The roof of the field camps. The Ministry of Defense has twice summed up the orientation on the purchase of German equipment
A couple of weeks ago, there were reports of the cancellation of the tender for the purchase of autonomous field camps for the Russian army 16. He was scheduled just in November. But the Federal Agency for Defense Order (Rosoboronzakaz) made the decision after checking the conditions of the tender. True, detailed information on the results of the inspection has not yet appeared to this day, except for the only official confirmation that the competition was canceled with the wording “by decision of the supervisory authority”. And all our attempts to find out the details in Rosoboronzakaz itself were not crowned with success. According to several sources, who are to some extent involved in the organization or participation in this competition, one can draw quite definite conclusions. The RF Ministry of Defense for the last time announced a tender for the supply of autonomous field camps (towns for the closed life-support cycle) of a nuclear submarine-500 worth 6,8 billion rubles. According to the application posted in October of this year on the state procurement website by the Federal Agency for the supply of weapons, military, special equipment and materiel (Rosoboronpostavka), for the military department it was necessary to purchase 16 camps: in the Mulino Military Training Center (Nizhny Novgorod Region) nine sets and in the 67 interspecific range Ashuluk (Astrakhan region) seven sets. And even after the cancellation of the tender, the field camps of the APL-500 still remain in the state defense order for the 2013 year and the planned period of 2014 – 2015.
But the main intrigue is that the cancellation of the tender happened for the second time this year. The first competition with virtually the same conditions and requirements was canceled in the summer. At the end of May Rosoboronpostavka, controlled by the Ministry of Defense, tried to organize the purchase of the same 16 field camps in the amount of ... 6,2 billion rubles. Yes, only a few participants of the competition filed complaints about the groundlessness of the pricing procedure and confusion with the terms of reference. Rosoboronzakaz conducted an audit, which resulted in the bidding declared invalid. What the director of the Federal Service for Defense Order, Alexander Potapov, officially announced on June 20 at a meeting at the Main Military Prosecutor's Office.
As the press service of the control body specified, in the tender documentation there was initially no information about what requirements the Russian Armed Forces set for such equipment. However, the tender participants noted that the bidding conditions were clearly “adjusted” for the technical characteristics of the field camps of the German company Karcher Futuretech GmbH. After all, one such camp in 2010 was purchased for the training center of the Ground Forces in Mulino, and the then Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov liked him very much. Then the camp was effectively demonstrated by the then Supreme Commander Dmitry Medvedev, who also approved what he had seen. After the change of senior commanders, Army General Dmitry Bulgakov, who retained the post of Deputy Minister of Defense, confidently stated that 2015 autonomous field camps worth 22 billion rubles would be procured until the 9,8 of the year. And it was necessary to happen to this - during 2013, two attempts to realize (at least partially) the ministry’s plan failed. It seems the second time for the same reason as the first. Although the organizers of the tender pretended to eliminate the shortcomings after the June cancellation of the competition, and even noticeably increased the prices of the purchased products.
WHAT MUST BE A CAMP
It is worth noting here that the summer cancellation prompted journalists to seek clarification from PIK MIG, the official dealer of Karcher Futuretech GmbH. But its representative Yevgeny Zenkov disowned: the company did not even plan to participate in the Ministry of Defense tender, therefore all suspicions and claims to its address are groundless. This seller distanced himself from the plans of the Ministry of Defense militia men not at all by accident. After all, the first camp from Karcher, purchased in 2010 year, was badly battered in the very first severe winter in the Nizhny Novgorod region. And the second camp, supplied by Karcher company mostly as an equipment picker, became, by definition, a number of specialists, “a hodgepodge of products from Norway, Turkey, China and some other very exotic countries”. But it was launched at the Chebarkul training ground in the Chelyabinsk region. There, the frost is even stronger ... In general, he suffered much more than the Mulin APL-500.
From here a number of questions naturally arise. First of all, why did the German company Karcher appear in the partners at the Russian Defense Ministry? Surely in our country, no one produces such autonomous field camps? And if it does, is it really that Russian products are so much worse in quality that it was imperative to buy foreign products? And for sure there were experts who soberly assessed the capabilities of the German camp and warned about the sad consequences of its use in our difficult climate? To answer all these questions, you only need to look back - in the 2010 year, when the Defense Ministry began to actively promote the idea of procurement for the army of autonomous field camps. And, I stress, it is domestic production.
The operational-strategic exercise "Vostok-2010", held in late June - early July in Transbaikalia and the Far East, was invited to two dozen journalists from Moscow, among whom was an observer of the NVO. First of all, the writing fraternity was taken to the Tsugol proving ground in areas where various rear units, formations and services are located. The organization of life in the field camp of a combined-arms brigade and its equipment was demonstrated by the head of logistics of the Russian Armed Forces - Deputy Defense Minister, then Colonel-General Dmitry Bulgakov. He gave the highest marks to the performance of the presented equipment, which, he said, had already equipped several connections.
“For the extremely diverse climatic conditions of Russia, this equipment is best suited, surpassing many foreign analogues,” General Bulgakov told with a sense of conviction (see “Field Camp May Be Convenient” in the NVO from 30.07.10). “Now we have everything we need to organize the normal life of the personnel of the brigades in the field, so that the servicemen can concentrate entirely on combat training and perform any combat task.”
