UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News

sepheronx wrote:

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:What you geniuses all fail to see, is that the AT drone is one of four, all the other three are for other purposes, and look very clean and developed, perfect for your like.

All of you are incredibly shallow, seeing only the surface and judging by it. A better course of action would be to instead ponder the uses of such a system, such as in low-scale counter-terrorism operations, where a cheap system for highly accurate point attacks with in-service weaponry and microscopic logistics footprint would be wonderful to have. Instead, you have chosen Western-style thinking.

Which would you rather have? A mindset of cold rationality and thinking geared towards achieving every possible advantage over the enemy, or the mindset of incredibly expensive elephants, of ridiculous concepts such as Javelins and APU-equipped towed artillery units? Image gives nothing in war, and does not influence anyone except for low-level intellectuals on circle-jerk forums like F-16.net, which you are turning this forum into.

Pick and choose, intelligence/rationality versus low-minded childish squeals of something not being shiny and techy enough.

"look very clean and developed"... You mean Amazon and Ebay ripoffs with Chinese engines ? There is big, big difference between mockup for military expo and something that actually can be used.

Everyone operates quadcopters and ultra-light and micro UAVs, noone is saying that idea is somehow wrong, just these things we saw are...beyond patethic.

Image does not bring anything, eBay equipment however does not bring much either.

And what is this assumption based on? Russia has already tested various engines for drones, russian made, not Chinese.

And how is it beyond pathetic?  I have yet to see a quadcopter using anti tank missile from anywhere else, doing it fast and clean.  Can you name me any other?  And which drone from Ebay or Amazon is this one you are calling it?  Most drones from ebay are not capable of pulling off such moves, using a anti tank missile and doing it that quickly.  As well, you need to field test software no matter what.  We do it all the time here at work as we always run into issues so any additional adjustments on our robotics here, requires us to field test the software.  Maybe you guys do things differently in Serbia, but in western world, that is how it is done (and why we have such little downtime).

X54 is right, this place is turning into F-16 site.  Too much on asthetics and its pathetic.

sepheronx wrote:And as been evidence, that is what is happening.  But still uav projects are still underway.  The talk of it being an ebay or amazon drone is just really poor critical comments about a look to the device.  Yet the video showed it to be quite an effective killer and it is targeted for FSB or possibly mvd which would be a usefull tool to use in lets say snuffing off a hardened target without putting men in harms way.

Hell, the comments are unfounded since there is no UAV that can carry weapons even as heavy as an RPG or RPO on those websites.

sepheronx wrote:How is it junk? Its the only of its type and very responsive. Add to that, if used for FSB and MVD, it is ideal.

GarryB wrote:The Russian military has Su-25s and Mi-28s and Ka-52s... its need for UCAVs is not that urgent.

they will develop and field them no doubt but such things take time.

In the mean time their artillery gets more powerful and more accurate and longer ranged.

sepheronx wrote:

Militarov wrote:

sepheronx wrote:How is it junk? Its the only of its type and very responsive. Add to that, if used for FSB and MVD, it is ideal.

Quit fanboying now srsly its getting very annoying. If you actually belive that thing in video is actually military product worth of any attention whatsoever by an actual armed forces and not half trained FSB unit in some Dagestani village... i will ask you nicely never again to reply to my comments... Coz that is not military product, not even by a long shot.

Then what is? Because so far, we are told its junk by you but you give no indocation as to why.

You know what is even more annoying? Your idea of asthetics being important and calling other products shit without going into detail why.

sepheronx wrote:

Militarov wrote:

sepheronx wrote:And as been evidence, that is what is happening.  But still uav projects are still underway.  The talk of it being an ebay or amazon drone is just really poor critical comments about a look to the device.  Yet the video showed it to be quite an effective killer and it is targeted for FSB or possibly mvd which would be a usefull tool to use in lets say snuffing off a hardened target without putting men in harms way.

Hell, the comments are unfounded since there is no UAV that can carry weapons even as heavy as an RPG or RPO on those websites.

Not true, there are plenty of quadcopter UAVs that can carry more than 3kg. KittyHawk could probably carry two RPG-26s and camera. Naturally they are on expencive side of quads mostly 3.000+ $.

Could/should but doesnt.

Point still stands, device is swift and precise.  Ideal for fsb or mvd.

sepheronx wrote:MVD tends to operate in city.  But I do tend to agree with the remainder of your points.  But even in the description in the rt video from ruptly, it states it was testing purposes.

I appreciate at least the longer description as to why you state it is junk.  But like most designs, we have noticed nothing actually being fielded besides Orlon and other small drones.  We have seen pics of the engines and frame of what is precieved to be Atlius-M and a tiltroter being tested in the wind tunnel.  Outside of that, I was more inclined to see Dozor series or the Zond from Sukhoi, which never seen funding.

sepheronx wrote:Was the TsAGI tiltroater thing ever linked on this thread? I dunno and I am on phone (so pain enough to go through) to navigate the thread.  But Sdelanounas has a post on it from second of this month.

