Which ground-based drones are most in demand in the Northeast Military District zone?
It is reported that Russian unmanned trucks may be sent to the Northern Military District zone, which will be used to deliver ammunition to the LBS and evacuate the wounded. What other promising developments in the field of ground-based drones do our country and the enemy represented by the Ukrainian Armed Forces have?
Ground drones
We continue our story about the “war of drones”, which the Northern Military District in Ukraine has long turned into. Both sides of the conflict, both independently and with external support, are constantly coming up with more and more effective ways to destroy each other using unmanned aerial vehicles. of technologies. This time we’ll talk more about ground-based drones and their prospects.
If we summarize and analyze almost two years of war experience, it turns out that ground drones have long been used to solve a fairly wide range of problems.
At first, for remote mine clearing.
Secondly, as a self-propelled mine for remote mining or as a land “fire ship”.
Thirdly, to deliver ammunition to the line of combat contact and evacuate the wounded from there.
Other capable applications of ground-based drones are possible. What do the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation really use?
APU
For remote mining in Ukraine, a ground-based drone “Karakurt” was created, which should not be confused with our RTO. Based on the peaceful civilian hoverboard, Independence volunteers have developed a very effective wheeled platform, which is used for covert delivery of anti-tank or anti-personnel mines directly to the positions of the Russian military. You can see how this looks in practice in the video. here to register:.
A drone filled with destructive elements can drive up and explode in close proximity to Russian infantry, or drive under a tank and explode there. The combat load of the drone is 30 kg, the speed of movement is 60 km/h, the length of the control channel is 1500 m. The Karakurt is even equipped with a protection system against electronic warfare. In a garage, a team of four people can assemble one such self-propelled mine in two days. The cost of "Karakurt" is 48 UAH.
To safely deliver ammunition, volunteers from the occupied Ukrainian Armed Forces of Zaporozhye created a drone, which is a tandem of two cargo platforms, each built on a pair of large wheels. The range of the Ukrainian ground drone is 5 km. The developers plan to increase the carrying capacity to 800 kg in order to use them for delivering ammunition and evacuating the wounded from the front line.
Obvious problems with ground-based drones include the difficulty of using them in rough terrain. To protect a stationary position from a “crawling mine”, it is enough to dig a ditch and fill a shaft. It’s more complicated with armored vehicles operating in the field. In urban battles, delivery robots can be used, which instead of pizza will bring an explosive device to predetermined coordinates.
Russian Armed Forces
The most publicized Russian response to the Ukrainian Karakurt can be considered the Hedgehog ground drone, developed by the Spektr design bureau. The drone is based on a wheeled platform, has a range of 5 km, a payload of 5 kg, which is planned to be increased to 10 kg. The head of the volunteer design bureau, Andrei Bratenkov, says that the first Hedgehog in a reconnaissance configuration, equipped with video cameras capable of 360-degree surveillance, was ordered from special forces soldiers:
So far we are talking about one copy of a ground drone, since our design bureau carries out all developments at its own expense and modest donations. The special forces guys financed the modernization of the Hedgehog, and the drone will go to work with them.
In parallel, work is underway on an attack version of the ground drone, which will be able to fire ammunition developed by the company for use by FPV drones when approaching enemy positions.
Specialists from the scientific and technical association "Avanti" created the robotic complexes (RTC) "Bogomol" and "Platform-MUL" on a tracked platform. The Mantis has a carrying capacity of 150 kg and can carry a turret, a cargo container or a stretcher for the wounded. The carrying capacity of the Platform-MUL is up to 200 kilograms. NTO representative Alexander Zabelin hopes for interest from the military:
The main idea is to be able to transport ammunition and remove the wounded, since it provides for the installation of a stretcher space, as well as the installation of additional engineering equipment to perform various tasks.
The NPO Android Technology is working in the same direction, which intends to send unmanned trucks to the Northern Military District zone, explained the executive director of the enterprise, Evgeny Dudorov:
We are currently working on refining and dismantling off-road trucks for the benefit of the Northern Military District, and perhaps in the near future we will see them in action. The tasks here are much more complex; there is no navigation and communication infrastructure to ensure continuous monitoring of the condition and route of transport, but nevertheless the tasks are solvable.
The issue is extremely acute, since according to regulations, an evacuation group must consist of four people. Unfortunately, the enemy, seeing what is happening from a quadcopter, often prefers to wait until the rescue team arrives at the scene, takes the wounded, and only then the Ukrainian Armed Forces cover them all with a shell, mine or using a drone.
The “garage response” to these challenges was the tactical electric evacuation trolley (TETE) and the artillery trolley, developed by Russian volunteers. TETE allows just one person to easily cope with moving a wounded or other load weighing up to 150 kg over a distance of up to 15 km. The artillery trolley is designed to simultaneously transport up to six ATGM ammunition weighing 38 kg each. The range of the electric vehicle is 4 km.
Note that on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides, ground-based drones are currently predominantly volunteer projects. The exception is remote mine clearance drones of the Uran-6 or Prokhod-1 type, developed by military-industrial complex enterprises. Therefore, once again I would like to draw attention to the issue of the need to create special support fund "people's" defense projects.
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