It appears that we have the final number of ballistic missiles deployed in 2014. According to Sergey Shoigu, Russia's strategic forces received 38 intercontinental missiles this year. Of these, 22 are SLBMs, so the number of ICBMs is 16.
This confirms the earlier reports about 16 ICBMs deployed in 2014. As for SLBMs, we know that Yuri Dolgorukiy has the full complement of 16 missiles on board. This leaves six more SLBMs to account for. It's not clear if the tree missiles expended in flight tests in 2014 are included in the total - they probably should be. In any event, the second and third submarines of the Project 955 class - Alexander Nevskiy and Vladimir Monomakh - don't seem to be loaded yet.
In 2015 the strategic forces will receive "more than 50 missiles" - this number includes SLBMs on Alexander Nevskiy and Vladimir Monomakh and ICBMs in four regiments. Taking into account the three SLBMs that have been delivered in 2014, it would take additional 29 Bulava SLBMs to arm these two submarines. Six RS-24 ICBMs will bring the silo-based regiment in Kozelsk to full force. Arming three mobile RS-4 (and/or RS-26) regiments will, strictly speaking, require 27 missiles, but one of these regiments might be the one in Nizhniy Tagil, which already has six ICBMs, so the total mobile RS-24 count might be 21. And at least one regiment might be still incomplete by the end of 2014, so it could be, say, 15 or 18, so the total 2015 missile count would be somewhere between 50 and 53 (29 Bulava SLBMs + 6 silo RS-24 + 15-18 mobile RS-24).
It appears that in addition to Novosibirsk and Nizhniy Tagil, RS-24 will be deployed in Yoshkar-Ola. Also, deployment of RS-26 is expected to begin in Irkutsk.
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Remember when Western arms control pundits were making all those predictions that Russia can't sustain 1-for-1 replacement over this decade due to low production numbers at Votkinsk and Krasmash? Yeah, me too.
The Russian MoD Film:
http://mil.ru/files/morf/military/files/DOKLAD_2014.mp4
Thank you. Very interesting. Technology is on the march - in the old days the posters prepared for generals were called "murzilki". Now it's movies (although there is a tradition of making movies as well).
Not cleat why did they say there were three Bulava launches from Yuri Dolgorukiy (at 1:29).
Just to make a note - the share of "modern" systems in the strategic forces is 56% overall (1:53) and 43% in the Rocket Forces (6:38).
>>>Just to make a note - the share of "modern" systems in the strategic forces is 56% overall (1:53) and 43% in the Rocket Forces (6:38).
And I about the same, Pavel.
And You still trust their stories about 96%. :-)
http://russianforces.org/blog/2014/12/russian_missile_force_readines.shtml
When the Russian military speak, it is necessary to understand very long that they meant. :-)
By the way I paid attention to one figure from December Russian military reports. In 2015 the quantity of the Tu-95МС strategic bombers will reach 43:
http://lenta.ru/news/2014/12/23/tu160/
On the 43 Tu-95MS bombers - the number is for modernized bombers. It's possible that the rest (about 10-12) are still in service waiting for modernization.