UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News #2

They are actively using iranian drones. Certainly not russian made ones.

The have used artillery very effectively for the entire duration of this conflict... are you suggesting they are using telepaths?

Concerning the predator equivalent instead, Russia is developing petrol engines for both drones and light civil aviation on this power range ( as i already posted in the Russian UAV thread), and they can either develop a new drone or possibly more easily do a russian derivative of the Iranian shahed 129 with Russian engines and russian parts.

Their urgency for murderbots is not as great as it is for the leaders of the free world and beacons of democracy for the world...

Suicide drones would not have been a lot of use previously... when hundreds of men are on a suicide charge and eye in the sky directing artillery fire is more valuable than a single or even half a dozen bots carrying bombs... the eye in the sky can continue to watch while artillery delivers tons of ordinance until the job is done... even the most powerful predator drone might have a dozen guided missiles at best... that often cost more than the vehicles and targets they are hitting.

Even their soldiers complain that they lack drones.

Of course soldiers complain about a lack of drones... have you ever met a soldier?

With 10 thousand drones flying around the front line how does your air defence differentiate between your drones and theirs?

Are they going to ask their soldiers to display the purchase receipts?

Are you going to ignore all those drones operating over the front lines and do nothing and assume they are all friendly?

They are shooting down 1-2 dozen drones every day... how are they going to go with 10 times that number of drones in the air... some friendly and some not.

Now that iranian drones are doing the job, they write this piece of propaganda to try to save the face.

The enemy has flooded the front lines with bodies in a counter attack... it is a good time to use some suicide drones but the bulk of the killing will continue to be artillery drones and accurately delivered artillery.

The main practical difference will be they will likely now start showing the results of the suicide drone attacks which is going to be great for their propaganda war... except it comes via the internet controlled mostly by the evil west so all their new victories will be censored as too violent to be shown.

The S-70 Okohtnik was very likely to become a successor to the Su-25 and therefore an attack (heavy) unmanned drone.

S-70 is a wingman drone that will likely operate with fighter aircraft rather than in CAS roles.

Heavy HALE and MALE drones on the other hand would be rather good to operate with Su-25 and attack helicopter types looking for enemy positions and fire positions in real time as the Su-25 and helicopters operate giving them warning and information about the targets and threats around them.

The information they gather could also be used by platforms further back using standoff weapons and munitions to hit well hidden or protected targets.

My first "pick" for a unmanned fighter aircraft might be the GROM..It is possible that I am wrong, time will tell. The projected flight height is up to 12,000 meters, which is not too much, but not too little. After all, this picture is just a mockup and there will be many more changes.
That's just my opinion and nothing more..

I suspect GROM might be quite fast and relatively stealthy and be more of a strike platform.... HALES and MALES will have very long thin wings like a U-2 spy plane or a glider for very long range cruising using optics and radar and other equipment looking for targets and threats on the battlefield for extended periods of time.

HALE and MALE are high and medium long endurance platforms respectively... ironically arming them up just reduces their endurance... maybe carrying one or two bombs in a bomb bay might allow important targets of opportunity to be engaged... those new 110kg missiles with the 30kg warhead and 40km range to replace the Kh-25 family of missiles would be rather interesting and useful weapons too... especially an anti radar model if the enemy try to shoot your drones down.

If they can't supply cheap small civilian quadcopter then they are doomed.

You can buy them online for tens of dollars to few hundred for better ones. They also have chinese support who produces most of civilian drobes worldwide yet they strugle getting them.

I doubt they want thousands of drones with unsecure datalinks and video feeds flying around the place for HATO to intercept, and to distract friendly AD from shooting down enemy drones.

They had quad copter drones at their training facilities in the last few years, there is no evidence at all that they lack anything except for soldiers who always want toys to make their jobs easier.

The problem of the russian army and MiC is the same as yours. They keep beleiving in their own lies instead of facing their issues.

The Russian army has lots of problems... if a lack of toys for friendly soldiers is one of them then they are pretty well set.

