Precision Guided Munitions in RuAF

So essentially compared with a dumb bomb with a glide kit attached these new weapons are slimmer... 300mm calibre, which makes them compatible with 300mm Smerch rockets.

Essentially these new weapons without jet motors are SDBs with guidance, and could be carried by modern fighter aircraft in rather large numbers... they are less than 250kgs so multiple ejector racks for FAB-100 and FAB-250 bombs should probably be compatible.

The addition of being compatible with Smerch means taking off the normal Smerch warhead and replacing it with one of these means propelling these bombs to high super sonic speed, a decent altitude, and 150km plus ranges before they deploy their wings and start their jet engines and continue on their way to their targets.

They don't need the heavy metal bodies of the older bombs so they will be much lighter and with wings optimised to fly long distances their performance should be rather good, but the guidance systems are clearly not expensive and they can be mass produced in significant numbers and delivering them could involve anything from a Tu-22M3M carrying about 70 of them internally an externally and releasing them in a supersonic dash in a zoom climb all individually targeting spots on the battlefield, through to drones small enough to carry a 150kg payload...

This very much is Russia learning in combat and becoming better and stronger.

Russia Starts Mass Production of Three-Tonne FAB-3000 Aviation Bombs - MoD, 03.21.2024.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia started the mass production of three-tonne FAB-3000 high-explosive aviation bombs, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

"[Russian Defense Minister] Sergei Shoigu was informed that the production of FAB-500 aerial bombs has been multiplied at the enterprise, the production of FAB-1500 has been doubled, and since this February this year mass production of FAB-3000 has been organized," the ministry said in a statement.
The range of artillery ammunition produced has also been expanded, the ministry said.

Since last year, the plant's production of modern artillery and aviation ammunition has increased fivefold, the ministry added.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240321/russia-starts-mass-production-of-three-tonne-fab-3000-aviation-bombs---mod-1117472046.html

3000kg glide bomb coming!!! 

Can you guys finally admit now that it's just easier to modify the mk80 series of bombs into PGMs? Russia could use a similar modular system. It definitely doesn't need to be expensive.

Agreed that our bombs are much easier to convert but it looks like they have gotten a handle on it and I do not think it is too inefficient. Yeah damn a three ton glide bomb would be insane. It is important though as it can level old soviet apartment buildings and the like.

Can you guys finally admit now that it's just easier to modify the mk80 series of bombs into PGMs?

No, because Paveway III kits are more expensive than Russian cruise missiles, and using the HE bombs as the HE payload does not seem to make them cheaper.

US bombs are modular so you just remove the tail and put the Paveway III nose piece with the guidance and the tail on the bomb and you have a Paveway bomb.

The problem is that the Russian bombs with their glide kits are cheaper than American dumb bombs and the Paveway guidance kits make them rather expensive...

Russian custom designed laser homing bombs are cheaper than Paveways by a wide margin.

Russia could use a similar modular system. It definitely doesn't need to be expensive.

The Russian glide kits are better than paveway because paveway is a laser homing system but not a glide system.

The Russian glide kits are a glide kit and a guidance kit all at once... and a fraction of the price of the western kits of any type.

Agreed that our bombs are much easier to convert but it looks like they have gotten a handle on it and I do not think it is too inefficient. Yeah damn a three ton glide bomb would be insane. It is important though as it can level old soviet apartment buildings and the like.

The Russian glide kits just attach to the top of the iron bomb and seem simple and easy enough to fit.

They seem to be rather cheap too.

I wonder how high they will go... traditionally I believe there is a FAB-5000 and an FAB-9000 and of course the father of all bombs which is a 11 ton weapon... though it may already have a glide kit built in.

The Russians already had glide bombs like these:





(note they are all glide bombs that do not use a dumb iron bomb as the payload).

[quote="GarryB"]

No, because Paveway III kits are more expensive than Russian cruise missiles, and using the HE bombs as the HE payload does not seem to make them cheaper.

US bombs are modular so you just remove the tail and put the Paveway III nose piece with the guidance and the tail on the bomb and you have a Paveway bomb.

The problem is that the Russian bombs with their glide kits are cheaper than American dumb bombs and the Paveway guidance kits make them rather expensive...

This is nonsense. How much do you think Paveway 3 kits costs? I was more referring to JDAM than Paveway anyway, how much do you think JDAM kits cost?

Yeah, having a modular bomb is much better than building expensive designer bombs in tiny numbers just to fatten the bank accounts of defense contractors in Russia.

Yeah, having a modular bomb is much better than building expensive designer bombs in tiny numbers just to fatten the bank accounts of defense contractors in Russia.

