Syrian War: News #23

China should have gotten more involved in the Syrian conflict as an opportunity to see how it is done and to test their weapons and equipment.

They could designate ISIS as internationally accepted terrorists and make it a UN peace keeping type thing...

GarryB wrote :

"....Their problem is not quality of units, but lack of numbers to cover all the potential targets resulting in them using BUK and Pantsir and other air defence vehicles on their own or in pairs instead of in proper batteries as they were designed to be operated......"

The problem of small numbers of units , together with the time it takes to deploy AD units , before they are attacked , needs a new solution . To my mind to solve both problems , then Stealth drones with long distance capability and loiter , with internal payload or stealth external missiles , could be used in air to air engagements .

In this way , quick transfer is possible , by sending drone from land or Sea to designated area . No need for high visibility air transporters or Ships carrying containers to port . Also drones can be directed to any location under attack . A few drones can cover vast areas .

Iranians experimented with drones in air to air roles . New solutions . Also since no pilot , much more useable . Continuous air cover by loiter of drones , over target areas possible .

Not sure they would actually need to be stealthy drones, but the critical problem is that the drones likely wont be shooting down Israeli aircraft, they will be shooting down weapons... and I think ground based systems would be cheaper and more effective for that.

The Israelis burned themselves when they used a Russian intel plane as cover for one attack and the result was Syria was added to the Russian IADS so they could see the air picture over Syria and the surroundings in much greater detail to prevent future mistakes.

Perhaps the Russians should mention to Israel that continued attacks on Iranian forces legitimately in Syria at the government of Syrias request for the express purpose of fighting terrorists, would lead to Russia adding Iranian forces to the IADS and also support and assistance with their air defence systems to help them deal with the threat.

If the presence of Iranian forces in Syria upsets Israel so much then Israel should stop supporting the Kurds and ISIS and let them deal with those groups so eventually there will be no need for Iranian support and they could go home.

Drones flying around looking for targets are not efficient because they could only carry tiny short ranged sensors... they would still rely on ground based sensors to detect an attack and might not get airborne and to the location of the attack in time to do anything about it.

Having thousands of them and basing them near potential targets makes them expensive... that is a lot of AAMs... even if they are air launched MANPADS.

Igla-S missiles would be ideal for such a role... and could probably reach targets 8-10km away fired from above and behind like a helicopter target.

Seeker limitations would reduce that range against drones of course, but the whole advantage of the drone is you can get it up to the altitude of the target and fire it from behind by surprise...

Of course the other issue is flying enormous numbers of drones around the place would be a useful indicator for Israel as to where your sensitive targets are located...

@GarryB

".........Drones flying around looking for targets are not efficient because they could only carry tiny short ranged sensors... they would still rely on ground based sensors to detect an attack and might not get airborne and to the location of the attack in time to do anything about it.Having thousands of them and basing them near potential targets makes them expensive... that is a lot of AAMs... even if they are air launched MANPADS.Igla-S missiles would be ideal for such a role... and could probably reach targets 8-10km away fired from above and behind like a helicopter target.Seeker limitations would reduce that range against drones of course, but the whole advantage of the drone is you can get it up to the altitude of the target and fire it from behind by surprise...Of course the other issue is flying enormous numbers of drones around the place would be a useful indicator for Israel as to where your sensitive targets are located..."

Answer :

Ground based sensors are better than airborne ones . Larger , more sensitive and less likely to be destroyed , or having to be destroyed . The drones are airborne continuously , working in overlapping shifts , no need to launch after attack detected . Dual power , prop for loiter and jet for intercept , solves problem . Variable geometry wings . Do not need many . Fly some inert ones and intercept occasionally over empty desert , to confuse them . Technical problems have solutions . Of course these Drones could also take out SRBM , before or shortly after launch ?

( 1 ) Eject props and then turn jet on . Land with jet power , thereafter . Simplest .

( 2 ) Fold props out of the way and withdraw shaft and props into body . Difficult .

( 3 ) keep props in position , but rotate along prop axis to offer less resistance at speed . Already standard variable pitch design .

.....

DARPA's Gremlin project seeks to address these issues. We can now release drones from C-130s, C-17s that can shoot down enemy aircraft and then we can retrieve these drones back into the C-130 or C-17.

The obvious problem here for Syria and Iran is that if they start operating weapons from transport planes then that would add transport planes and civilian airliners to the list of potential threats which might result in Israel demanding a no fly zone over Syria because there would be no way for them to tell a transport or civilian airliner on innocent business or one about to launch a swarm attack on Israel.

This DARPA programme is about being able to deploy murder bots to a location without needing local permission or a ground base, which turns it from the technically defensive weapons (ie was sold as an anti terrorist system but in the end they killed all sorts of people with them including political enemies...) into something you can send into enemy airspace to take down their air force without risking your own air force.