The EU and HATO and US on the other hand needs an IADS to operate in the 21st C... who is going to pay for that?

Buying iranian drones didn't kill them. It was a fast solution to a big problem. They seem to be ashamed to admit they don't produce everything and have needs that can be quickly fullfied by external suppliers.

For all we know they bought them 10 years ago and they have been sitting in stock waiting for this phase of the police action.

You can lust all you want about large Reaper like drones, but they have very limited use against a country with serious AD capability.

We have seen how easy larger drones are to shoot down when you don't have air control... such drones would be useless except in luring out any remaining BUK and S-300 system.

I would say flying some oversized drones packed with EW and flares and chaff and perhaps targeting pods to look for incoming threats to get them to use up their heavy SAMs.

I have the impression that drones somehow are wunderwaffle in some heads.

They are magic as long as they have a video datalink to show their attacks in real time video... you know... like we didn't get from various attacks like the Moskva or that snake island video showing the Orc helicopter being destroyed as it landed... once you capture the video you can turn a defeat into a victory... no wonder the west loves them so much...

On hand you have soldiers complaining about lack of drones and russians buying iranian drones because they have no other solution...

....and...

...on the other hand you have you a random dude saying there is no problem with drones.

On the one hand you have experienced western special forces volunteers saying fighting for Kiev is crap... totally corrupt and no air support and no artillery support in combat on the front lines because their planes get shot down and their artillery prefers to shoot civilians who don't shoot back, while the Russians have excellent air power and excellent artillery that is devastating the Orc armies... but you are pissing your panties over a lack of small drones for the LDNR...

Even the russians are saying they have a huge gap in drones and you still manage to say everything is fine. Stop your pro russian bullshit.

The sky is falling because troops on the front line don't have their own personal drone... stop your pro Orc bullshit...

Ukrainian managed to make a far better use of their chinese civilian drones than russians with their military drones.

Is that why they are in such a good position in this conflict?

Chinese drones turn tide for nazis... news headline never seen anywhere.

Their drone tech is shitty. Their production is worse.

Their special forces and artillery all seem to have drones, which are clearly doing the job.

The fact that truck drivers and cooks don't get their own drone is not actually a problem.

Russia is strugling finding few HIMARS that are runing on the front during the day without cammo.

No one said drones maje you win a war and are the only weapons there but they are valuable.

All of the rockets they fire directed at military targets are being shot down.... how many do you think HATO could shoot down before they run out of SAMs?

Funny all the planes and drones and artillery rockets shot down and no mention they might run out of SAMs from western sources... don't you think that is odd?

Western SAMs might be one per dozen HQs and the small number of SAMs they turn up with might be all they have been allocated... and still not hit anything with them...

But tiny short ranged suicide drones are important...

They manage to hit Odessa with them. Lancet et Kub have less than 40km range. Their warhead is also huge with a big fuel tank that burn the target.

It's a real power up for them.

Might come as a shock but their cruise missiles and air launched missiles and ship launched missiles and sub launched missiles often have ranges much greater than 40km and also bigger warheads too.

These drones are a huge step down in range and power... and they are noisy... if the enemy had plenty of AD available these drones wouldn't last long at all.... but at this stage of the conflict with most of Orcs AD destroyed or hiding and scared and concentrated defending their frontline positions, then drone attacks on the territory they hold will force the Orcs either to accept losses or to spread their AD thinner... making it even less effective.

Like I said and I can repeat it, maybe you will listen. Drones have their purpose and have much higher outcome on the battlefield if they are used to provide real time intel and provide targets for the Artillery. The Kamikaze drones or armed drones are useful mainly as psychological warfare tool to demoralize the already demoralized troops.

You are right.... western audiences love them because they come with video... and instead of being massively over priced like most military hardware they are only moderately over priced. Russia has been using cheap artillery shells and dumb rockets to massacre orcs in enormous numbers but the west is upset they are not using expensive drones instead...