I love the way people in the west like to pretend that the corruption in the Russian MIC is anything like the corruption in the western MIC.

There is corruption in the Russian MIC of course, but it is normally some boss pocketing the money for upgrades or misappropriating funds.

Sometimes they might get something made in China like uniforms or other things and sell them at a markup, but the vast majority of the time things are made in Russia.

Building a guided bomb that is supposed to glide to its target is not helped if you demand standard HE bombs be used as they payload.... that just does not make sense.

Paveway III kits have been horribly expensive over the years... otherwise dumb bombs would never be used.

It is the laser guidance system that costs the money, not the HE payload.

They don't save any money using dumb bombs for the payload... the laser guided bomb is expensive and not cheap... which is what it pretends to be by being a kit.

Everything the Americans buy is too expensive... that is how their MIC operates.

Having to add that nosecap to the stubby bombs is a kludge. They really need to redesign the whole shebang to be modular in the first place.

The cap is nothing, it almost costs nothing , and it helps penetrating deeper.

lyle6 wrote:Now why would they do that when the UMPK system demolishes the JDAM in every single way possible? Boasting significantly better range, better accuracy, a wider variety of payload options, and is manufactured in true en masse - with supplies and tools you would find in your dad's metalworking garage shop from cheap and plentiful off the shelf components.

There's no reason why UPMK couldn't have existed in the early 2000s. Russia should abandon all work on purpose build glide bombs that are probably 5x the price and offer no advantages. Also, future bombs should be modular so it's easier to integrate such a kit instead of having to beg for Makita drills on telegram to make it easier for the technicians doing the installations.

diabetus wrote:

There's no reason why UPMK couldn't have existed in the early 2000s. Russia should abandon all work on purpose build glide bombs that are probably 5x the price and offer no advantages. Also, future bombs should be modular so it's easier to integrate such a kit instead of having to beg for Makita drills on telegram to make it easier for the technicians doing the installations.

With the amount of FAB 500 and 250 in storage

Makitas will be fine for the next decade

Especially when they're wiping out 140 million dollar battery of IRIS on the Frontline from 80km

1 makita 17,000 RUB

1 FAB 45,000 RUB

1 IRIS T 12.6 Billion RUB

Watching it all up in smoke - priceless

Arkanghelsk wrote:With the amount of FAB 500 and 250 in storage
Makitas will be fine for the next decade

How many of them are really in storage given that Russia also had to bomb in the Syrian campaign? The lack of glide kits before the SMO started was a real lack of foresight. Especially after what happened in the Georgian conflict in 2008, when Russia lost a Tu-22M bomber, when it faced upgraded SAM systems with Ukrainian modifications. They knew Ukraine had the S-300PS. They knew they were hostile. They just grew way too complacent after having an easy time bombing targets in Syria.

Having to add that nosecap to the stubby bombs is a kludge.

That is fucking the point. A light sheet metal nosecone that stabilises and smooths out the airflow and and probably costs a dollar of very cheap metal.

If this was an American design they would get the guys who developed the heat shield for the Space Shuttle to talk about it for a year or two and come up with a nanotech stealthy heat shield that they will say is so efficient you don't need the wings any more it will glide anywhere you like.., only $500K a nosecone.

But like any American weapon... they make good money but they don't make a lot because they are too expensive to make in large volumes... like when you need them, like for wars and stuff.

Of course it will have to be stealthy too... and TOR would shoot it down anyway.

They really need to redesign the whole shebang to be modular in the first place.

Which would make it even more expensive because you need to redesign your bombs and then start serial production of those new modular bombs... before you can use the glide kits that are supposed to be cheap because they just use existing cheap dumb iron bombs.

The cap is nothing, it almost costs nothing , and it helps penetrating deeper.

A quick brainstorm session at Boeing and it will put your kids through college... it will be made of carbon nanotubes and be stealthy and super aerodynamic and be shaped like something from a new Batman movie. And cost more than the glide kit.

There's no reason why UPMK couldn't have existed in the early 2000s.

You are right, it is not new technology, it is not 21st Century super materials and super computers... if they had GLONASS fully operational they could have had these working in the 1970s... but they weren't trying to fight HATO on a budget where they can drop thousands of bombs a month accurately and on target, and still keep a growing economy.

It is something the US government has never even tried to do.

Russia should abandon all work on purpose build glide bombs that are probably 5x the price and offer no advantages.

But they do offer advantages... the GROM and GROM 2 are Kh-38 missile tubes with glide wings and can be a powered or unpowered bomb with a decent (powered) or rather heavy (unpowered) payload of explosives. Their other bomb types all have different features and capabilites, but none of them could actually be called expensive.

