UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News #2

Russian volunteers From St. Petersburg have created 2 fixed wing kamikaze drones, Privet-82 and Privet-120.

Privet-82: 82mm mortar warhead, electric motor

Privet-120: 120mm mortar warhead, gasoline engine

Both have 30km range

I didn't watch the video till now, I thought they were drones designed to be launched by mortars... 82mm and 120mm respectively, but it is clear from the video that these drones are not designed to fit down 82mm and 120mm mortar tubes.

I guess they just use the mortar bombs as warheads, which is interesting, but not as clever as a mortar fired drone.

The 4-6kg capacity of an 82mm mortar bomb would be limiting in terms of cameras and guidance etc, but a 120mm mortar bomb is 16kgs and has rather more space and potential.

I would think rather than using mortar bombs as the warhead of a suicide drone that the 40mm under barrel grenade launcher could be redesigned to be mounted along the underside of a drone and special grenades could be made that essentially have a tiny propellent because they don't need to be blown 400m down range to a target, they just need a small propellent boost clear of the drone and launched straight down at the target with a much bigger HE payload because they would be just falling down on the target anyway, and being anti personnel grenades they would be good launched directly down at troops in trenches or troops in vehicles with open hatches.

they have a 6 round grenade launcher which is just a revolver with 6 launch tubes that rotate around to fire... this launcher could be a simple grid of 3 by about 8 or 10 launchers for 24 to 30 grenades that could be launched in series or rapid fire to deluge the ground below with fragments very quickly and easily with no chance for the targets on the ground to realise they are even under attack.

They already have air burst grenades that bound up into the air before the main charge explodes at 1.5 to 2m altitude making them rather more deadly, but if the enemy troops are already lying down then impact grenades would be just fine.

Perhaps the first few fired could be air burst and the rest impact grenade to get them on the ground.

The grenades are already designed to cause casualties and are already in mass production and would be quick and easy to load... and the launcher only needs a firing pin to launch the grenades.

The warhead of the upgraded Lancet is only 5 kg.

True, but the Lancet appears to be an anti vehicle/armour weapon so I suspect it is shaped charge, whereas mortar bombs tend to be HE Frag anti personnel... I wonder if they take off the tail and mount the bomb pointing up or down to get a good radial spread of fragments when it goes off?

In WWII the Germans were so impressed by the power of the Soviet 120mm mortars and their heavy distribution on the battlefield that they adopted their own 12cm mortar and used it widely too.

Russian tech firm creates long-range recon system with integrated drone It is reported that the long-range reconnaissance vehicle features a single system of image control and reception with its projection to a joint monitor

Specialists of the Astron Opto-Mechanical Design Bureau (part of the Shvabe Group within the state tech corporation Rostec) have engineered a long-range thermal imaging reconnaissance system based on artificial intelligence, Astron CEO Vladimir Popov told TASS on Tuesday. The Blokpost-4T system integrates a 400T ‘flying thermal imager’ quadcopter, he specified.

"Currently, the Russian army operates various optoelectronic equipment for gathering terrain data in any weather condition, including thermal imagers. However, a dilemma always exists for both optical and thermal imaging systems: either you have a large field of view or you need to provide a highly detailed image. "We believed that the integration of the ‘flying thermal imager’ into the ground-based surveillance system would help solve this dilemma unconventionally and quite elegantly," he said.

The long-range reconnaissance vehicle features a single system of image control and reception with its projection onto a joint monitor, the chief executive explained.

"The ground-based thermal imaging stations of the Blokpost-4T system help detect individuals at a distance of 800 meters and motor vehicles at a distance of 2,000 meters. The system’s inbuilt video analytics single out spotted objects on the screen to assist an operator who sends a drone to the designated area. "Spotted targets are identified by an unmanned thermal imaging system at a distance of up to six kilometers," he added.

"The system has been successfully tested," the chief executive said. "Presently, the first prototypes are being manufactured," he said.

The Blokpost-4T consists of ground-based thermal imaging cameras (from one to four) mounted on a tripod or any other platform with inbuilt target detection analytics and also of unmanned thermal imaging target identification, reconnaissance, and fire adjustment equipment.

The 400T drone is the first quadcopter with a domestic thermal imager. The drone is being employed in Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.

https://tass.com/defense/1591905

The blockpost, like the dobrinya, is a 95% chinese component piece of crap from aliexpress, with much higher cost than the mavic. Its engines are chinese as well as all its electronics.


The blockpost's chinese motors

Instead of using defence ministry funds to develop and mass produce domestically designed quadcopter models, rostekh is buying cheap crap from aliexpress and giving massive prices for it, like 50000 rubles for the dobrynya garbage you guys were shilling. As such, its actually cheaper to buy and import dji drones than build dobrynyas or blockposts.
Also, doesnt help that theres 0 such drones on the front, only appearing on zvezda TV where the voennaya priemka presenter goes soyface over them.
Meanwhile, volunteer organizations are left to design domestic drone components without any funding, or scrounge from civilian donations to bring much needed djis to the front, because rostekh is too busy shitting the bed.

this is a purely volunteer designed and built russian quadcopter electric motor. Rostekh has no plans to use such components.
https://t.me/warhistoryalconafter/92596

Could be changed quite easily. And the engine power is in the right class for such drones.
Instead they opted for some curious engines that were never in production before and had
a lot of foreign made parts.

