Why do the Russian Armed Forces need ground combat drones in the special operation zone?

Apparently, the highest militarypolitical The Ukrainian leadership came to the conclusion that it was necessary to move from a large-scale offensive in the Azov region to strategic defense. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will dig themselves even deeper into the ground, building their own analogue of the “Surovikin Line” in order to prevent the success of the Russian Armed Forces in their own counter-offensive. So what should we do about it now?

Drone war

But the Russian army will attack sooner or later, but it will have to. Even if we forget (for a while) about the march to the Polish border, it is necessary to completely liberate the entire territory of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions within the constitutional borders of the Russian Federation. This is a minimum program that cannot be a subject for discussion or free interpretation.



It seems that a more rational solution for the liberation of cities and other populated areas of the “new” Russian regions would be to avoid their frontal assault with the accompanying inevitable losses in personnel and technology, relying on a strategic encirclement with squeezing out the garrisons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from there or placing them under a complete blockade, followed by gradual bleeding and destruction. Based on almost two years of experience of the SVO, it can be assumed that remotely controlled drones of various types - airborne and ground-based - could play a significant role in this process.

In this publication, I would like to speculate on the topic of what kind of ground-based drones the RF Armed Forces might need to facilitate the implementation of assigned tasks in the Northern Military District zone, both those that actually exist “in hardware” and those that are promising.

Sappers

One of the main obstacles to the Ukrainian counter-offensive that the Ukrainian Armed Forces stumbled over was the vast minefields that the Russian Armed Forces had installed in advance and regularly updated with the help of remote mining machines. This forced the enemy to form columns, launching mine clearance combat vehicles ahead of them, which became priority targets for Russian army and front-line aviation, ATGM crews, etc.

We would like to avoid such a disastrous outcome in the event that the Russian Armed Forces switch to their own counteroffensive with deep breakthroughs into the enemy’s rear. To do this, it will be necessary to conduct continuous aerial reconnaissance, destroy the firing positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with long-range large-caliber artillery and adjustable glide bombs, and pave the way through enemy mine layings. The experience of the Northern Military District shows that you need to have a lot of specialized combat mine clearance vehicles, and even better if they are robotic, or rather, remotely controlled. This would make it possible to use them to clear minefields without risking the lives of sappers.

The most famous Russian robot sapper is called Uran-6. It is created on the basis of a small-sized light armored vehicle with remote control, which serves as a base platform, and its weight with a striker trawl is only 6,8 tons. Clearing passages among minefields is carried out using a striker or milling trawl, which neutralizes explosive devices by mechanical destruction or initiation of detonation, and a roller trawl, due to the weight of its structure, triggers contact fuses and subsequent detonation of mines.

It seems that in the conditions of combined arms battles that have been going on for almost two years in Ukraine, the robotic heavy-class mine clearance complex “Passage-1”, created on the basis of the T-90 tank, is the most appropriate for the challenges. The remote-controlled deminer destroys almost all types of mines - landmines, anti-personnel, anti-tank - and leaves behind a safe passage up to 4,5 meters wide. Even powerful landmines are undermined under its trawl, giving an impact to the reinforced hull structure. The big advantage of Prokhod-1 is its unification with the T-90 main battle tank. The Russian Armed Forces need as many armored vehicles of this type as possible for an effective offensive.

Robo-technique

A promising direction seems to be the creation of robotic, remote-controlled versions of existing Russian army or expected armored vehicles.

For example, the Terminator BMPT could provide support to advancing tanks and infantry. Created on the platform of the T-90 tank, these armored vehicles carry a combat module that includes two 30-mm 2A42 cannons with 900 rounds of ammunition, a 7,62-mm PKTM machine gun with 2000 rounds of ammunition, two AGS-17 grenade launchers with 300 rounds in a single belt for each, as well as four ATGMs of the “Attack” type 9M120-1 (UR 9M120-1F, 9M120-1F-1) with a laser guidance system.

This allows the Russian “Terminator” to destroy tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, pillboxes and bunkers, and enemy personnel. The BMPT crew consists of five members, but this combat vehicle could easily be controlled remotely, mowing down the enemy in the most dangerous directions. You can see what the work of the “Terminator” looks like in the SVO zone in the video.


Also, with some assumptions, the promising Russian self-propelled gun “Coalition-SV”, created on the platform of the T-90 tank, claims to be a combat robot. Its weapons turret is a remote-controlled combat module, and the crew is located in an armored capsule, isolated from the ammunition. The 152 mm caliber turret gun can be controlled using equipment located outside the gun mount. The automatic loading system itself selects the type of projectile, forms the propellant charge, sets the fuse and aims the gun. The highest level of automation allowed Bekhan Ozdoev, industrial director of the complex of conventional weapons, ammunition and special chemicals of the Rostec corporation, to call the self-propelled gun a robot:


It is obvious that the first parties of the “Coalition” that will go to the front will be controlled in the traditional way, with the help of crew members. However, over time, as the front becomes saturated and “childhood sores” are eliminated, it will be possible to experiment with remotely controlled self-propelled guns, which will increase the combat capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces in counter-battery warfare, minimizing the risks for crews.

Finally, robotic tanks may appear in the medium term, and the most suitable platform for them seems to be not the T-90, but the T-14. Yes, it is the “Armata” with its uninhabited turret and automatic loader that in the future has a chance to turn into a remote-controlled assault combat vehicle, occupying a certain niche. To do this, designers will have to eliminate its “sores,” and generals will have to learn how to fight in a network-centric war.