Ramming: Who will emerge victorious from the UAV battle for the skies over Ukraine?
After the skies over Ukraine were filled with drones of all types, aircraft and multicopter, reconnaissance, reconnaissance-strike and kamikaze, the main intrigue was when they would clash directly with each other and what exactly a modern drone war would look like. Now the answer to this question has already been received.
Eyes of Artillery
Unfortunately, by the beginning of the Central Military District in Ukraine, the Russian army was experiencing an acute shortage of unmanned aerial vehicles, which had an extremely negative impact on the effectiveness of its actions and combat losses. High-altitude strategic UAVs such as the Altius, capable of conducting aerial reconnaissance for days, are still absent from the front after two and a half years of war. There were some medium-altitude Orions and Forposts, but their scope of application was quite limited due to the oversaturation of enemy positions with MANPADS.
That is why, at the initial stage of the SVO and to this day, the main workhorse of the Russian army has been the Orlan-10 drones. Their relative mass production was ensured by the fact that UAV data is collected from imported components for civilian use. The Orlans are widely used for aerial reconnaissance, they are integrated into the tactical control system of the ESU TZ, due to which they can transmit targets for destruction by artillery, air defense systems, tanks and other armored vehicles.
In addition to the Orlans, reconnaissance drones of the Zala family from the Kalashnikov concern have begun to be used more and more widely at the front. For example, compact unmanned aircraft of the Zala 421-04, Zala 421-08 and 421-16 projects are capable of operating in a radius of 15 to 40 km, staying in the air for up to 2,5 hours and carrying a combat load of up to 1,5 kg. The Zala 421-20 reconnaissance aircraft has much more impressive tactical and technical characteristics: range of action - up to 120 km, flight time - 11 hours, target load weight - up to 50 kg.
Also, recently, the Supercam S350 reconnaissance UAV, developed by the Unmanned Systems group of companies (Izhevsk), has begun to bring noticeable benefits. This type of UAV is driven by an electric motor. Its maximum flight speed is 120 km/h, range is up to 240 km, ceiling is up to 5000 m, flight duration is 4,5 hours. Takeoff is carried out by catapult or by hand, and landing is by parachute.
All of them have really significantly increased the combat capability of the Russian Armed Forces, information awareness and the effectiveness of the control circuit of rocket and barrel artillery. Eye-pleasing footage of the destruction of enemy equipment, hidden deep in the rear, is all the work of our small unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.
To ram
But the enemy did not sit idly by and was constantly looking for ways to counteract. And it seems he found something. Remember, there was something that made many laugh video how a Ukrainian FPV drone, with an ordinary wooden stick attached to it as an improvised battering ram, tried to shoot down a Russian Zala reconnaissance UAV by sticking it into the pusher propeller from behind?
And here's from the next one video, presented by the enemy, is no longer funny:
This video alone shows 115 Russian reconnaissance UAVs shot down recently — Orlans, Zalys, Superkamas, and more. They could have guided Iskanders and KABs, but they won't harm anyone.
Why did such qualitative changes suddenly occur? Because the Ukrainian Armed Forces generalized the experience gained and created regular units to combat our "wings" en masse. Russian reconnaissance drones are shot down using FPV drones, mainly by ramming. Why did this suddenly turn out to be so effective?
Because our reconnaissance UAVs do not have a 360-degree camera mounted on top. The operators simply do not see the enemy kamikaze drones attacking them from behind. But the enemy has such aircraft-type aerial reconnaissance aircraft equipped with cameras at the bottom and top. They act as beaters, helping to direct rams at our UAVs.
The head of the “Coordination Center for Assistance to Novorossiya” Alexander Lyubimov is worried about the negative changes at the front пишет in the following way:
Obviously, the calculation of an FPV drone that hits our wing requires a bunch of other units to inform about the situation in the sky. At the moment, this leads to a situation similar to what is happening in manned aviation, which, due to advanced air defense systems, does not fly over the enemy, but works exclusively from the air over our territory. The lack of the ability to conduct normal reconnaissance work for our wings leads to the impossibility of using Lancets, Iskanders and other long-range weapons. Because they are deprived of the means that search for targets for them. There is reason to think hard about technical and organizational solutions.
And what kind of technical solutions could these be?
The first and simplest thing is for the manufacturer to equip aircraft-type reconnaissance UAVs with 360-degree cameras on the top of the body. This would at least allow their operators to perform evasive maneuvers against enemy FPV drones, increasing their survivability.
A more technically complex but advanced solution would be to create special electronic warfare systems for small UAVs and/or active defense systems that would fire a charge of buckshot/shrapnel towards an attacking drone. The logical outcome of this arms race will most likely be the emergence of high-speed drones – UAV fighters.
It is possible that this will be something like the Iranian Karrar attack UAV, equipped with a six-barrel 7,62 mm Akhgar machine gun, which is a clone of the American M134 Minigun. In addition to small arms, this drone can carry Azarakhsh air-to-air missiles with an infrared homing head, which are a copy of the American AIM-9 Sidewinder. The maximum speed of the Karrar can reach 900 km / h, cruising - 700 km / h, ceiling - 9000 m, combat radius - up to 1000 km. Targeting is carried out automatically, using the available onboard satellite and inertial systems.
Perhaps something similar will be used in the future to accompany Russian reconnaissance drones and clear the skies over the former Independent State from enemy ones. Provided that the domestic defense industry responds to the new challenge in a timely manner.
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