Su-25 attack aircraft

Ukraine had all that and the planet's greatest ISR apparatus working overdrive. Didn't help them one bit.

Upgrading the Su-25 is not a bad idea but I think it's time that Russia came out with a UCAV design that can replace this aircraft wholesale. I mean it's not a critical type aircraft; if the enemy jams so who cares, it can fly back to base or crash or whatever. And without the pilot inside it can be totally expendable too and simply be used for the most risky strafing runs and in air-defense rich environments.

I would think suicide drones could be used together with an Su-25 type with better defences against enemy weapons like Manpads, which seems to be rather successful assuming you don't believe claims Russia has lost thousands of aircraft already...

I personally think it makes more sense to put sophisticated capable systems in the aircraft to find and destroy ground targets and defend itself from enemy weapons and use cheap simple but accurately delivered weapons.

Having cheap dumb drones flying around... well when they are quickly shot down how cheap they are doesn't matter if they don't deliver on target... even cheap is useless if it does not get the job done of finding and destroying targets on the ground.

The Su-25 should be an aircraft that russia can afford to lose in the dozens every month. Currently theyre being used as high value assets, doing indirect fire. It should interdict, be expendable and fly behind enemy lines to destroy artillery and shorads.

Put a drone in there and I would agree... expendible... but an Su-25 has a pilot which means they can't afford to lose them in numbers... they are currently being used against enemy troops in the open... hense the primary weapon is rockets and the launch method is lofted from extreme range.... which improves effect on target and makes the launch aircraft safer.

For example, before the ugledar attack, over 60-70 Su-25s shouldve been used to attack any high value target in direct fire, and drop bombs on reinforcment columns behind enemy lines, without care for losses.

They shouldve been equipped with vikhrs, loitering and destroying vehicle with them on call.

Would have been better to use MiG-35s from medium altitude in large numbers looking for targets to attack with laser guided bombs and missiles and with anti radiation missiles to deal with any SAM threat that could reach them.

Then theres no point in building any more manned CAS aircraft. Russia shouldnt have bothered with Su-25s if theyre not expendable, and shouldve procured hundreds of orion UCAVs by the mid 2010s. The Su-25 is redundant in indirect rocket fire and ATGM usage compared to attack helos

Before we cancel Su-25s perhaps we should make sure the planned replacements can even do the job there Karen...

Su-25 can carry twice the rocket payload of any of their helicopters and can get to places much faster than any of their helicopters can and deliver rocket attacks and leave faster too.

You can't compare the Ukrainian AD network to the Russian one

The Ukrainian one maintains enough strength to be able to ambush Russian aviation, and this is enough for the Russian VKS to use its assets cautiously and conservatively, without doing any unnecessary risks.
But if it's a drone so then who cares.

You are right, but more importantly the heavy and Effective use of drones to attack Orc positions will force the Orcs to actually try to use their air defence equipment to reduce the damage which exposes their air defence systems to attack by other platforms...

That's the thing. You don't have hundreds of drones to lose. You have a few dozen. Try using them in a devil may care way that Ukraine did and even the diminished Ukrainian AD would attrit them to bits.

Perhaps what they need is decoy drones in the medium and large size that are much simpler and much cheaper that they can send into areas to goad air defences to light up and while they are engaging them (you could fit them with ARMS so they can launch attacks at anything trying to shoot them down) then other higher flying drones can note where the enemy air defence equipment is and engage it too...

Even the very big drones can't carry heavy ordinance comparable to a Su-25 and even the ones who can are likely even more expensive and less expendable...

The latter can be countered by saturating the ugledar front with about 80 orions armed with glide bombs coupled with 12-30 Su-24s or Su-25s behind them who will destroy any AD that targets the orions.

The coordination and operation of 20 drones in one area would be complex enough, but you want 80?

Don't know how good their AI and Swarm technology, but that is going to be very labour intensive.

Perhaps when the new armour is in service and everyone is on Ratnik III and communication is at a level where anyone can see where anyone else is and therefore can also mark enemy very easily so they can be engaged by any other platform that this might work... but even then there will be problems I suspect.

A NASAMs or IRIS T is far more valuable than an orion or sirius.

Very much agree... any AD missile that can take down a manned aircraft is worth forcing them to use on drones or destroying.

Ukraine had all that and the planet's greatest ISR apparatus working overdrive. Didn't help them one bit.

And the one country that could afford hundreds of medium and heavy drones... even their old ones could be pulled out of storage and sent, but they refuse because they know how futile it would be against the Russian air defences.