UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News #2

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Is the name of the UAV in the Photoshop "Helios"?

Do we know its characteristics?

It is a big HALE, like 30 m wingspan. It was already shown last year in MAKS or Army



EDIT: info here. It was previously named "Sirius"

https://www.russiadefence.net/t161p925-uavs-in-russian-armed-forces-news#263802

LMFS wrote:Is that a rotating side-looking radar? It is huge...

Doesn't rotate, just janus-faced

Did you see the Beriev patent for the super recon drone? My guess we will be seeing it soon enough.

x_54_u43 wrote:Doesn't rotate, just janus-faced

What do you mean? Two emitting faces or only one that rotates along a longitudinal axis? The antenna is IMHO very thin to be double, and keeping it single side would be much cheaper and lighter. It would also make sense to rotate it and place it in horizontal position to minimize cross wind effects and increase clearances during take-off and landing, that is what I meant by "rotating"...

Did you see the Beriev patent for the super recon drone? My guess we will be seeing it soon enough.

No, but I would love to see it

LMFS wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:Doesn't rotate, just janus-faced

What do you mean? Two emitting faces or only one that rotates along a longitudinal axis? The antenna is IMHO very thin to be double, and keeping it single side would be much cheaper and lighter. It would also make sense to rotate it and place it in horizontal position to minimize cross wind effects and increase clearances during take-off and landing, that is what I meant by "rotating"...

Did you see the Beriev patent for the super recon drone? My guess we will be seeing it soon enough.

No, but I would love to see it

Yeah, two emitting faces is the most likely bet, it's plenty thick for it since you can use the same "backing" for both arrays, it doesn't necessarily have to double in volume to get a janus-faced array, you can see it on Pantsir/Wedgetail/Big Bird radar. Also of note, I think there is a front facing array judging by the dielectric material on the front of nose being unified with the satellite radome.









ALSO, I am pretty sure that Gelios isn't just renamed Sirius but a different project since they were mentioned together, perhaps this a dedicated variant to carrying this large array?
From Paralay's site

What ever happened to this one?


Or this, which looked like it launched suicide drones?

New UAVs to be presented by Kronshtadt at the Army forum:

https://aviation21.ru/gruppa-kronshtadt-predstavit-na-vystavke-armiya-2020-udarnye-bla-grom-i-gelios/

Some technical data appears already in the Army site:

Wingspan-10 m;
Height-3,8 m;
Length-13.8 m;
Maximum take-off weight-7000 kg;
The maximum mass of the combat load is 2000 kg.

https://avia.rusarmyexpo.ru/keythemes/vehicles/grom/

Full-scale model of the new Kronstadt attack UAV. They say it is to be presented at Army 2020.

What ever happened to this one?

The difference between a proposal and a funded project is enormous.

Of course that is not to say they are not being worked on.... often programmes appear to get funding and attention so if they get the funding they need to be developed they can disappear again because that was the purpose of showing them.

There is not an enormous bottomless pit of funding however and often even good ideas don't make it.

Corruption is not needed to describe failure... sometimes things that seem clever and useful turn up and they are cheap and fragile and you put it in the cupboard and never use it.... whether it is exercise equipment that turns out to not be that easy to use, or a funny design t shirt...

High-speed attack unmanned aerial vehicle "Grom"

As reported , the Kronshtadt Group at the International military-technical forum Army-2020, which will be held in Kubinka from 23 to 29 August 2020, will, among other things, present for the first time materials on the Grom high-speed attack unmanned aerial vehicle being developed. which is being created in accordance with the now popular concept of the "Loyal Wingman" - an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to interact with and under the control of manned combat aircraft.


According to preliminary advertising data, the Grom UAV has the following purpose:

- to work as a “wingman” in the forward attacking echelon in cooperation with manned aircraft;
- opening and destruction of military and object air defense systems;
- defeat by guided high-precision weapons of ground targets in tactical and operational-tactical depth;
- defeat of surface targets and coastal objects;
- performing intelligence functions.


Features:

Wingspan - 10 m
Height - 3.8 m
Length - 13.8 m
Maximum takeoff weight - 7000 kg
Maximum combat load - 2000 kg

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4117111.html

Grom is going to be the russian Wingman. Something to be disclosed within the next few days  

A contract has been signed for the supply of Orion UAV to the VKS

https://tvzvezda.ru/news/opk/content/20208231016-MQxLG.html

Orion.

More stuff from Kronstadt including Sirius and Grom UAV mockups.

Very close to my idea how the thing would look like.

Have they changed the Sirius? Last year's model was this one, twin tail single engine like this year's Helios:



As to the Grom, it seems to be clearly an analogue to Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie:

LMFS wrote:Have they changed the Sirius? Last year's model was this one, twin tail single engine like this year's Helios:

That's Helios now.

So the Grom is a direct reply to the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie. This includes the wingman role.

In spite of all the predictable "ripoff" claims, it shows that Russia is not falling behind the US in this area. It has
spun up from basically zero post-Soviet activity to be in the lead pack.

The Grom appears to have a substantially larger payload than the XQ-58. The Kratos design has
a maximum take off weight of 6,000 pounds compared to the maximum takeoff weight of 7,000 kg
for the Grom.

KAB-100

Hole wrote:
KAB-100

A small russian bomb:shock: BUT .