Also, future bombs should be modular so it's easier to integrate such a kit instead of having to beg for Makita drills on telegram to make it easier for the technicians doing the installations.

Why would you think modular things don't need tools? Making future bombs more expensive does not make things cheaper.

UMPK is already cheap and already works with all the bomb types they currently want it to operate with.

It is already cheaper than anything the west uses, why change anything at all?

Nonsense. You're only butthurt because Russia's macguyver hat trick ended up with a solution that is superior in every way to the one painstakingly developed by the airpower centric US over decades. Cope and seethe.

Exactly. The point of modular design is to make it simpler and cheaper... Russian/Soviet bombs are already simple and cheap... which is why they developed glide kits for them, and also why they developed the Gefest & T delivery hardware and software so such bombs can be delivered accurately from altitudes that are safe from most short range air defence systems.

How many of them are really in storage given that Russia also had to bomb in the Syrian campaign?

AFAIK they haven't stopped making them... are you honestly going to claim they are running out... cause that is a meme isn't it?

In fact they have increased production and will likely continue at the increased rate for a few years after this conflict is over.

That is why they don't run out.

The lack of glide kits before the SMO started was a real lack of foresight.

Yeah, not as dumb as pissing off the bear...

Who knew the west was that stupid.

Rhetorical question of course...

Especially after what happened in the Georgian conflict in 2008, when Russia lost a Tu-22M bomber, when it faced upgraded SAM systems with Ukrainian modifications. They knew Ukraine had the S-300PS.

Yeah, spending almost a decade signing agreements like Minsk for peace they obviously should have been building up their supply of guided bombs because if there was one thing they learned in Syria is that they will be firing 30,000 artillery shells a week...    

Incredible thing is that the west fights rather more wars and they have never learned that lesson either.

(edit: except it is not Russia that is running out of artillery shells and bombs and missiles... so your actual complaint is that the dumb bombs they seem to actually have enough of are not modular so they could be made in numbers so they could have enough. You want them to spend money to change the design of their cheap dumb bombs to make them... cheap... except it would probably make them cost more because you would have to come up with a mix of low drag and high drag bomb types to replace the M54 and M62 type bombs and yet have them modular.)

They just grew way too complacent after having an easy time bombing targets in Syria.

Yeah, 20 YEARS in Afghanistan made HATO much tougher... they wont run out of tanks or missiles or shells ever... not going to happen... lots of money too...

Not sure if you have ever wondered the "nosecap affair"?
It seems that they have multiple different models of it, suggesting that it is being mass-produced by different suppliers.
A "supplier" is every single garage with a guy that has a sheet of metal ad a metal scissors.
On some rare occasions - a welder purchased for $100 at a local tool store.
Check how it is being attached to the bomb. A band that is being used to stick the UMPK kit to the bomb holds the cap on the same time.
Now you see all the butthurt out there. A $150 kit attached to a bomb made 70 years ago equals supa dupa NATO missiles ...

They really need to redesign the whole shebang to be modular in the first place.

The whole point of the UMPK is that you can fix it at any bomb in the inventory.
Redesigning the bombs would be stupid.

The lack of glide kits before the SMO started was a real lack of foresight.

They planned with purpose built guided and glide bombs.
For a big campaign like the SMO this proved to be to costly.
That´s why they came back to the add-on kit.

They planned with purpose built guided and glide bombs.
For a big campaign like the SMO this proved to be to costly.
That´s why they came back to the add-on kit.

The irony is that their custom made guided bombs and missiles are cheaper than the cheapest guidance kit the west has on offer.

The M54 bomb is designed to be high drag for internal bomb bays or external carriage on multiple ejector racks or subsonic aircraft like helicopters or Su-25s.

Because it is designed to fit into weapon bays and MERs it is short and stubby and fat.

The M62 is designed for aerodynamics for external carriage on faster types like the Su-17 and MiG-27 and Su-24 and the modern multirole aircraft. It is slimmer and longer and more pointy and travels through the air faster.

Of course Su-25s carry M54 type bombs and the Tu-22M3 carries M62 type bombs in its bomb bay, and any aircraft can pretty much carry either type, but the basics are these.

US bombs are modular in the sense that the tails come off and can be fitted to any other bomb of the Mk82 family types... they are not a cure for cancer.

With the Paveway III kit you can attach the sensor to the nose with nose mounted control fins and take off the tail of the original bomb and fit the paveway IIIs tail fins and you have a laser guided bomb.

The bomb itself is not particularly cheap and the Paveway III kit is actually rather expensive.

Newer models of Paveway might be cheaper... but I doubt it.

