Russian Army Robots

Still, we got all those robots tried and tested, some put officially into service.
That new robot is lighter than most of these, sure, but from the rest we saw
nothing or maybe one single unit moving around behind the front.

https://rostec.ru/news/robot-saper-shmel-poluchil-novyy-tral-dlya-effektivnoy-borby-s-lepestkami/

The High-Precision Complexes Holding of Rostec State Corporation has modernized the remotely controlled MGR-4 Shmel humanitarian demining vehicle. The sapper robot was equipped with a new improved compact trawl, which simplifies the transportation of the vehicle and allows for more effective neutralization of anti-personnel mines, including small-sized "Petals".

The new trawl has a reduced size and weight, which makes it possible to transport a robotic vehicle in the back of a conventional truck in a fully assembled form. It is also equipped with additional minesweeping elements - firing pins, which do not give even the smallest anti-personnel mines a chance to "hide".

Such equipment is especially in demand in new regions, where the enemy is using inconspicuous PFM-1 Lepestok mines against the civilian population and intensive humanitarian demining work is underway. The updated Shmel is being demonstrated for the first time at the High-Precision Complexes exposition at the Expotechnostrazh exhibition.

"Bumblebee" is a modern system with remote control. Robotization of the machine makes it possible to eliminate direct human participation in hazardous processes, minimizes the risk for sappers and increases the speed of demining. The new mine sweeper is capable of clearing a wide range of anti-personnel mines, including small-sized pressure mines. The main purpose of this equipment is to help quickly establish a peaceful life in new Russian regions," said Bekkhan Ozdoev, Industrial Director of the Armament Complex of Rostec State Corporation.

The humanitarian demining vehicle was developed on the basis of the Ant-1000 mini-loader by the enterprises of High-Precision Complexes - the Kovrov Electromechanical Plant and the All-Russian Research Institute Signal. Earlier, Rostec showed tests of the demining complex in the NashCrash project.

The Expotechnostrazh exhibition takes place from 3 to 5 April 2024 in St. Petersburg. The event brings together leading Russian manufacturers and specialists in the field of security.

They have a lot of interesting designs with rifle calibre machine guns and heavy machine guns, but I think the de-mining drones are going to be very very important too.

Of those pics Hole posted above the first picture is interesting because the height of the turret would give the gun a good field of fire and good observation while the troops can keep low and avoid enemy fire while still moving forward.

The second pic with the two drones is interesting... the vehicle on the left has a 7.62x54mmR four barrel gatling gun... that is real fire power... this is what it looks like when fired:

GarryB wrote:They have a lot of interesting designs with rifle calibre machine guns and heavy machine guns, but I think the de-mining drones are going to be very very important too.

Of those pics Hole posted above the first picture is interesting because the height of the turret would give the gun a good field of fire and good observation while the troops can keep low and avoid enemy fire while still moving forward.

The second pic with the two drones is interesting... the vehicle on the left has a 7.62x54mmR four barrel gatling gun... that is real fire power... this is what it looks like when fired:

It use electric movement only or mixed it with gas use?

I believe it is one of their very few guns that are electrically powered.

Most of the rest AFAIK is all gas driven... presumably with compressed gas starters.

AFAIK the only standard uses for these light guns is in the nose of a Ka-29 troop landing helicopter and in the gun pods their helicopters sometimes carry with one 12.7mm four barrel gatling (from the Hind) and two of these rifle calibre gatlings on either side.

Great for long range hosing of large areas of ground with lots and lots of bullets very very quickly.

Would obliterate a target at close range.

Looks like a mine clearing vehicle

Hole wrote:
Looks like a mine clearing vehicle

I think THOSE kind of robotized vehicles, Yogether with logistical ones are BY FAR the most useful ones. Not URAN-9 or other armed gadgets.

New "Stalker" mine clearing robot.

Som far drones/robots form both sides are hardly autonomous. Usually machine controlled directly by human. But with current pace of AI devlopment it wont be long to have new autonomous robots im afraid ...


BTW I wondered why Russians didn't use YakB 12.7 mm gun... It might be an interesting suppression fire weapon.

There was a video with lots of robots including the datasheet shown on post 631 above and I noticed a few including the one shown in post 631 above were blurred.

It looked like a machine gun... perhaps it is a weapon they are not ready to reveal yet?

Looks like a mine clearing vehicle

It has a mine clearing system on it but I suspect it might be a drone you can send up to an enemy position like a trench or perhaps even a building that can drive up and launch this mine clearing munition... they fired them at trench lines dug in small forested areas and they seemed to be rather effective.