Euh, yes the frobtline shifted and russians retreated and now are mobilizing.

Nothing at all to do with Orc use of drones which get regularly slapped down every day by AD.

Their drones are used effectively and their Himars too. With the few they had they managed to hit plenty of russian ammo stocks.

That is a lie... if they could use their drones effectively then Himars would be able to hit more than fixed targets like bridges and prisons holding nazi orcs who might tattle tale at an international court of law...

The fact that their drones are worse than useless means they don't hit the Russian military as much as they hit civilians at markets.

They also managed to hit a fucking airbase and destroy plenty of su-30 and su-24.

Blah blah blah....

Ukrainians are fighting very well even if they lack weaonery advantage.

They are fighting like nazis... their own civilians have more to fear than the Russian soldiers do.

Very good point, it is indeed sabotage. Not the systems but lax in the counter intelligence at the time.

I very much doubt a lack of counter intel on Crimea... I would expect an accident or fire or some such thing.

BTW it is interesting that they are talking about forward swept wing technology being used on drones.... this is excellent.

For those not familiar a swept wing means you can fly a bit faster with lower drag than with a straight wing, but if you look at early swept wing fighters a lot of them had wing fences on the tops.

This was to stop or reduce what is called spanwise flow where instead of flowing over the wing and creating lift (as well as a little drag), the airflow turns and travels down the sweep of the wing and leaves the wingtip creating a huge vortex that creates massive drag.

With a forward swept wing the spanwise flow moves inwards towards the fuselage and reaches the wingroot and does not create a giant vortex.

This means more lift and less drag so the wing can be smaller and lighter, which also means less drag and better lift... so you can use a smaller less powerful engine...

The core problem with a forward swept wing is when it generated lift it would flex up... which on a wing increased its angle of attack... which increases lift further which flexes it more.

With a conventional wing the wing would rapidly rip off, so composite materials were developed that could flex in one direction but not the other.

The X-29 is a T-38/F-5 aircraft used to experiment with forward swept wings in the US and was a neat little aircraft.

The main problem of course is that they are not great for supersonic flight and ideally the wing should be kept clean for best performance and rigidity so no wing pylons.

Not a problem for a 5th gen fighter with its weapons internally in bays, but not so good for other types.

Most of the aircraft drones produced in Russia do not meet the tactical and technical requirements of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Well that is odd because listening to most posters here any old piece of crap drone will do... imagine that...

the military department "is forced to go for simplification, for additional agreements, for the acceptance of UAVs into operation in experimental mode."

Well duh... if the military doesn't know what features and capabilities it wants how are the designers supposed to work it out without going to a conflict and testing their equipment in the field and talking to the users...

Drones, perfect or noit perfect are needed.

Shit drones are not needed at all.

Crap drones that are noisy and easy to shoot down are worse than useless.

The issue of low production rates is the worst one. Its pathetic that an unmanned cessna is so hard to m ass produce.

How long would such a platform operate over front line positions?

Incredible that people claim Su-34s and Su-35s are rubbish, but some piece of unmanned junk is somehow the solution for everything...

Might as well start producing U-2s again and go all night witch on the ukrainians, since overglorified robot cessnas and college project model suicide planes with cameras are sooo difficult to make.

Except U-2s would be slaughtered if they operated during the day during WWII... they are better off supplying the front line with artillery shells and recon drones which clearly get results.

very easy - constantly changing requirements can never be fulfilled. I dont work in UAV sector but I've seen projects killed by a constant changing of requirements

Made worse by most military not really knowing what features they want anyway.

to have a mas production you need to build a factory first and train people and implement an efficient production line. That cost time and money. MoD seems to go cheap always.

But limb is a two year old and he wants what he wants right now... or Putin gets fired obviously.

Are you trying to say that good old neoliberal policies so popular with Russian government structures, crept in MoD, as well

I think he is more likely suggesting that Limb would only be happy of the Russian military could make cheap but effective drones like his ass produces shit...

