UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News

A good first step... I would go for a 10 gauge or 8 gauge shotgun where possible for testing and perfecting the system, but ultimately I would go for a 40mm grenade round with a fixed time fuse to detonate a forward firing fragmentation round at a distance of 20-40m or so... that way you could write the firing control code to ensure the grenade explodes in front of the target drone and blasts it directly with shrapnel at close range to ensure it is shredded with each shot, so ammo is not wasted.

They could make millions of rounds that could also be used against ground targets... perhaps one with a twisting time fuse so you can set the rounds for say 40m for use in intercepting UAVs from this UAV, so the fire control system would fire grenades when the target was 50-60m away and the closing speed would mean the grenades would explode 5-10m away from the target and shower it with fragments to efficiently destroy it with one or two shots. Or you could twist it out to a much longer time fuse so the UAV could fly at 1,000m up, so it is pretty much a very difficult target for small arms fire but could fire grenades down at ground targets and shower the ground with fragments with air burst grenades exploding in the air... a few metres up.

It is probably the most cost effective way to deal with terrorist simple Ucavs that are attacking bases... the price of fuel and a few 40mm grenades is cheap and sustainable and there would probably be fights over who gets to fly it in manual mode... the ultimate computer game...

In comparison using Kornet missiles or Pantsir missiles is not super expensive but not cheap either...

Note starting with a 10 gauge or 8 gauge shotgun would enable low cost development and testing to get the UAV manouverable enough and the fire control system accurate enough for the job, but needing to close within 20m of the target to ensure a kill would be harder than using a 40mm grenade which would have a much bigger kill zone.

Of course getting a 40mm grenade designed and built to spec wont be cheap initially either but once they are in production it should become more efficient.

A standard 40mm grenade launcher like Balkan has a range of 2.5km so a shoulder fired anti UCAV weapon with an advanced fuse could be an option in an emergency situation... ie Putin making a speech in public and in flies a UAV... they will have jammers and all sorts of other things but this weapon might be useful too.

I prefer manned helicopters, and think a better solution would be cheap light laser guided rockets to allow accurate powerful attacks from safer stand off distances... a drone helicopter is simply going to get hammered by small arms fire and RPGs and likely wont last very long at all in combat.

It might be OK for police to distract or locate shooters for ground based snipers can take them down...

A simple fixed wing UAV with a gun armament would allow it to be used as a fighter aircraft of WWI or WWII, and use speed to move around the place fairly rapidly and shoot down these nuisance drones that can drop hand grenade like payloads and do some damage... it would also be useful against enemy suicide drones too.

Otherwise you would need to use a more expensive product to deal with the threat like MANPADS or other light SAM like Pantsir or TOR...

Because a drone helicopter is a sitting duck... look at the drones that have been shot down in the past... totally unaware and vulnerable flying level and straight and boom.

A manned helicopter will operate within a team with proper support and will be rather more cautious and with better protection and redundancy in its design will more likely make it home after battle damage.

I don't think a guy in a van playing a helicopter game... no matter how amazing the graphics are... can yet replace a real aircraft with a real pilot... and it seems to me that most countries still buying attack helos with people in them agree.

Why is a unmanned heli a sitting duck but not an manned one?

And I´m not talking about a 200g quadcopter. All important parts of the new 3 ton or heavier heli drones will be armored and even with unguided rockets it will stay out of the reach of assault rifles and even RPG´s.

If they are using unguided rockets then they wont be out of reach of assault rifles or ATGMs... Kornet-EM can hit a helo at 10km range remember...

Plus who is going to put a multi million dollar radar and EO suite on an unmanned helo...

If the Mi-28NM will have a 25km plus range air to ground missile why would you need a drone?

Standoff range and long range sensors in the helo make rather more sense than making expendable drones.

From memory that description of the 25km+ range missile seemed to suggest it used optical guidance with a datalink showing the missile view to impact likely allowing the operator to see it hit the target and presumably steer it in himself if he wanted... such a weapon would be awesome for a HALE or MALE UCAV...

Manned helicopters are using mostly unguided rockets because nobody wants to waste the money a ATGM costs to kill two guys with a machine gun.