I think THOSE kind of robotized vehicles, Yogether with logistical ones are BY FAR the most useful ones. Not URAN-9 or other armed gadgets.

They could be multipurpose too... that drone with the mine clearing system on top could be sent to the front line where an enemy trench is causing problems... it could creep up close to the trench line and then launch that tube of explosive and detonate it and then as it is heading back it could take any injured soldiers back with it. It could also bring forward other ammo like hand grenades and ammo too.

BTW I wondered why Russians didn't use YakB 12.7 mm gun... It might be an interesting suppression fire weapon.

I suspect the distances they could see at night and all weathers that the rifle calibre machine gun was more cost effective and more stable when firing. The rifle calibre ammo would be plentiful and the drone could carry rather more than it could carry heavier ammo.

The larger calibre gun is also heavier and the ammo would be heavier too.

Short bursts would deliver a swarm of rounds around the point of aim which should assure a hit because they would impact all around the point of aim so no dodge could safe you.

Many of the drones are telecontrolled devices rather than robots, but I would say most can be given a line of advance and to detect a highlight the targets it detects for the operator to decide if opening fire is the solution.

This would allow it to also take prisoners.

I wonder if the "Stalker" chassis can be used for a combat model.

It can roll over you. 
But seriously...
The thing weighs some 27 tons or so.
The chassis should be able to carry some heavy stuff.

Waiting for western propaganda to show the Mine clearing robots with the mine flails and saying the are used against surrendering Ukrainian soldiers to pummel them to unrecognisable pulp.

Actually that would be the best vehicle to have in a zombie apocalypse if you could get it to run faster and have more flails on the sides and rear...

The-thing-next-door wrote:I wonder if the "Stalker" chassis can be used for a combat model.

Stalker is a light weight 2S6 chassis adopted for "vsyomayuschy" Frankenstein
The thing above is a caterpillar.
There is a difference you surely see

Hole wrote:It can roll over you. 
But seriously...
The thing weighs some 27 tons or so.
The chassis should be able to carry some heavy stuff.

My question was more about the position of the engine and cooling systems and if they would obstruct the placement of weapons, though I guess Russia has zero hull penetration turrets like the Epokha.

GarryB wrote:

BTW I wondered why Russians didn't use YakB 12.7 mm gun... It might be an interesting suppression fire weapon.

I suspect the distances they could see at night and all weathers that the rifle calibre machine gun was more cost effective and more stable when firing. The rifle calibre ammo would be plentiful and the drone could carry rather more than it could carry heavier ammo.

The larger calibre gun is also heavier and the ammo would be heavier too.

Short bursts would deliver a swarm of rounds around the point of aim which should assure a hit because they would impact all around the point of aim so no dodge could safe you.

A 4-barrel 12.7mm gun can also create a swarm. In a Russian document I found, there's a story about a Mi-24 helicopter unleashing bursts from a YakB gun on a bus carrying Mujahedins. Not only were all the occupants dead, but the bus was...cut in half. With a 12.7mm gun, there's no wall in urban terrain that can save you, nor any tree. Weight? Yes, it weighs more, but a drone weighing tons, with 40kgs or more of weapon weight and 100 more of ammo, does not make much difference to me

It is funny you mention that because from combat experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s the Soviets realised that the 12.7mm HMG round is just more powerful than it needs to be and that for use against enemy infantry that a duplex round was developed and used in combat.

A 12.7 x 108mm HMG round has a very large very heavy bullet that is overkill when shooting at people (especially in the 1980s when they were not wearing even basic body armour). A duplex round fits two projectiles... one in front of the other with one round sticking out so you use two lighter projectiles that equal the weight of the original round so the muzzle velocity is similar so for every shot two bullets are launched. The rounds are still rather larger diameter than a rifle calibre round and are moving at the same velocity as a HMG round so both can kill a human target at any range you manage to hit them at.

It meant that when firing at top rate of 5,000 rpm the gun was actually launching 10,000 projectiles at the target per minute.

Now if the target is light vehicles or people behind sand bags then normal 12.7mm rounds will be rather more useful, or if the targets are wearing body armour then the heavier rounds will be more effective in getting actual kills rather than just injuring them.

The heavier round also lets you engage some types of fortifications as well... a couple of sandbags will stop a rifle calibre round but it wont stop a HMG round.

The larger calibre guns certainly have a role to play, as shown by the Russian use of HMG mounted on bipods and carried forward by troops, and a HMG would benefit more from a drone vehicle platform... not just with stability, but also because the weight of carrying a useful amount of ammo would be significant.