That might only be once a day though, and so they really want production ramped up to match his mouths production... several times a day and more when something happens and Kiev ups its propaganda for the day.

The Ministry of Defense declared non-compliance with the requirements of most Russian drones

Most of the aircraft drones produced in Russia do not meet the tactical and technical requirements of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. This was stated on Tuesday, September 28, by the representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Colonel Igor Ishchuk, during the round table "Prospects for the development of unmanned vehicle technologies in the Russian Federation".

"The Ministry of Defense has developed appropriate tactical and technical requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles. And most manufacturers, unfortunately, are not able to fulfill them. And the main problem of non — fulfillment is the element base, " Ishchuk said.

According to him, in connection with this situation, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is forced to go to simplification and additional agreements, to accept drones into operation in a pilot mode.

In addition, Ishchuk added that the most popular unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the army are radio-technical intelligence drones.

Ishchuk also noted that the Russian Defense Ministry today needs drones with a noise-proof navigation receiver and at the same time an acceptable price category.

"These aircraft should, of course, be equipped with radiation warning devices, friend-foe systems, and they should be easy to handle," the representative of the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation showed footage of the work of UAV units of the Airborne Troops, which discovered and destroyed the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) with personnel and equipment hidden in a forest plantation.

Before that, on September 26, Izvestia showed footage of strikes on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces using a copter with suspended ammunition. It is reported that the drones of the assault group are fighting along the entire front line, they are considered indispensable air soldiers.

On September 16, the Russian Defense Ministry showed footage of Russian gunners actively interacting with unmanned aircraft to perform combat missions as part of the special operation to protect the Donbass. UAV units use quadrocopters to attack personnel, military equipment, and militant positions.

Also on September 15, Izvestia military correspondent Valery Trushnin showed the reconnaissance work of drones in the Ugledar direction. According to the journalist, a lot depends on the skills of intelligence officers. The Armed Forces of Ukraine actively use mock-ups and create false targets to cause artillery fire on them. If you hit such an object, you can reveal your own positions.

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.aaee5b98-63344dad-2659ec98-74722d776562/https/iz.ru/1402199/2022-09-28/mo-zaiavilo-o-nesootvetstvii-trebovaniiam-bolshinstva-rossiiskikh-dronov

An official statement to back me up.

Actually an official confirming I am right and you are totally wrong.

Did you not read what he said?

Ishchuk also noted that the Russian Defense Ministry today needs drones with a noise-proof navigation receiver and at the same time an acceptable price category.

"These aircraft should, of course, be equipped with radiation warning devices, friend-foe systems, and they should be easy to handle," the representative of the Russian Defense Ministry said.

They want cheap drones that cannot be jammed... ie noise proof navigation receiver means encrypted datalinks for control and video feeds... cheap obviously, and self defence equipment to warn it when it is being tracked, as well as an IFF system so friendly forces wont shoot it down by accident.

Iranian drones might have some of those features but are unlikely to have a working IFF system compatible with Russian air defence systems.

Perhaps the real reason they send them to attack Odessa is because they are not IFF ready so launching them at rear areas means they are not a problem for wasting Russian AD missiles. The secondary reason being that it will force the Orcs to spread their AD equipment around the place because they care about the propaganda war and while suicide drones are effectively insignificant in terms of their actual effect, the psychological effect is enormous and seriously counters their propaganda... unless they want to play the victim card... Russians using V3 terror weapons against them... please help by sending F-35s.

Being cheap and expendable suggests they want to use them in huge numbers, but this is only small drones... there are no drones Forepost or bigger that are cheap except when compared with western aircraft prices.

Russians were too busy with useless nuclear torpedoes and nuclear missiles that have no use on any battlefield, neither are they needed during WW3 since topol M can di the job for the next 50 years easily.

Hahahaha... those useless nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles are the main reason the west has pussied out and has not sent HATO troops to defend their very dear and deeply loved Nazi allies in Kiev.

TOPOL is not enough... so many bureaucrats in Europe to kill...

