UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News

According to Alexander Zudin ( writer for FLIGHT GLOBAL )

One image taken from the rear of the model shows a high-winged aircraft apparently powered by two turboprop engines, with the design also featuring a slab-sided rear fuselage and a V-shaped tail. Sokol also later posted a graphic of the type on its website showing its streamlined forward fuselage, but without a representative sensor payload or communications equipment depicted.

Tatarstan-based Sokol and St Petersburg-based Tranzas won a 1 billion rouble ($33 million) contract in 2011 to develop a 5t-class medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV provisionally named Altius and a 1t-class system called Inokhodyets (Wanderer).

Speaking at the time of the award, Tranzas vice-president Viktor Godunov told ARMS-TASS that the new systems would be competitive with their foreign counterparts, have "colossal range and endurance" and be capable of "all missions, including strike".

Sokol is responsible for aircraft construction and the supply of ground systems, with Tranzas developing control systems and electronics for the Altius and Inokhodyets. Both should make their flight debuts during 2014, and enter detailed testing in 2015, according to Russian media reports.

Sounds promising...and visually it looks pretty good.

Al-Qaida tipsheet on avoiding drones

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hBh6arenH5kKAG97vGQC1_-l19Sw?docId=26c299308f07403f9f1fed2c65530d54


The document can be seen in Arabic and English at

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/_pdfs/al-qaida-papers-drones.pdf.

Sujoy wrote:Al-Qaida tipsheet on avoiding drones

Interesting...seems like common sense stuff mostly.

________


Believed to be the prospective supersonic UAV in development by the "Sokol" bureau.

They also make target drones so it could be a target drone, or it could be a high speed drone to get into and out of the area of interest to assess threats like air defence assets etc.

GarryB wrote:They also make target drones so it could be a target drone

Yeah it could be a target drone but "Sokol" is known to be working on a supersonic UAV. They tend to use modified SAM's as target simulators.

They still have a hundred thousand SA-1 missiles which were produced in enormous numbers and currently use as targets, but I suspect multi use targets would be useful too, plus the idea that they could have a multirole use drone might be a selling feature especially for the SEAD role to operate with bombers or strike aircraft... having a jamming supersonic UAV means that local air defences would have to deal with the jammer, which would reveal their positions, plus if they are dealing with a drone they might not notice the radar/radio silent strike aircraft passing through.

MIG gets a contract to deliver a SCAT like UCAV - It seems that Sukhoi is developing whole different class than that of the MIG

LINK

Good news... a stealthy 2,000km radius light bomber... in fact the details seem very similar to the F-117 except that it is unmanned.

Glad to see Mig is doing so well now.

Regarding Sukhoi I have seen an interesting prototype that consisted of two fuselages with two straight flat pieces front and back joining them together in a box structure and two large long wings leading back off the rear corners... looked very much like a very high altitude model to me...

the Air Forces are not only about aircrafts, equipment and weapons. This is also about keeping staff ready for action:
http://englishrussia.com/2013/06/04/sudden-air-exercises/

It is not just new toys, it is important to be able to use them in surprise situations that are not planned well in advance... this is very good.

I have heard about things like this in the Soviet times where a scheduled exercise... say a tank shooting exercise would start with the tank crews being ordered to fill the fuel tanks and external tanks and then drive for 10 hours to a shooting range 1,000km away for their firing test with no prior warning.

...real testing.

UAVs shown to Defense Minister - Photoreport:

http://i-korotchenko.livejournal.com/681949.html

MOSCOW, July 17 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian military is planning to purchase aerial drones in the United Arab Emirates, a defense industry source said Wednesday.

“We are talking about at least two United 40 Block 5 models developed by the company ADCOM Systems,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, told RIA Novosti.

United 40 is a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), designed to carry out near real-time combat assessment, special and reconnaissance operations and communications relays.

The vehicle can carry up to 10 air-to-ground missiles with a delivery range of 60 kilometers and fly for up to 120 hours, according to the developer.

The United 40 Block 5 model was unveiled at this year’s IDEX arms show in Abu Dhabi in February, and the vehicle was first tested in flight in March. Its estimated cost is $20-30 million.

The Russian military stressed a need for advanced reconnaissance systems in the wake of a brief military conflict with Georgia in August 2008, when the effectiveness of Russian military operations was severely hampered by a lack of reliable intelligence.