A drone would also be stabilised so you are more likely to actually hit what you are shooting at, have enough ammo to be fired quite a bit and have optics and night vision capacity to take advantage of the extra range capacity of the more powerful round.

Where a drone with a PKM might reach targets at 1.5km a HMG based system, whether a Kord or gatling, should reach 2.5km quite comfortably and carry rather more ready to fire ammo than a weapon being carried.

There is also the other step up with the 6 barrel gatling used in the Su-24 and MiG-31 which uses a 23mm shell and a firing rate of over 10,000 rpm... but the round is only 23x115mm so similar in length to a HMG round and with a muzzle velocity of only 700m/s so recoil is not too excessive.

At that rate of fire... almost 200 rounds per second... you can fire a quarter second burst and spray the target area with 25 rounds of 23mm cannon that explode on impact like a super high velocity cluster bomb... devastating against troops in the open or soft targets like vehicles.

Shoigu on tour:

Medevac light


Kornet carrier

Medevac robot

Weapons carrier/Service robot with ammo, food containers and stretchers

I understand that in one of the videos those stills are taken from Shoigu mentions that HMGs are a good idea in terms of supporting fire.

With an enemy mostly wearing body armour and in an urban environment the heavier round is not a waste because it can reach targets lighter rounds can't reach.

There was a vehicle there too that appeared to have a rather sophisticated sight mounted directly on the grenade launcher suggesting it was manually fired from the drone by a person using its optics and equipment... presumably the drone just carrying the weight of the weapon and ammo and holding it in place as you fire.

Not as expensive as a proper drone that wanders off on its own offering fire support, more as a donkey that follows the group around and carries water and ammo and weapons for use as required... which of course is also useful.

Some of the footage showing 12.7mm HMG shows it moves about it a bit when it fires, but keeping the bursts very short should allow a decent number of rounds on target. The magnified optics likely with night all weather capable cameras would more than make up for the moving platform.

The 30mm grenade launcher would be ideal for such a vehicle.... good range and able to carry a large volume of ready to fire ammo.

GarryB wrote:
Some of the footage showing 12.7mm HMG shows it moves about it a bit when it fires, but keeping the bursts very short should allow a decent number of rounds on target. The magnified optics likely with night all weather capable cameras would more than make up for the moving platform.

have you seen any non moving barrel while shooting?

The 30mm grenade launcher would be ideal for such a vehicle.... good range and able to carry a large volume of ready to fire ammo.

Not necessarily, considering that some targets are hard to be reached without a flat trajectory, punching power, and grenade arming distance is surely being greater than 0 meters, isn't it?

have you seen any non moving barrel while shooting?

Yes, but not drone vehicles this small... they are more like drone platforms than drone vehicles...

Drone shopping trolleys.

There are larger drones, I think the Americans call theirs mules, that are quite large and are designed to operate with foot patrols where it is motor driven and carries the crews backpacks so they just carry weapons and ammo and it carries water and more ammo and is something to hide behind. It is normally not armed itself and has no optics so it would probably be rather cheap... but nothing US is cheap.

Those drones in the photos at the top of this page would probably not move around during firing. When lobbing grenades even those small drones didn't move around a lot firing 30mm grenades at relatively high elevation because the recoil is directed down rather than sideways.

Not necessarily, considering that some targets are hard to be reached without a flat trajectory, punching power, and grenade arming distance is surely being greater than 0 meters, isn't it?

There is something wrong if the enemy gets to touching distance with these drones... these are not going to drive down into trenches... these will move to positions of overwatch to provide fire support for the unit they are attached to. Most of the time the 30mm grenade launcher drone will likely operate with an airborne drone that flys ahead looking for targets that the 30mm grenade launcher will never get line of sight to... that is the point... when you get line of sight of the target they get line of sight of you... having a large group of trees or buildings between you and the enemy troops with an airborne drone you can locate the enemy and from your position work out elevation and angle of fire and fire off a burst and watch where the rounds land... correct fire and the empty a few drum magazines into them and then move away and they know you are somewhere but no idea where and there will be not much they can do to you.

That is the best way to fight.

A 30mm grenade launcher is a very powerful weapon because it does not need direct hits to take someone out of the fight, their frag radius is actually rather decent. The main problem is the ammo is bulky and heavy so traditionally they were deployed with a light vehicle like a jeep that carried 10 drums and the grenade launcher on a pintle mount. 10 drums is only 300 rounds or so.

The new 40mm grenade launcher will be even heavier... but also more powerful and longer ranged.

In Desert Storm the US military used more 40mm grenade rounds than they used 7.62x51mm HATO rounds, because they are so effective at any range except for 0m of course.