Several modern mobile sets for providing troops for various purposes were shown to reporters. With undisguised pleasure they showed a mobile battalion of food stuffs and bath and laundry services, since at that time it was released in the singular and entered to provide only the 5th separate tank brigades. And its convenience literally appreciated by everyone. Behind one of the battalions on KamAZ trucks was transported about a dozen 20-ton containers of variable volume. The unit arrived in a certain area, stopped for about half a day, and in just 2,5 hours the military deployed a compact but multi-functional utility unit: a kitchen, refrigerated food storage units, an air-conditioned lounge, a spacious dining room, a bakery, showers, and washrooms rooms (all in chrome and nickel), equally civil toilets, laundry room with powerful and high-performance washing machines. Journalists were then given the opportunity to personally test these charms in the 40-degree Transbaikal heat. Your correspondent then wrote in an article with enthusiasm: “The centuries-old dream of the Russian military about a worthy field life was realized !!!” (see “And in the field I want comfort” in “NVO” from 02.07.10).
The ideology of complete supplies, according to the statement of Colonel Alexander Turkov, the assistant chief of logistics of the RF Armed Forces, was embodied in the development of several more mobile sets of troops. Mobile complex medical care (PKVP) and the set of "Medical Company" used in the brigades. Movable set of equipment maintenance and repair. A mobile team brigade headquarters, housed in unified container modules and capable of increasing the working space to accommodate the necessary equipment of a modern command and control system.
All moving assets were created on the basis of the body-vans and container-bodies of constant and variable volume, manufactured using modern casting technologies. They are adapted to be transported on army vehicles of all-terrain KamAZ of the Mustang and Ural families of the Motokhovoz family. To quickly move the bodies from the chassis and back, they have hydraulic lifts at the corners, each of which is capable of lifting 7 tons. Four legs moved out of the container, lifted it a few centimeters above the cargo platform - the car drove out. We lower the container to the ground, level with the help of all the same lifting devices. The operation takes no more than 3 – 5 minutes.
And modern life support systems, including a ventilation and air conditioning system, a heating system, a pressurization and air filtration system, a water extraction and purification system, a lighting and blackout system, an energy system, guarantee comfortable working conditions for personnel in various climatic zones in the ambient air temperature range from minus 50 to plus 50 degrees Celsius. The same systems also ensure the normal accommodation of the personnel in the frame tents of the new type, produced in Russia. Well, all together, these mobile means of support, developed, by the way, according to the requirements of the Ministry of Defense and declared accepted for supply in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, made it possible to create combined sets of an autonomous field camp for a battalion of 400 – 600 people and for a combined brigade of 3 – 5 thousand military personnel.
FOCUS FAILED
Praising the merits of the latest 2010 field equipment in the summer, General Dmitry Bulgakov was, well, very convincing and seemed absolutely sincere. And who would have thought then that in just six months he would begin to explain to journalists that the autonomous field camps, it turns out, are not produced in our country and even OKRy were not performed for them. Therefore, the need for them in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation can be satisfied exclusively by supplies from abroad. In short, the display of field equipment for the rear support of troops during the exercise "Vostok-2010" was used only as a pusher to drag in the idea of purchasing foreign products. So there was an unwitting guess: some official in the Ministry of Defense clearly has a personal interest in lobbying the interests of a clearly defined supplier then - Karcher Futuretech GmbH.
But at that time, representatives of Russian manufacturers of high-quality rear equipment, which was shown to journalists at the exercise, rang out to the editorial office of NVO. As it turned out, for many years more than a dozen domestic enterprises working in close cooperation created it. According to the specifications of the Ministry of Defense, they carried out more than 40 research and development work on this subject. Were developed, tested and put into production 56 samples of new technology that meets the needs of the military department in mobile field complexes.
The head of the leading enterprise in cooperation, Victor Ukhov, said on this occasion: “The field camp has been sufficiently developed today. We are ready to mass-produce the entire set of equipment and supply it in any quantity that the troops only need ”(see“ Turn-key field camps in the NVO from 26.11.10).
Ukhov also drew attention to the fact that Karcher’s aggressively pushing products are clearly not suitable for use in our conditions. Well, for example, a refrigerator for storing and transporting products is intended to be used only on highways. But if he moves to the ground, it turns out that he cannot be towed behind our KamAZ or Ural army vehicles, whose track is much wider than this trailer. So the contents of the Kercher refrigerator will quickly turn into a solid beef or vinaigrette. And there are many such unpleasant features of foreign equipment.
Meanwhile, just before August 2013, Army General Dmitry Bulgakov again publicly stated that the rear structures of the Russian army acquire the best products for their needs, regardless of the country of origin. In parallel, a number of information channels went for a walk about the advantages of the German camps, which are expressed in the presence of their life support systems, including ventilation equipment, air conditioning, pressurization, air filtration and heating, automated heating system, water production and purification system, adjustable lighting, autonomous energy the system. And as an opposition, an example is given of our field camps, where, say, a soldier has to throw logs into the stoves in the oven every half hour in the winter. To make sure that there is a hoax here, take a look at seven paragraphs at least in the same article and read.
We will not be cunning, purely outwardly German equipment looks a little more attractive than ours, domestic. When it is new. And yet the statements about its operational superiority are completely untrue. One of the Russian specialists, who was preparing to take part in the last (canceled) tender for the procurement of field camps, explained to us: “In our understanding and understanding of the inspectors of the Rosoboronzakaz, the logistics of the rear of the Armed Forces is still a specialized military equipment. But for some reason the requirements for the purchased camps as military equipment and military equipment were not set by the organizers of the competition. And therefore, actually civilian products were purchased. As soon as this procedure is changed, immediately the advantages in a number of parameters will be gained at the auction by Russian products, which were developed in strict accordance with the technical tasks of our military. ”
It remains to wait for the Ministry of Defense to finally come to an understanding of the futility of lobbying the interests of foreign manufacturers.
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