Thats import substitution for rostekh.

Cheap crap that last few hours on the battlefield. They don't need to invest in such technology. Just buy it and invest your money in gliding bombs better drones or new missiles.

Its almost like people here don't know how to read beyond a fifth grader level. Blokpost-4T is the complex with both ground and flying thermal sensors and the data fusion integrating the multiple video feeds into one monitoring system. The drone is called UAV400T.

And that is the key word here: integration - your cheap DJI drone is not and could not tap into the Russian battle net. You will not find a standard interfacing method available for the DJI to use - its all proprietary stuff that nobody but the Russian military uses for reasons of security.

And it works: you see DJIs get hack by either side all the time. When have you heard of an Orlan getting hacked?

Russia has no domestic battle net. They started using a chinese system for colonels or generals to see drone camera feeds in real time, inclduing dji ones. Ukrainian djis are wiped of their proprietary software. Theyre near impossible to hack, hence the near constant ukrainian drone footage in ugledar. Lobaev arms has started doing the same to russian drones

Lots of claims but no proofs again I see.

Into the trash it goes.

Theres no proof of a russian "battle net" in any form. Not even infantry and tanks can communicate directly on radio, let alone share sight or camera feeds.

Bullshit.

https://www.defenseworld.net/2017/02/20/russia-develops-new-software-defined-radio.html

...
The R-187-P1E Azart multi-mode portable software-defined radio (SDR) lies at its heart. The system makes it possible to establish a tactical communications subsystem and ensure protected data exchange under any conditions, including in an ECM environment
...
Frequency hopping (at a hop rate of up to 20,000 hops per second) is a software and hardware solution embodied in the new Russian radio set. Any possibility of communications countermeasures or signal intercept / direction finding is excluded in this mode, which provides high security of the transmitted information and survivability of the communications system.
...
In addition, the R-187-P1E radio is integrated into the TETRA communication system that enables communications with external parties, which is critical during special operations conducted by special force and counter-terror units in the cities and settlements where TETRA networks are deployed.

The radio set provides simultaneous support of the GLONASS and GPS satellite navigation systems, together with a capability to locate the subscriber and exchange data in automatic or manual mode. The use of the radio set in repeater mode greatly increases the communication range, while a mobile version of the radio, the Angstrem-VE, makes it possible to establish an integrated communications system for a tactical unit with the radio exchange range of at least 500 km.

There are many such digital links available. You might argue that these systems are not widespread enough in the Russian army, which is true, but that happens in other armies as well.

Theyre not equipped on T-72B3 and  T-80BVM. Idk about T-90M.   Russian troops simply cannot just tune in to a T-80's radio. A t-80 is only made to communicate with other T-80s or T-72s

Theres no evidence dobrinya or blockpost have the ability to transmit live video feed to russian command posts, while dji drones cant. Both cant

There is a vehicle mounted version of the Azart radio as well.
https://roe.ru/eng/catalog/land-forces/military-communications-equipment-and-automated-control-systems/radiocomms/azart/


And there are relay vehicles for it.

There is also the Strelets system with tablet. Where the ground forces operator can receive information from laser painted targets, and ask for air force strikes, in an integrated way.
https://roe.ru/eng/catalog/land-forces/military-communications-equipment-and-automated-control-systems/automated-control-systems/strelets/

“ Ukrainian djis are wiped of their proprietary software.”


Not true, at least not on large scale. I am on Ukr drone TG groups and they talk about Litchy being used too

What a shock... you are on Nazi groups...

The whole idea of ratnik and the new vehicle families is to include everything moving forward to share information across the board... in the past the recon forces and the tank forces and every other group had their own communications network, and work will have been put in to linking them together or expanding networks to include other networks to share data and information...

One of the problems they have identified and made public was the Army air defence network was not communicating with the Aerospace air defence forces, so you had gaps and miscommunication, which they are clearly in the process of eliminating to unify the network and forces to share assets and information and equipment and weapons and resources to end up with much better coverage.

Normal networks feed data and information upwards to an HQ, which then should distribute that information to the forces operating there, but that might not always be the case.

As time goes on networks will be expanded and the introduction of maps showing target information, with ground forces being able to add to that information, then a shared map becomes a useful way to store and share information, where video and photos and even radio reports can be added to the map for others to use.

Not just anyone can click on a drone or tank and command it around the battlefield like some computer game, but their views of the battlefield might be uplinked in real time for local forces to see what they see in real time.

You would end up in a situation where an approaching attack helicopter or aircraft could scan the ground in front of them with radar giving a high resolution view that troops on the ground can see and mark themselves on the view and put the locations of enemy forces which the helicopter might use its long range IR sensors to give a video view the ground forces can check and either OK the aircraft to attack or use it for their own indirect fire attack with laser guided shells.

