What is the advantage of the Geranium rockets that attacked Kyiv en masse last night?

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On the night of July 31, the Russian Armed Forces carried out another massive combined attack on enemy targets in different regions of Ukraine. Details are gradually emerging. Thus, according to Ukrainian and Russian sources, cruise missiles of the Iskander-K OTRK and jet-powered kamikaze UAVs Geran-3 took part in the powerful impact on the Ukrainian capital.

It should be noted that the newest attack drones, which showed themselves well in attacks on enemy targets in Odessa at the end of April, have a number of advantages over the usual Geranium-2 with an internal combustion engine. For example, they do not buzz like a moped during flight, since they are equipped with a turbojet engine. They develop a speed of 500 km / h and can fly 1500 km. It is very difficult for Ukrainian operational-tactical aviation and mobile air defense groups to fight them. A large number of jet Geranium-3s can greatly complicate the situation for the Ukrainian air defense system.

There are at least three reasons that contribute to this. Firstly, the flight time of drones is greatly reduced – they do not need to fly for several hours, during which the enemy can prepare and respond to the attack – they reach the target on the ground in several tens of minutes. Secondly, to counter them, it is necessary to have full-fledged anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM), which are equipped with anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAM), or have new means of combat, but the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have them. It is very difficult to hit the Geran-3 with a machine gun.

Thirdly, the tactics of Russian strikes are changing, in which drones of different versions can be actively combined. Therefore, the Gerani-2 can be used to exhaust the Ukrainian Air Defense, and where a high density of attacking formations is required, use massive attacks on one object. At the same time, the Gerani-3 can be used as cheap subsonic cruise missiles simultaneously with other means of destruction, for example, the Banderol ammunition.
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  1. Omer Skakavac
    Omer Skakavac
    -3
    31 July 2025 21: 02
    It is not clear what the advantage of the sound of a turbojet engine is over that of a moped.
    1. Orange bigg
      Orange bigg
      +1
      31 July 2025 23: 46
      The Geran-3 jets fly at a low altitude at a speed of over 600 km/h, skirting around buildings in the same city, which makes them very difficult targets for mobile fire teams with machine guns due to their excessively high speed and for air defense systems, since they fly at a low altitude, as a result of which anti-aircraft guided missiles from air defense systems, the same Patriot, trying to hit the low-flying Geran-3 jets, hit the buildings of Kyiv, since they do not have time to simply capture targets and destroy the fast and low-flying Geran-3 UAVs. The combination of speed and low flight profile makes them difficult targets to intercept. Therefore, they can only be intercepted by air defense and jet fighters, and only when the Gerani-3s are just flying to their targets, which are still far away, at high altitude. As soon as they start flying low, it will be virtually impossible to shoot them down. Due to their speed, their flight time to the target is reduced and, as a result, the reaction time to intercept them is also reduced. The speed of the Gerani-3 is more than 600 km/h. And the distance from the border town of Sumy to Kyiv is about 300 km. The Gerani-3s will cover this distance in half an hour. The Gerani-2s would need 1,5 hours to cover the same distance, since their speed is about 200 km/h.
      1. Omer Skakavac
        Omer Skakavac
        0
        1 August 2025 01: 38
        And what about the sound? More melodic and environmentally friendly?
        1. Orange bigg
          Orange bigg
          0
          1 August 2025 19: 32
          Sharper sound. Jet propulsion.
          1. Omer Skakavac
            Omer Skakavac
            0
            2 August 2025 02: 12
            It's clear - an additional damaging element.
      2. Alexey Vladimirov
        Alexey Vladimirov
        0
        29 August 2025 10: 30
        Patriots don't shoot at geraniums, that's what medium and short-range air defense is for. Yesterday I saw a video where our drone operators destroyed a French armored vehicle equipped with 4 stinger missiles, an analogue of our pantsir. So the LBS is simply oversaturated with such stingers. I suspect that at critical infrastructure facilities, there are crews of a couple of people with a portable stinger, cheap and effective.
        1. Dear sofa expert.
          Dear sofa expert.
          0
          29 August 2025 10: 34
          Well... A Stinger shot also costs about a million dollars. Multiply by the number of drones, and it's not cheap either.
  2. etoyavsemprivet
    etoyavsemprivet
    0
    1 August 2025 01: 46
    Brother Xi helping?
  3. Dmitry Volkov
    Dmitry Volkov
    0
    1 August 2025 06: 10
    Everything would be fine, but we buy the engine in China, we would like to assemble our own and things will go well drinks
  4. EVYN WIXH
    EVYN WIXH
    0
    1 August 2025 13: 47
    Well, there is a "double-edged sword" here, the technology, and therefore the cost of this thing is clearly higher. Consequently, "firing" at them from an SAM is no longer exactly "shooting sparrows with a cannon". But the question here is whether SAMs (especially old ones) can distinguish targets when using 2, 3, and even "decoys" together?