The Russians are experts at affordable weapons because they want to defend their country from very real threats... for the west the MIC is a con... a way of earning amazing amounts of money and pretending you are being patriotic. In effect they do more damage to the west than Russia ever did... the cost of their corruption is paid in lives.

You talk about Russians having to buy tools on line... what about that British soldier who was killed because he didn't have a flak jacket on because they had run out so he was expected to buy his own. Or tales of HATO exercises in Norway where the troops had to go to the local shops to buy COLD WEATHER GEAR. I mean an exercise in Norway... who could have expected them to need skis?

Russian weapons are cheap and their economy is not suffering, but these UMPK glide kits are making fun of HATO... especially with 1,500kg bombs attached to them and 3,000kg bombs on the way... they actually stopped making them for a bit so they might have some in storage but I doubt they will have enormous numbers of them... but now they are in production they will have what they need soon enough.

There were proposals by the Russian MIC (NPO Basalt) to add glide kits to existing dumb bombs like a decade ago.


The central command just blissfully ignored these in favor of systems like Gefest which made regular dumb bombs more precise. But the thing is Gefest requires you to fly directly over the target. These systems turn dumb bombs into a standoff weapon. Which is what you need against someone who has proper air defenses.

And don't tell me they weren't preparing for a possible conflict with Ukraine. The Russian MoD has been conducting a huge military ramp up since at least 2014. Loads and loads of combat units were raised from nothing and drilled and put into service. I am sure the government still hoped for things to be settled peacefully but they were preparing in case they did not.

I think such a debate, although useful and interesting is becoming a little too heated.
So, here my two cents:

Soviet Union and US had a different doctrine and their weaponry reflect it.
So, Soviet/russian bomb reflect their own and the US reflected their.
M54 was designed to an use and M62 to another and there are many other families of air dropped weapon that fit perfectly their intended scope.

Mk80 is in itself an excellent weapon designed with different requirements and scopes.
They are so not the copy one of the other. even the M62 although designed to be a low drag one is more similar to another Us bomb type the M117 than to the Mk80 series.
Modularity of the Mk80 was an original requirement that predate the Paveway laser guided package and was used to change fuzes and tail assembly so to get retarded or penetrating bombs instead than general purpouse ones.
It worked well with the US own productive model based on standardization and big plant dimension while the one of Soviet/russian fit well them that favour specialization and dispersed production.
Design of a streamlined and modular bomb had a not negligible cost for Americans as the design and production of Paveway first, Jdams in a second time and gliding kits successively but the presence of a common body was indeed a very good thing for them.
Soviet tried to introduce a modular type of bomb, the TT series but concluded that it doesn't added nothing relevant to their own doctrinal and productive model, so they went to the specially built KAB series instead.
It remained still a sort of boutique production and they found instead a much more ingenuos solution in the SVP-24 that worked excellently in Syria.
Now, with the UMPK they have found another smart alternative solution while they wait for the new generation of bombs, specifically designed for fitting in 5 gen bombs bays.
US instead had to design the SMB from scratch to fit into the F-35 bay and now would spend another lotta lot for the SDB II guided version, so everyone got its own problems.

lancelot wrote:
How many of them are really in storage given that Russia also had to bomb in the Syrian campaign? The lack of glide kits before the SMO started was a real lack of foresight. Especially after what happened in the Georgian conflict in 2008, when Russia lost a Tu-22M bomber, when it faced upgraded SAM systems with Ukrainian modifications. They knew Ukraine had the S-300PS. They knew they were hostile. They just grew way too complacent after having an easy time bombing targets in Syria.

Since mass production of aviation bombs is underway, not as many as some think.

lancelot wrote:There were proposals by the Russian MIC (NPO Basalt) to add glide kits to existing dumb bombs like a decade ago.


The central command just blissfully ignored these in favor of systems like Gefest which made regular dumb bombs more precise. But the thing is Gefest requires you to fly directly over the target. These systems turn dumb bombs into a standoff weapon. Which is what you need against someone who has proper air defenses.

And don't tell me they weren't preparing for a possible conflict with Ukraine. The Russian MoD has been conducting a huge military ramp up since at least 2014. Loads and loads of combat units were raised from nothing and drilled and put into service. I am sure the government still hoped for things to be settled peacefully but they were preparing in case they did not.

That kit would have been useless as it didn't have satnav guidance, just stabilization so a long range unguided bomb.

Garry they aren't buying tools online, and the MOD isn't providing them, telegram accounts like Fighterbomber were begging their audiences for donations in order to purchase DeWalt and Makita drills and impact drivers for the ground crews.

As you can see, it's not difficult or expensive as the US had bombs that were simple to modify in WW2...