I would say that Yars was the best idea to keep development and expand upon in terms of nuclear arsenal and working for hypersonic glide warheads for it. I didn't really see a need for more beyond that but I'm not in the know either.

As for drones, I can see the need mostly for suicide drones and ELINT drones as very important. Strike drones not so much either unless you can replace suicide drones with strike drones carrying more munitions. But there is a need to make them work in tandem (elint) for fighter jets and rest is handled by either copters or strike planes.

The reason why Russia has been slow at integrating drones beyond observation drones, is because of the need for them and how to fit them in.

Since Iran has made all kinds of drones either from own or captured, plus used tons of them for years, it makes sense to grab what you can and use them, then learn if you need them.

Even now strike drones comes in so many packages in Russia that there is a redundancy issue. In reality, Orion is probably best suited for them and not much else, even the stealth drone I don't necessarily see a need for beyond replacing Orion. But it should be in the end more based upon how cheap it is along with effectiveness.

So yes, Russia can learn a lot from someone else's effort and they are doing it. I think maybe due to how popular and fact they are localizing production of the Iranian suicide drones, that in near future they will have their own design.

The reason the Russians are moving to 57mm calibre AA guns is the rounds are big enough for guided shells to hit manouvering targets as well as command detonated airburst shells for hitting small targets.

Either way lots of drones big enough to destroy the vehicles they hit but small enough to be difficult targets for AD is the perfect niche for the Russians.

These drones carry a powerful warhead that will kill a vehicle so they can't be ignored, but they are small enough to be hard to hit.

The key there of course is if you ignore them they will do significant over time to your forces, and if you try to engage them you are going to burn up a lot of cannon and small arms fire ammo... which in itself can be dangerous too. You are also likely to use up SAMs that you therefore wont be using against aircraft or incoming munitions... which is also good news too.

But why not take a good idea and make it better.

They currently have no vehicles in service with that 100mm gun so everything would need to be largely built from scratch, but why not adapt something that is already in use.

The 152mm Coalition has excellent range which suggests a high velocity shell... standard shell weight is in the 40kg weight range so a slightly lighter shell could be developed that is essentially a guided round... 152mm calibre and up to perhaps 50kgs is lots of room to work with... they already have guided 152mm shells but 40 odd kgs of HE is way too much for most drone targets... add ramjet propulsion and you could be shooting down aircraft as well...

The point is that you want something mobile and with good gun elevation and ready to fire ammo... Coalition is already to go into service including a reloading vehicle, it has the gun elevation to aim at all sorts of targets... with guided shells you could already air burst rounds out to 70km... new special munitions could be developed and it is already going to be used as a naval calibre so the Army and Navy will already be using the gun...

You could make a unified model that does both artillery and AA with the purpose being decided by what rounds you load.

You could have rounds with a reload vehicle for AA use on the vehicle so if the battery comes under counter battery fire you could disconnect the reloading vehicles and as you are leaving a few guns could shoot at the incoming enemy rounds and rockets to cover the retreating vehicles.... or you could all stay and continue to fire... some shooting down the counter battery threats and others targeting the sources of those incoming rounds...

If you are dragging a gun back into service at least make it a useful dual purpose calibre... the 57mm S-60 gun calibre makes sense with airburst and guided shells and its APFSDS is good for light vehicles too.

Returning a 100mm calibre with old towed guns makes little real sense no matter how many they might have in storage... but if they do have a few they should donate them to Iran obviously.

The 152mm guns are new builds and are going to be used widely by the Navy and the Army so adding proper AA shells for use against drones and other threats adds capability to existing guns.

Another option would be to use 125mm smoothbore tank guns which they also have in large numbers for which they already have guided shells too and it is already a high velocity... an APFSDS round with ramjet propulsion and the ability to steer could be used against very high altitude threats... but then you will have the new 152mm calibre tank guns they developed that will have APFSDS rounds too so use those projectiles with the artillery vehicles...

