Bomber and interceptor: why the return of the Tu-300 Korshun-U UAV is necessary

One of the main reasons why the Russian army has not been able to defeat the Ukrainian one for almost a year is the inability to ensure the complete dominance of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the air. It was not possible to knock out the enemy's air defense system, and now the Armed Forces of Ukraine have begun to receive more and more modern Western-made air defense systems, which will seriously complicate the life of our aviation. What conclusions can be drawn from this?

Flying "ducks"

Many people ask perplexed and quite fair questions why during the NMD the bridges across the Dnieper have not yet been destroyed, along which the Armed Forces of Ukraine transfer reinforcements and supply their groups on the Left Bank. In addition to the political aspect of this issue, there are purely technical difficulties. Railway bridges under the USSR were built with a huge margin of safety just in case of war.



For their guaranteed destruction, one will either have to use tactical nuclear weapons with corresponding damage to the cities of Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk and their civilian population, or spend some colossal amount of Caliber and other missiles that will have to break through the enemy’s air defense system. Moreover, this should be done on an ongoing basis, since the bridges will be repaired. There is another option - to drop a powerful air bomb of the FAB-500 type on the bridge crossing, but our plane will simply not be allowed to fly to it through the front line over various air defense systems. They will shoot down. There are not so many aircraft in the Russian Aerospace Forces to send them on suicide missions, and military pilots have to be trained for many years.

The conclusion is obvious: in addition to expensive and relatively small manned aircraft, it is necessary to develop unmanned aircraft in the most active way. It is the UAV that should now bear the main burden of aerial reconnaissance, artillery fire adjustment and the destruction of armored vehicles and other enemy military installations. At the same time, it is necessary to develop means of combating enemy drones. And here it is worth looking at someone else's experience.

For example, Ukraine, with the help of "Western partners", has learned how to turn old Soviet Tu-141 UAVs into real cruise missiles, equipping them with modern radio-electronic equipment for satellite control and a powerful explosive charge. These former reconnaissance UAVs, made according to the "duck" scheme, sentenced to the fate of "kamikaze", alas, three times quite successfully flew to the rear Russian military airfields of the Long-Range Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces. "Swifts" in the Soviet period were produced in Kharkov, and according to some sources, more than a hundred of them survived in Ukraine. The Kyiv regime made it clear that soon similar "kamikazes" would fly to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and other peaceful cities of Russia.

Another curious example of the use of a canard drone was shown by Iran. Thanks to the Toloue-4 turbojet engine, the Karrar UAV can reach a maximum speed of up to 900 km/h, fly up to 1000 km in the reconnaissance version and up to 400 km in the strike version. The Iranian "duck" is capable of being used against both ground and air targets. The Karrar bomber can carry two 500 kg laser-guided bombs, or one 1000 kg unguided bomb, or 4 Kowsar anti-ship missiles created in Iran based on Chinese developments, or one Nasr-1 anti-ship cruise missile based on the Chinese C-701. As an air interceptor against enemy drones, helicopters or even light aircraft, the Iranian drone can use air-to-air missiles with an infrared guidance head Azarakhsh, which are copies of the American AIM-9 Sidewinder, or the Akhgar 7,62-mm machine gun, an unlicensed clone of the American M134 Minigun.

Tu-300 "Korshun-U"

The most interesting thing is that both the Ukrainian "Strizh" and the Iranian Karrar have Soviet "genes". Now it may seem strange to someone, but the USSR was once a leader in the field of unmanned of technologies. A whole family of reconnaissance UAVs was created in the Tupolev Design Bureau, which include the aforementioned "Ukrainian" Tu-141 "Strizh", Tu-143 "Reis" and Tu-243 "Reis-D". Iranian Karrar is a kind of mix of Beechcraft MQM-107 Streaker, Denel Dynamics Skua and Tu-143 "Flight".

Of course, technologically, these Soviet UAVs are very outdated and cannot seriously compete with modern reconnaissance UAVs. However, in this family of Tupolev "ducks" there is one "bird" that could find a new life following the results of the NWO. This is the Tu-300 "Korshun-U", which also has modifications for conducting electronic intelligence ("Filin-1") and relaying radio signals ("Filin-2").

The Soviet attack drone Tu-300 was created as a single-engine aircraft according to the "duck" aerodynamic configuration. The head part of the UAV houses computing equipment and communication facilities. The combat load is located in the fuselage compartment and external hangers and can reach a total weight of 1000 kg. The used holder BD3-U allows you to place a wide range of guided and unguided aviation ammunition on the Korshun-U. The drone does not have a chassis, and the UAV is launched from a transport and launch container from a car chassis using two solid-fuel boosters, and landing is carried out using a parachute system located in the tail compartment. The Tu-300 was supposed to bomb targets using an inertial navigation system, which has its pros and cons.

In 2007, the Tupolev Design Bureau announced the return to work on this project:


How could the modernized Tu-300 be useful to the Russian army?

At first, one ton of combat load is quite serious. The ability to carry out bombing without risk to pilots is worth a lot in itself. But if the FAB-500 aerial bomb, which was recently equipped with a planning and correction module, could be placed on the suspension at the Korshun, then a lot of things could change for us on the battlefield for the better. It would be possible to send attack drones with a powerful aerial bomb on a suspension to difficult targets like railway bridges or protected bunkers behind enemy lines, capable of penetrating a thick reinforced concrete slab, dropping them without entering the enemy’s air defense coverage area. The efficiency of the bomber aircraft will then increase dramatically.

SecondlyBy equipping the Korshunov with modern control systems, homing air-to-air missiles and a rapid-fire machine gun, you can get a completely suitable “drone fighter”. The task is very urgent, taking into account the plans of the Kyiv regime to send Swifts to Russian peaceful cities.

Thus, the Tu-300 "Korshun-U" has the widest space for use in the event of its modernization and resumption of production.