Mars Company Ready to Create Control Systems for Russia’s Mistral Analogues

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Research-and-Production Association (RPA) Mars, Russia’s leading enterprise in the area of industrial control systems for naval combat operations, is ready to develop a management system for a potential Russian version of the Mistral amphibious helicopter carrier, the company’s director general said.

"RPA Mars has the necessary experience, scientific and technical capacity to create control systems for such prospective vessels. This includes groundwork for the control system for Mistral-class ships, and products made by the company that were used in equipping the large landing ship as part of Project 11711, the export sample of the Lesorub-E automated combat management system for the carrier, as well as the continuous improvement and raising of the set of aviation-related tasks," Vladimir Maklaev said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Two Mistral-class carriers were built for Russia in France but Paris later reneged on the deal and decided to sell the ships to Egypt. The ships are designed to carry 16 Ka-27/29 Helix anti-submarine/assault and Ka-52 Hokum B strike helicopters.

Paris gave Moscow $1 billion in compensation after officially terminating the $1.3-billion contract for the delivery of the warships in August. Cairo signed a contract to purchase the Mistrals from Paris two months later.