Spending 120 million per F-35 you would wonder why they needed a substitute for a stealthy fighter, unless it is not effective...

Being able to deploy and recover from a flying aircraft, but hardly amazing considering the Russians were doing that in the 1930s...

Ground based sensors are better than airborne ones . Larger , more sensitive and less likely to be destroyed , or having to be destroyed . The drones are airborne continuously , working in overlapping shifts , no need to launch after attack detected . Dual power , prop for loiter and jet for intercept , solves problem . Variable geometry wings . Do not need many . Fly some inert ones and intercept occasionally over empty desert , to confuse them . Technical problems have solutions . Of course these Drones could also take out SRBM , before or shortly after launch ?

( 1 ) Eject props and then turn jet on . Land with jet power , thereafter . Simplest .

( 2 ) Fold props out of the way and withdraw shaft and props into body . Difficult .

( 3 ) keep props in position , but rotate along prop axis to offer less resistance at speed . Already standard variable pitch design .

The whole purpose of an IADS it to detect threats and attacks with radar keeping track 24/7 so the pilots and ground defence staff can relax and be fresh and ready when needed.

Continuously flying drones is no more sensible than continuously flying manned aircraft.

The prop and jet combination sounds unnecessary and complicated... along with the swing wings.

I would say a tethered airship with large radar array powered through the tether attached to a small building providing power and processing target information... gives early warning and takes away hills and mountains to hide behind.

Spend money on real air defence systems like TOR and Pantsir and when it is ready Pine as well as BUK for standoff high speed attack munitions, and jammers and decoys.

Flying lots of air to air capable drones would likely make the Russian aircraft and civilian aircraft in the area rather nervous and trigger happy themselves.

The debacle in Saudia Arabia show conclusively how effective air power is for self defence from drones and cruise missiles... they are worse than useless.

The shape of this Balloon is interesting . Consisting of many concave internal surfaces . Some parabolic . The F35 has Radar built in contours of leading edge of wings and body . So can Radar antennae be built on internal contour of Balloon ? How are Radar attached to these at present time ? But good idea , if problem is early detection of approaching Aircraft .

Regarding increasing the number of AD units versus building Drones that use smaller number of available or cheaper and shorter range AA missiles , everything else being equal , comes down to costs . If the figure of 90% intercepts of targets by Russian AD is true , then this is a partial victory . The change of tactics by Israel , to use SRBM , is a testament to this success .

But to counter the new Ballistic missile threat , new tactics are needed . There are three possibilities . First is to destroy the missile before launch . Second is destroy the missile during flight . The third is retaliate in kind . If capability exists to stop the launch or destroy missile in flight , then this is best . However if not , then no choice exists but to retaliate in kind .

Iran and Syria can not allow the Zionists to dictate terms . Iran's activities in Syria are legal . Even if they include transfer of military arms . If Russia can not protect all sites by defensive measures , then Syria should exercise it's right to retaliate in kind . I think this to be inevitable .

The shape of this Balloon is interesting . Consisting of many concave internal surfaces . Some parabolic . The F35 has Radar built in contours of leading edge of wings and body . So can Radar antennae be built on internal contour of Balloon ? How are Radar attached to these at present time ? But good idea , if problem is early detection of approaching Aircraft .

That has no rigid internal structure but the envelope would be largely radar transparent... you could place inside the structure or hang below the balloon a radar array of a much larger size than could ever be fitted to any type of aircraft... with power through a tether and of course fibre optics high speed no emission data collection from a ground position.

Russia already makes such things though not on that scale for use in mountains as a communications repeater and also radar detection in places where ground based radar has gaps and airborne radar would be expensive constantly flying 24/7 to give decent radar coverage.

These airships can remain in position for months at a time offering continuous 24/7 coverage... they have sold several systems to the Chinese too.

Even from a mountain safety perspective having an airship at 5km or higher with radio communications... acting like a very large cell tower for cell phones and radio communication devices massively improves communications in mountains without the expense of a cell tower every 2km or so.

In 2015 they were talking about new radar types for airships to carry:

https://en.topwar.ru/79802-kret-razrabatyvaet-novye-antennye-sistemy-dlya-ustanovki-na-dirizhabli.html

Russian Airships:

http://www.rosaerosystems.com/airships/obj17

I think that spherical Balloon is best , least affected by high wind and with Radar apparatus hanging under it . The connection between Radar and Balloon can be on a Roller Bearing . Allowing Balloon to rotate freely , without affecting Radar position . The Radar cage , can have electric fan , power to ground and petrol engine back up for position correction at very high altitude work . In this way , in high wind , Radar can still face target , and only height above ground affected . Photonic !

May have to use missiles of S400 ( saving S400 Radar for later ! ) to hit Lora ! Just imagine if Israel plane launched missiles AND ballistic missiles ALL are proved useless by purely defensive measures .LOL .