Not strictly true... what we have seen in Syria is that rockets are used to stop attacks by the enemy where you have a group that is spread out heading towards friendly troops... a good spread of HE frag rockets is the ideal solution in such a situation.

When the target is militants in a car or a MG position it is much easier to use a Shturm or Ataka, which is a relatively cheap and simple command guided missile that is a fraction of the cost of a Hellfire or other such western missile equivalent...

When the enemy is better armed it makes sense to fire from stand off distances and at such distances gun fire and rockets are not much use.

But it is not about unguided rockets. Heli drones will use all kinds of weapons, including Vikhr-M or Hermes.

But that is the thing... even to use Vikhr they will need advanced optics and sensors that can identify targets 10km away... that just is not going to happen... they will keep it simple for the drones and have a range of options from suicide drones that are intended to go into dangerous places and look... and kill one target when it is spent, through to a drone they can send in to fire gun and rocket from relatively close range... though mostly flying at 3-4km altitude and firing steeply down to maximise accuracy and minimise risk/danger. That latter drone might carry AT-2 and AT-6 and AT-9 type old missiles to use up old stocks at ranges from a few kilometres with cheap missiles against structures rather than tanks... these missiles will most likely be armed with HE Frag warheads rather than more expensive HEAT, because you don't need exotic metal liners in a HE warhead to take out a Toyota ute.

Further back you have the Kamovs and Mils scanning for targets and passing target information to HQ and any ground forces nearby and engaging priority targets like air defence vehicles... basically to protect the drones so they last a little longer.

1) you loose helo you replace with new one no need to replace people an train them

The problem is the difference in performance that comes from the difference in cost.

What you are basically saying is that in war instead of a highly trained SEAL or Spetsnaz, you just give the weapon to a skinny.... if the skinny dies then get another skinny... no training, no protective vest, no expensive night vision and communications equipment etc etc.

What I am saying to you is that there is a significant difference between the performance on a battlefield between a modern attack helo and any drone I have ever seen.

Getting a drone to anything like the protection level of a Havoc means it will need powerful and expensive engines and will need to be big and will need modern and expensive sensors and self defence systems like DIRCMs... if you have all that... how much are you actually saving and how expendable is it really... if you don't then it probably wont last very long so you are going to need hundreds if not thousands of them and for the troops they are supporting they wont be much use except getting the enemy to expend some ammo.

They are going to have the helos anyway... they are making them... so why not add some drones that can support helicopter operations... some can also be helos, but most of the time a fixed wing UCAV flying at 3-5km altitude and firing downwards at targets above small arms fire and a tricky shot for ATGMs or MANPADS because of their small optical and IR signature makes a lot more sense... will last longer, yet provide information over the enemy front line.

Obviously in WWIII you are going to need different tactics because they wont last long with a well equipped well supplied enemy, but as a part of a team they make sense.

2) if every drone is expandable you have to assume that every Mi-28 is also expandable

Military planners have to consider every military unit to be expendable, but some things are more expendable than others, and unmanned platforms are the most expendable most of the time.

I´m not against manned helis. But their main task is still CAS with FFAR´s and guns. For me it is unneccessary and dangerous to use manned machines doing this job. Use sophisticated helis with stand-off weapons against high-value targets (tanks and so on) and less sophisticated drones with guns, rockets and bombs against foot soldiers/terrorists.

I don't disagree, but with these less sophisticated drones... helo drones can land in a small spot and can hover, but most of the time the sort of support you are talking about is better delivered by a cheaper simpler fixed wing drone... the obvious analogy is to compare support from a Hind to support from an Su-25... delivering from higher altitude at higher speed in a dive makes sense in a cheaper more capable platform.

The new more sophisticated helos will be using guns and rockets rather less simply because their short range makes the aircraft vulnerable.

Perhaps some simple gyro stabilised rockets that adopt a more consistent flight trajectory... not guided as such but with a more repeatable and consistent flight path to make them easier to use on more distant targets and to cope better with crosswinds etc could be a cheap way of improving their performance and effective range without making them too expensive to use.