According to various estimates, the Russian military needs up to 100 UAVs and at least 10 guidance and control systems to ensure effective battlefield reconnaissance.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in June that aerial drones being developed in Russia for the military were inferior to similar foreign models.

Russia has reportedly signed two UAV contracts with Israel. Under the first contract, signed in April 2009, Israel delivered two Bird Eye 400 systems (worth $4 million), eight I View MK150 tactical UAVs ($37 million) and two Searcher Mk II multi-mission UAVs ($12 million).

The second contract was for the purchase of 36 UAVs, worth a total of $100 million, to be delivered in 2010. The shipment, however, has not been confirmed by the Russian Defense Ministry.

ADCOM Systems, a group of firms headquartered in Abu Dhabi, specializes in manufacturing UAVs, aerial targets, air traffic control radar systems, and advanced communication systems.

http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20130717/182290749/Russia-Planning-to-Buy-Aerial-Drones-in-UAE--Source.html

I hope with all those buying and R&D in this domain will result with an innovating products ...

Buying french Mistral amphibious assault ships, showing interest to israeli and UAE UAVs and some RSM-56 Bulava missile problems , but T-50 program is going fine ! developing uav's cant be more difficult than last generation fighters, right?

I am sure Russian companies will be included in this deal... probably at least for local assembly plus experience with these UCAVs should allow the Russian military to form better requirements for new products.

Nice symmetry really... UAE pays for further development of and buys Pantsir-S1 SAM systems and Russia buys UAE UCAVs...

Will be interesting to see what sort of payloads they will use... Kornet-EM, FAB-50 with some sort of guidance package would be interesting too...

Buying french Mistral amphibious assault ships, showing interest to israeli and UAE UAVs and some RSM-56 Bulava missile problems , but T-50 program is going fine ! developing uav's cant be more difficult than last generation fighters, right?

Mistral class ships were ordered because they are off the shelf ready to go products that don't need that much testing. The time it would have taken to develop from scratch and new design and then have a competition and then build and once it is built test it because there is no guarantee it will still not have faults... the first Mistral carrier will be in service 10 years before a Russian equivalent could have been ready. That is not to say they couldn't do it but it would take much longer and cost rather more than it is costing to buy from France.

It is pretty much the same with UAVs and UCAVs... of course they can make them but they haven't spent a fraction of what the US and Israel have spent on developing and improving UCAV design and using it operationally... and there are only two ways to get to that position. One involves buying someone elses hardware and experience... but in the case of Israel they were not prepared to sell their newest and best hardware... but it seems UAE is. The other way is to put billions of dollars and 10-15 years into a purely domestic Russian model.

Needless to say that last century the Russians bought the production rights to build the Maxim machine gun. That didn't make them reliant on western machine gun technology... it gave them an excellent gun and some time for the domestic machine gun industry to get up to speed... in terms of the DP light machine gun and the SG43 MMG and then the PKM Kalashnikov machinegun.

UAVs are more complicated than just being a remote control plane.

Garry:that is convincing , but how long it will take to put a serious programs for these eauipments ? ,

This is good for a middle country like India , Egypt , Turky ,but Russia is a superpower that sells a 15B$ military equipments , it's not reasonable to obtain these weapons from a middle country ( it is not about buing it now , it's about depending on those countries for indefinite period ).

Are you serious Russians? To buy thing like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CL-QjbRtwqU
And a Russian member on MP specially made a thread for this news instead of putting it in that big Russian military news discussion thread in case the rest of the world don't know how Russians lose their faces and cannot come to laugh at Russian military industry in time.

xeno wrote:Are you serious Russians? To buy thing like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CL-QjbRtwqU
And a Russian member on MP specially made a thread for this news instead of putting it in that big Russian military news discussion thread in case the rest of the world don't know how Russians lose their faces and cannot come to laugh at Russian military industry in time.

If anybody thinks buying this drone will be a major loss of face for Russia, they are very stupid indeed.

You can think that if that makes you feel better.
Other people won't care about the business term or off-set trade, what people will think is see Russia is so weak, it cannot even produce a decent UAV and has to purchase them from UAE.
It is about the brand value of Russian weapons, it is about the image of Russian military industry.
When Russia compete with other contries for weapon export, the response can be "why should I buy your weapons, you even buy weapons from UAE yourself."
People will just remember Russians begin to buy weapons from middle east from now on. (yes they even forget what weapon and from which country)

You are speculating nonsense.

OMG RUSSIA SO WEAK IT BOUGHT SEVERAL UAVs!