Theres no evidence dobrinya or blockpost have the ability to transmit live video feed to russian command posts, while dji drones cant. Both cant

The T-14 and B-14 and K-14 and all their BMP and other platforms will be net centric and will communicate with Ratnik II and III equipped soldiers as a team... and upgrades to existing armour will include new battle management systems and communications equipment to allow communications between soldiers and vehicles and aircraft including drones.

Remember when lyle6 claimed that FPV drones represent no problem for the russian troops and that theyre extremely easy to defend against using EW, so soldiers dont need to shoot them down? Well,
Actual soldiers, specifically wagner "forgot" theres EW to protect them(Or maybe EW forgot about them), so they started using... shotguns against FPVs, the things people here ridiculed when I said would be useful.

https://t.me/warhistoryalconafter/93504

This just in, jamming screens have gaps that you need other countermeasures like shotguns to fill in.

The fact that the Ukrainians can only manage a handful of succesful FPV hits points to the huge success of the Russian EW in countering this threat.

FPV drones didn't even force Wagner to change tactics, they just added a shotgun to their carry on and still do their thing. One can even argue the shotgun is as mich for room clearing as it is for shooting down drones...

back in September there are rumors that Russia will start procuring Arash-2 suicide drones which are described to have a heavier explosive payload and range compared to the Geran-2. I wonder why we haven't seen them yet being used in the SMO.

Pretty sure they are not buying any Iranian drones.

The Geraniums they are licence producing in Russia with Russian and imported parts. I would expect if they are interested in other Iranian designs they will do the same and locally produce them.

They will likely be using them for a while before we see anything of them... with the orcs censoring hard shots of the use of new systems on the internet are going to be scarce.

Although I think a good alternative would be to upgrade the existing Tu-143 designs and convert these into suicide drones similar to how the Ukrainians convert their Tu-141s to carry out terror missions inside Russia.

They have a relatively powerful jet engine and are designed to fly at medium altitude at 800km/h plus speeds to cover lots of territory as a recon drone... their small wings are not ideal for payloads more than a few hundred kgs of electronics for intel and recon, so they are not ideal for carrying decent sized HE payloads.

The image of the Iranian drone you posted highlights the wing area to carry a decent warhead a good distance.

Actual soldiers, specifically wagner "forgot" theres EW to protect them(Or maybe EW forgot about them), so they started using... shotguns against FPVs, the things people here ridiculed when I said would be useful.

Shotguns would be useful at 20m or less, so a drone that is coming after you, but as a general defence weapon it would only defend the airspace around you 40m across, which is bloody useless unless you have thousands of troops with thousands of shot guns, trained to use them to shoot air targets.

EW system to stop enemy drones will also stop your own drones so sometimes you have to turn the EW system off to have a look at enemy positions.

FPV drones didn't even force Wagner to change tactics, they just added a shotgun to their carry on and still do their thing. One can even argue the shotgun is as mich for room clearing as it is for shooting down drones...

I am surprised they are using short barrel double barrel shotguns... they have a range of AK based automatic shotguns that come with 7 round and 25 round magazines that would be much more effective in both the anti drone role and anti personnel role in buildings and trenches.

The fact that they are using short barrelled double barrel guns suggests it is a last second defence against either drones or munitions released by drones like bomblets and hand grenades... if you can hit a grenade you might deflect it so it does not land on you for instance... even if the drone is thousands of metres up you can still hit falling munitions if you are talented.

More chance of an intercept at 20m up with a 1m wide cluster of lead balls than a bullet.

More importantly, problems in war often lead to different solutions, and sometimes they work and other times they don't... we don't know if this guy has effectively used this gun in combat or he just thinks it might be useful... certainly something like this would be my preference:

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/Hunting%20and%20sport%20weapons/Smoothbore%20weapons/Vepr-12%20VPO-205-02/

Could be a pain in the arse getting ammo for it on the front line though.... drone companies should be working with the army to allow them to develop anti drone weapons and tactics too...

Firing buckshot and slugs into the air would be a good advertisement for soldiers to always wear their helmets in the field...



Opps image cut off... it has a folding stock and a rather long barrel...

Theres no proof of a russian "battle net" in any form. Not even infantry and tanks can communicate directly on radio, let alone share sight or camera feeds.

On one of the threads there was a video showing a tank approaching an enemy trench position with a drone recording and overview of the attack in real time.

The point is that it was pretty clear the tank was seeing what the drone was seeing because even when troops out of line of sight moved in the trench the tank gun fired a round and hit them.

Equally we have seen drone footage of troops moving in the open and then a large cluster of automatic grenade launcher grenades landing amongst the troops... and then follow up bursts landing near the troops that survived the first burst suggesting the drone operator and grenade launcher operator were working together.

Now they might have been sitting together, but equally they could have been sharing information via an HQ that gives the grenade launcher gunner target coordinates and elevation information etc and fire orders to engage the target using real time damage assessment and fire correction.

The Russian military is learning and getting even better.

Interesting article on the work of a volunteer UAV special force:

FULL ARTICLE: https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.4390da6c-64524590-cbc9b601-74722d776562/https/ria.ru/20230503/kontrnastuplenie-1869182656.html