance, which was later proven to be impractical. With the US military equipped with F-15C and F-22A, this simple supersonic assault performance has even less practical significance.

Although the Tu-160 is a strategic bomber designed for high-altitude, supersonic penetration, its usage in actual combat is exceptionally "simple". That is, it honestly uses subsonic attack, throws cruise missiles at the target, and then returns subsonic. If intercepted, it uses supersonic to try to shake off the opponent. However, in general, this type of out of defense attack is highly unlikely to encounter an opponent's air defense interception.

For models like the Tu-160, the cost of an outdated supersonic breakthrough performance is too high, and the benefits achieved after the cost are not high, resulting in a relatively low cost-effectiveness; The reason why the Russian Aerospace Forces still cling tightly to the Tu-160 is essentially just a temporary measure to use it as a transitional equipment. The real "leading actress" in the future is the PAK who is currently "waiting for words in the boudoir"-DA type.