Guess what, nations buy weapons from all over.
If you are implying that someone shopping for T-90s, or S-300, or Su-35s, is goiing to let this UAV buy influence their decision, then I don't know what to say.
That is nonsense of the highest order.

What random kids on forums think is irrelevant.

You are not capable of understanding what I mean, really.

That's because your point is bollocks.

Please.

If buying equipment from a foreign country is weak then there are no strong countries.

The US can't even design its own Tank armour... it currently modifies Dorchester armour, which replaces the Chobham armour they didn't develop either for their best tank... a tank that also uses a German gun and a Belgian coaxial machine gun... why can't the US make a decent machine gun?

Of course they could if they wanted to but when British tank armour is good, why waste time trying to develop their own from scratch?

At the end of the day the Russians need recon drones and they need them now. They already have some in service... they are Russian. The Israeli drones went to training units to train Russian military units to use drones and will likely never see front line service.

The Israelis refused to sell their latest drones... they clearly have an agreement with the UAE to buy some better drones than the Israelis are prepared to sell.

BTW very few countries actually make their own UAV aircraft... many just buy them from other countries like the US or Israel. The UK is one example of a country that buys its UAVs from the Middle East or the US and there are plenty more.

Garry:that is convincing , but how long it will take to put a serious programs for these eauipments ?

The Russians have already been working hard and spending money with Israeli drones used in training centres to develop tactics and train troops to operate these drones effectively. It has also been spending the money to introduce the C4IR network that these drones will contribute data into so that anything useful can lead to rapid action and information can be distributed rapidly to those that need it. The actual drones are a small piece of the puzzle, but like anything... it would not have taken Israel 3 decades and billions of dollars to master them if they were easy.

Buying these drones will get them into service much quicker than waiting for domestic producers to develop something that needs to be tested and integrated and changed and tested again etc etc. Now the bar has been set and the domestic producers just have to make something better than these new systems... it took a couple of years for them to master thermal imaging cameras... it will likely take a couple of years before they are at the leading edge of UCAV design too, but this purchase means the Russian military will not remain blind while it is waiting.

This is good for a middle country like India , Egypt , Turky ,but Russia is a superpower that sells a 15B$ military equipments , it's not reasonable to obtain these weapons from a middle country ( it is not about buing it now , it's about depending on those countries for indefinite period ).

The US seems to be OK relying on Italy for their personal sidearms, or Sweden for their rocket launchers.

Are you serious Russians? To buy thing like this?

What exactly is the problem?

The two wings should allow it to fly at medium and high altitude without having a wing that is so long it becomes a problem.

I really don't see any problem with the design... I am in fact surprised it is not a copy or imitation of another design, which is rather refreshing.

And a Russian member on MP specially made a thread for this news instead of putting it in that big Russian military news discussion thread in case the rest of the world don't know how Russians lose their faces and cannot come to laugh at Russian military industry in time.

What is there to laugh at?

Should Russian members be going to western forums and laughing at western militaries who can't seem to develop truck based ICBMs?

Or indeed the fact that the US has no way of getting humans up to the ISS without foreign help... even China has a rocket available to get up to the ISS but the US has only Russian rockets.

BTW I guess we can laugh at the US because the AAI RQ-2 Pioneer was an Israeli developed UAV that was used by the US Navy, US Marines and the US Army... the US company was AAI, but that is normal practise in the US where if you want a foreign piece of kit to enter US service you have to partner up with a US company to make it appear to be a US development, but of course it is all IAI developed.   

When Russia compete with other contries for weapon export, the response can be "why should I buy your weapons, you even buy weapons from UAE yourself."

Why buy from Russia when Russia imports stuff? Name one country that imports nothing and I will buy you an ice cream.

(and don't say antarctica as they import almost everything...)]

Seeing as how it is for a couple of these UAV's, I see it more as a way to gain acquisition of these planes, and test them, rather than buying it for the armed forces. The other option is possible open trade to further relations with Saudi Arabia, although (IMO), not a good idea.

These are Medium range, long endurance UAV's, which Russia does not make yet. They currently are making a UAV set from Sokol/Transaz, but it isn't built yet, as R&D is still ongoing. With purchasing this, they will get a better understanding of long endurance UAV's that would benifit in both the development of the Sokol UAV, as well as even get troops or specific districts familiar with the use of such UAV's, as there really isn't much in the doctrine atm that indicates the use of UAV's.