Actually I am beginning to thing a wing shape would be best... it would allow the upper surface to be fitted with solar panels, and could be used as a flat surface to launch and recover small drones too and it might allow the use of the trade winds to move at much higher speeds than conventional balloons...

Using hydrogen instead of helium would make it much much cheaper, and the ability to use a fuel cell to convert lifting hydrogen into water ballast and back would make it vastly more efficient than older models. Having the air space between the hydrogen bags purged with nitrogen while the structure made of super light weight carbon fibre and composite materials that are fire proof and it could be rather interesting.

I think a rigid airship should be tested in a carrier support role... the endurance would be valuable and cheaper to design and build than a shipborne AWACS aircraft... it would be fast enough to keep up with any ship or group of ships... and it would make Catapults less critical and even redundant for Russian carriers, which would be an enormous saving, though I do think they should be developed anyway as they would be useful... as would the technology needed to make them effective and efficient...

Israel is facing weak enemies like Hamas or a destroyed SAA. That's why it works.

Against potent enemy it would be still good but much more limited and would face more dangerous and bigger attacks.

People are under the delusion that airships are easy targets to destroy, and that would be true if they were blind and on their own, but the radar array you could fit into an airship could be enormous and have amazing resolution and performance so there might be no chance of sneaking up on it.

Of course you can shoot down an airship, but you can also shoot down an AWACS 747... but that has never happened AFAIK.

Most importantly the operational costs of an airship in the role would be a fraction of the operational costs of a jet powered aircraft... even more so if you take in to account that to get the altitude and combat persistance of an airship you would need a squad of half a dozen AWACS aircraft operating on shifts of 4-5 hours each rotating 24/7 would be expensive.

In comparison an airship could remain airborne for months at a time with enormous antennas and also allowing for very low frequency arrays... you could hang a 5km long cable off the nose of an airship... just hanging vertically to keep in contact with submarines at operational depths with ultra low frequency radio communications.

Ironically having radar arrays inside the envelope of a rigid airship means the heat generated by the radar components would add buoyancy to the craft and help it maintain altitude... a rather large airship could be made of carbon fibre and kevlar fabrics that are damage resistant and fire resistant.... you could purge the air between the hydrogen bags with cheap easily available nitrogen so fire would not burn... even if you had a road flare burning inside it would do some heat damage but eventually burn out.

A direct hit by a missile would be very interesting... operating at 20km altitude the air is so thin that the blast wave would do very little actual damage. Fragments would rip fabric and make holes in things but having spare hydrogen bags you can inflate to compensate for the dozen or so destroyed with a missile impact means you could probably survive several hits... you could carry CIWS missiles like TOR or SOSNA or 9M100 for self defence to shoot down incoming enemy AAMs and SAMs before they get near the airship... but more importantly an airship would be able to shrug off most missile attacks by climbing above their effective operating altitude... which is not something an AWACS aircraft could do.

You could adapt them to COIN warfare to offer all the advantages of high altitude drones monitoring the ground situation say from 10-12km altitude, but you could load up targeting pods developed for fighters and use laser targeting to hit point targets, or just drop smoke bombs to test the wind effect on dumb bombs directly dropped on targets and then use that to accurately drop dumb cheap bombs, or just monitor the area with high res powerful day night cameras and radar and other sensors that can remain over the target area for weeks and months at a time... a flying wing flat top could have solar panels on the upper surface supplying most of the power needed and forming a landing and taking off area for HALE and MALE drones.... catch the heavy ones with a net and roll them off the edge for a vertical dive to accelerate to flight speed from 10km altitude...

Fuel cells allow changes in ballast without having to dump lifting gas or water ballast which means much more flexibility and independence and hydrogen and water and fuel cells means your lifting gas, a potential source of electricity and heat, and your ballast mass can be interchanged and balanced with a decent AI management system... You could even add a dehumidifier to collect extra ballast enroute.

One of the problems with the old airships is the need to be buoyant... so when you get airborne and start flying somewhere using diesel engines as you burnt diesel fuel the airship got lighter and lighter so for a long trip to end by descending you had to vent lifting gas... helium is way too expensive to just dump so you dumped hydrogen, but with a fuel cell you can run the hydrogen through a fuel cell and generate heat and water ballast... so by reducing the lifting gas and at the same time increasing your ballast you reduced the amount of change needed... so instead of losing 2 tons of hydrogen to descend, you might use 1 ton of hydrogen which combines with atmospheric oxygen to create 500kgs of water which equates to losing 2 tons of hydrogen. You still have the hydrogen on board in the form of water so if you later need more lift then solar power, electricity from the diesel engine or just from batteries you charged when you used the hydrogen to create the water can be used to generate hydrogen lifting gas when needed.