I am thinking the 57mm guns with command detonation shells and guided shells already has most of this already covered...

The thing is that if a drone is operating above 8km it is not a cheap simple drone any more which also means there might be dozens but not thousands.

Guns are for small drones in enormous numbers... fighting cheap with relatively cheap.

Anything operating above 8km can be dealt with using Kornet or TOR or Pantsir but then again an Orion drone with MANPADS under its wings might be a rather cheap way of dealing with such things too...

Yeah, that is true.
Still the conclusion is, that cheap single usage drones costing no more than few hundred $ need an appropriate answer.
A multi-thousand $ complicated, slow in production, and fragile missile is not optimal.
So I really expect some serious revival of medium-to-big caliber guns.

What Iran has done is impressive, but I think the situation for Russia is slightly different but also they can take advantage of their current situation to get the best bang for their buck using existing weapons and systems and equipment and just adding a new type of ammo that could be multi purpose too... I mean a shell that is guided and is designed to send a cone of fragments at very high speed like a directional claymore mine would be very useful for a range of targets.... from light trucks with weapon mounts on the back like in Syria through to use against enemy troops in an open field and operating like a midair claymore.

They are introducing a laser that can shoot down drones at up to 5km, plus they are also introducing HE warhead equipped Kornet missiles with 10km range and 10km altitude performance with cheap laser beam riding guidance, but also SOSNA missiles with similar range and much higher velocity, and of course new 30mm cannon shells that are command detonated airburst rounds and 57mm calibre airburst shells and guided shells... so they are not going to have a shortage of anti drone options including anti drone drones and of course EW weapons too and the new mini Pantsir missiles and new mini TOR missiles on the way as well as brand new 10kg mini missiles they want for convoys to protect them from artillery attack that will be carried in their hundreds...

152mm rounds useful on land and at sea would be very useful and offer plenty of internal volume for all sorts of things like EMP jammers or ramjets to extend range and improve manouver performance to that of a conventional drone.

BTW, folks, have any of you checked this Shahed/Geran thing from the targeting system perspective?
Lots of strikes are carried at night, so the conclusion is that needs some night vision system.
LLTV or IIR? scratch
The thing is cheap as hell, really interesting what "cheap" means from the Iranian perspective

Third generation QWIP Thermal Imagers are like CCD camera chips but detect IR light instead of visible light... producing them in enormous volumes and the price should dramatically drop to reasonable levels and the image quality is excellent.

Already used on LMUR missiles and the new Kh-69.

Looks good but the radar will make the target suspiscious and will be able to recognize it once it is put in the memory of the plane. So if it get locked only thing it need to do is correct its trajectory and the round will miss.

For a 20km range system Pantsir will be a better solution because missiles also correct their trajectory.

Manouvering targets require guided rounds (guided shells or missiles), but optical guidance could be used for missiles and guided shells... target information from optical or IIR sources would allow the gun to aim the shell towards a predictable intercept point so the shell would not need to do very much manouvering at all.. it might only need to turn a few degrees to impact the target.

For seriously manouvering targets it only makes sense to fire a guided shell or missile.

Such guns are good for close engagement like 5-8km max because the target won't react fast enough. For such range having a 57mm is way better since it means smaller vehivle harder to detect. At such range this big gun will be picked up by a EO system or airborb radar mounted on drobes or choppers easily.

Having an IADS larger calibre guns suffer from longer flight time for further away targets, but a group of incoming swarms of drones a 50kg EMP warhead could be GLONASS guided to fly through the middle of the swarm and detonate in the middle... a HE FRAG round could use steel balls to shatter as many of the drone swarm as possible too.

A 57mm gun in comparison might fire a burst of 3-4 shells to air burst amongst an approaching group of drones.

I don't think there is a single answer to the drone problem and that multiple solutions used together would give the best coverage, but even the best system will let some get through.

A 50 round burst of 30mm cannon shells that airburst amongst drones in flight would be a very good way of dealing with very small targets like drones which would otherwise be rather difficult to deal with.