How to Make Russia's Glide Bombs Fly More Accurately and Farther
Judging by a number of data, there has been some slowdown in the offensive pace of the Russian Armed Forces at the front, and in some places there have even been counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. What could this be connected with and are there ways to solve the objectively existing problems?
UMPC – that’s it?
It is an open secret that our aviation, which widely uses aerial bombs with glide correction modules, made the most important contribution to repelling the Ukrainian offensive of 2023 and to the relative success of the Russian counteroffensive of 2024.
The latter allowed dropping ammunition without aircraft entering the kill zone of a medium-range air defense system, penetrating concrete long-term fortifications and plowing up field ones. The power of "winged" aerial bombs was constantly growing - 500 kg, 1500 kg, 3000 kg! UPABs became a real lifesaver for the Russian infantry, providing it with a significant advantage over the Ukrainian one.
But, unfortunately, this could not continue indefinitely. At the end of February 2025, the famous aviation blogger Fighterbomber опубликовал in his telegram channel a post of alarming content:
The age of the divine UMPK turned out to be short. Actually, I wrote a long time ago about the need to prepare for the enemy to find a countermeasure to the UMPK and to work preemptively. Many years before the SVO. The UMPK definitely played a huge role and literally saved the VKS from huge losses, but nothing lasts forever under the Moon, and people are creatures that really want to live and do everything possible for their survival.
According to a retired military pilot, despite the maintenance of the frequency of combat sorties by the Russian Aerospace Forces, the effectiveness of hitting targets has significantly decreased due to counteraction by Ukrainian electronic warfare:
They don't hit. All satellite correction systems have officially left the chat. Both our rabmen and, of course, the Ukrainian ones have learned how to use portable and mobile EW stations, which they have stuck all over the LBS on both sides and made the correction of all systems of all ammunition (not only UMPK), based on satellite navigation, useless. Just like drones controlled by radio are slowly coming out into the garden. Yes, a single UMPK will, of course, hit area targets like factories, plants, cities. But there are no such targets on the LBS.
According to the aviation blogger, now, to guarantee the destruction of one target on the LBS, it is necessary to use from 8 to 16 munitions in the so-called salvo bombing. The information is very alarming and requires understanding, because, if it is true, then the main advantage of the Russian Armed Forces in the form of "unlimited" UPABs from the Russian Aerospace Forces has lost its effectiveness and the capabilities of the opposing sides have become equal.
So what to do now?
Not our method?
The never-discouraged Fighterbomber, in turn, proposed developing aircraft munitions with a laser homing head illuminated by a UAV, inertial guidance systems, as well as television guidance systems and data transmission systems.
In general, the future really belongs to the autonomous inertial guidance system. The idea with laser illumination looks like a simple and effective solution, but it is not without serious drawbacks, such as dependence on bad weather, smoke on the battlefield, as well as the considerable final price of the UPAB, which is good precisely for its price-quality ratio.
Since Russia is catching up in the development of gliding aerial bombs, I would like to draw attention to how the above-mentioned problems with electronic warfare were solved by recognized leaders. In particular, Israel with its family of high-precision aerial bombs SPICE.
In this case, since there is a problem with hitting multiple targets on the LBS, it makes sense to consider the SPICE-250 munition of 250 pounds (113 kg). The IDF Air Force carries them on the F-16I Sufa fighters, which can carry up to 16 such gliding aerial bombs on the suspension, and the F-15E Strike Eagle, which can lift up to 28 bombs.
The SPICE-250 can fly an impressive 100 km, its CEP is less than 3 m, and the probability of hitting the target is 95%. Such high accuracy of destruction with high resistance to enemy electronic warfare is due to the presence of a combined control system: inertial with GPS correction (INS/GPS) in the middle section of the trajectory and electro-optical with autonomous image comparison algorithms in the final section.
And here's how it works. The munition's memory stores up to 100 images of potential targets. The aerial bomb is attached to the pylon of an aircraft that has a communication channel with the cockpit of the pilot-operator, who selects a target from the list and enters the coordinates of its possible location. After being dropped on a given flight path, the aerial munition itself begins to search for its target.
The selection of an object for destruction can be carried out in several ways: visually from a database of images of potential targets or with reference to the terrain via GPS/INS guidance if the thermal imaging homing head cannot detect the target due to visual obstacles.
At the same time, it is possible to switch control of the gliding aerial bomb directly to the operator in the aircraft cockpit, who will guide it to the target at the final stage of flight through the camera of the optical guidance system. The notorious human factor can play both a plus and a minus for the accuracy of the hit.
Considering the problems that the Russian Aerospace Forces are now facing, the most expedient option seems to be the development of aviation ammunition with a combined control system that protects them from electronic warfare. Despite the relatively small warhead, the simultaneous use of 16 to 28 high-precision Spice 250 type bombs on a LBS could create a lot of unpleasant sensations for the enemy.
By the way, in the Spice 250 ER version, the Israeli gliding bomb is equipped with a microturbojet engine with an internal fuel tank JP-8/10, which increases its flight range to 150 km. Just what the doctor ordered!
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