Gliding bombs are good at hitting in deapth for a lower price than a tactical missile. They mostly use kh-29 which according to various sources cost 300k$. A gliding bomb shouldn't be more expensive than a krasnopol shell since it's more or less the same technology.
So what it comes down to is you are unhappy they are wasting money.
The Kh-29 entered service in the 1980s and the Kh-38 is already supposed to be replacing it, so it might still be in production, but they will have stocks of those weapons that would make sense to use up in this conflict.
You would not use a Kh-29 on just any target like a enemy SUV or light vehicle... the Kh-29 has a 320kg warhead for destroying the heavy foundations of bridges and well built buildings, for lighter targets I would expect they would be using up their Kh-25 stocks instead... half the weight at 300kgs and with a 90kg warhead that is 1/3rd the size... in fact the Kh-25 and similar missiles are the weight of the warhead of the Kh-29...
You would use the Kh-29 when you would otherwise be using 500kg bombs, whereas the Kh-25 would be more like a 100kg bomb replacement (the Kh-38 is a 250kg bomb replacement but like the other missiles would be more effective as they have precision and standoff range that iron bombs don't have generally).
Thry have shown various prototypes of gliding bombs.
They certainly have, but the fact that we don't see videos of them being used by either side does not mean they are not using them.
Kh-38 is also not used. They keep using the older kh-25 which was also widely used in Syria.
I have no evidence... just like you... but I would speculate they have tested the Kh-38 in the Ukraine and Syria, but they likely have enormous stocks of the Kh-25 that gets the job done too... why not use the old stuff up first?
However now I agree they experiment many of the new products like izd 305 missile, or kinzhal and so on. But that doesn't necessarly means they have set up production lines for all of them and plan to replace older weapons.
They likely have enormous volumes of the older weapons which still get the job done... it is cheaper to use ordinance that has already been paid for and is in storage than to make new weapons urgently, but obviously they know the old stocks of stuff wont last forever so production of new stuff as well as old stuff for export customers just makes sense.
The Russian MIC is about defending Russia, not about max profit.... they gave weapons to Syria but they didn't dump everything they had on them, their Soviet era stocks were enormous and some of it probably needs to be used up soon... when Russian forces get to Moldova there is probably thousands of tons of ordinance sitting there that needs to be either used or destroyed in place...
They still use dumb rocket from ka-52 when they have projects for guided rockets.
I understand that western MICs want to brainwash experts to think it is better to load machine guns with sniper ammo because it makes them more effective and you can hit precise targets with single shots like a sniper rifle, but a machine gun is a support weapon that is not supposed to be used against precise single targets most of the time.
Dumb rockets from a helicopter are HE Fragmentation and have an effective radius of about 10m... if they all hit the same spot then your volley of 5-6 rockets is lethal over a 10m radius and everything in that circle gets hit 5 to 6 times with 5 to six different rockets... and those precision rockets are not cheap.
When the target is a group of enemy soldiers or soft vehicles or towed artillery deployed and ready to fire then a scatter of 80mm rockets is vastly more effective than a single ATGMs which attack helicopters carry for point targets too BTW.
A competent enemy will not keep their trucks next to their towed guns so firing guided rockets means getting the guns but not much else.
A good scatter of rockets means you get guns and troops and trucks hit with fragments which is vastly more useful... those lofted rockets come down almost vertically which is excellent against troops hiding in forests thinking the trees will stop horizontally fired bullets and rockets (which they will), but near vertically descending rockets will hit upper branches and shower the area in fragments making them even more dangerous that if they just hit the ground.
Overall Russians were not betting on guided tactical weapons and kept the old doctrine of dumb cheap and massive use of unguided weapons for a long time and are now implementing them in their strategy.
They seem to be doing both... those helicopters have rocket pods but also ATGMs so point targets and hard targets can be engaged, but area and soft targets can also be engaged with rockets and cannon fire too.
A retreating or advancing enemy will not bunch up so precision weapons are too expensive to be effective... a scatter of unguided rockets or artillery shells with no guidance but with target coordinates being provided and the targets being observed to check accuracy and if follow up shots are needed make more sense.
Against point targets direct fire rockets from helicopters can be quite accurate, but they need to be fired up close from a very fast very low flying helicopter.
When the coordinates of the enemy are known and you get told they are bolting and which direction they are headed lofting rockets in that general direction is not a waste of ammo and the reported number of Orcs being killed suggests they rather know what they are doing.
The chief designer of Zala Aero offered to re-equip the shopping center for the production of drones
What a great idea... reverse the destructive westernisation of Russia... and build useful drones in good numbers.
Russia had enormous stocks of old weapons in storage for just such an event as this conflict... getting to use up old stocks is a very good thing.... they have millions of old AKs in storage they can hand out to allies, and in combat weapons get damaged or in this case likely worn out.... most of their tanks in the cold war had DShKM HMGs with stacks of barrels for each... the target wont notice the difference between receiving HMG rounds from the different guns they have... wear out older ones first... lots of other weapons like that.
Note the grenades used in these UAVS are the old RGD-5... I would think the F-1 defensive grenades would also be useful for such a job, but they are not using their 1980s era Afghan war era RGN and RGO grenades with more sophisticated time and impact fuses..
They are just using up old stocks... they will increase production of new stuff, some of which will be used but also some will go into storage to replace the older stock being used up.
Some jobs will benefit from the new stuff being used, but for some targets it wont matter that the ordinance is probably older than the soldiers using it.
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