"Russia’s Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) is testing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with the characteristics of a convertiplane, the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry’s press office said on Friday, February 5, 2016. The unmanned aerial vehicle features vertical takeoff and landing capabilities as a helicopter and a higher speed and an increased cargo-carrying capacity as a turboprop aircraft, the press office added.

"The unmanned aerial vehicle is designed to monitor underlying terrain and accomplish transport tasks. The UAV can be based on small rough sites and will be used in various spheres in future," the press office said. "A UAV of this type features a medium-length straight wing," the press office added. According to the Industry and Trade Ministry’s press office, the tests have proved the UAV’s inherent characteristics. In particular, the trials have shown that the UAV’s design has good aerodynamic characteristics.



Russia’s TsAGI will continue testing the new UAV with the characteristics of a convertiplane in 2016. TsAGI will focus on determining the specifics of the air glide effect in a wide angle-of-attack range at various flight modes. "There is a lot to do for the UAV’s dynamics, sustainability and controllability, structure strength and aeroelasticity," Chief of TsAGI’s Aircraft and Missile Aerodynamics Department and Head of Work on UAV Aerodynamics Alexander Kornushenko said."

x_54_u43 wrote:What you geniuses all fail to see, is that the AT drone is one of four, all the other three are for other purposes, and look very clean and developed, perfect for your like.

All of you are incredibly shallow, seeing only the surface and judging by it. A better course of action would be to instead ponder the uses of such a system, such as in low-scale counter-terrorism operations, where a cheap system for highly accurate point attacks with in-service weaponry and microscopic logistics footprint would be wonderful to have. Instead, you have chosen Western-style thinking.

Which would you rather have? A mindset of cold rationality and thinking geared towards achieving every possible advantage over the enemy, or the mindset of incredibly expensive elephants, of ridiculous concepts such as Javelins and APU-equipped towed artillery units? Image gives nothing in war, and does not influence anyone except for low-level intellectuals on circle-jerk forums like F-16.net, which you are turning this forum into.

Pick and choose, intelligence/rationality versus low-minded childish squeals of something not being shiny and techy enough.

GarryB wrote:

That thing in video is quite humiliating i must say, i couldnt belive my eyes today. Why would they come up with something like this... its off shelf quadcopter with disposable AT placed on it...

Some times you really sound like a fanboi.

Imagine the very thought that they might develop a UCAV from an off the shelf $2000 commercial drone able to carry standard small arms and infantry weapons, and presumably are easy to fly so any fool can operate them.

What the hell are they thinking?

Surely you are right... they need some unique ingenious solution that costs a million dollars per aircraft and is not the same as anything else available, can fly thousands of kms with several tons of ammo because all front line troops want to carry that into battle. They will of course need their own specifically designed (at extra expense) new weapons that are totally different from anything the infantry currently uses and must operate from airfields at least 500m long. You must have a masters degree in engineering to handle it and at least 5,000 hours flight experience to use it... because then it would be COOL.

It carries RPGs as an armament... wouldn't it be safe to assume that a unit would carry it to attack an enemy hard point from the air from a nice safe position?

Do they need a million dollar aircraft for that?

Agreed. But it seems that Russian uav tech is taking a back seat.  I mean, their ucav drones are none existent.  I imagine this system was more of a test but really, where is transas and sokol ucav?

Yeah... because Russian soldiers are getting slaughtered every day because they don't have some fancy flying toy to shoot the bad guys with...

Pacer they even stopped mentioning. Altius-M they mentioned during 2015. as it might "enter service in 2017."...

Arrggh.... 2017... but all those millions of Russian soldiers that will be killed because they don't have these toys to play with... oh the humanity...

Too many companies doing same type of program.  Simply get one to make one amd be done with it.  I imagine is various tests to test out such system.  The drone featured is sad but the software and reaction was impressive (accuracy), but that clearly wont be the drone serviced.

Yeah... lets just have one company compete to make all the dozens of different UCAVs the Russian military might want to use from hand held up to strategic long range... lets call that company Boeing and hmmm... a name for a product that will do the job of any drone you might think of designing... lets make it based on a VSTOL and call it an F-35... I am sure they will be able to make it work... and it will be so cheap..

While I like this factual no-nonsense "war is hell" approach far more than the "car-salesman, war is hella fun" approach, it doesn't mean you have to show completely "naked" "poor-man" prototype devices that are about as awe-inspiring as a roll of toilet paper just because they're there.

I am not getting what is so wrong with this drone?

Sure it does not look expensive, and it is clearly not unique, but isn't the whole idea to have something simple to use, cheap so you can use lots of them, be expendible so if they are lost it is no big deal and noone has to go behind enemy lines to recover the crew and to be able to carry standard infantry weapons that any infantryman is already familiar with and already supplied with on the battlefield?

This is not some F-35 that will level the enemy positions from thousands of kms... this is something you would use when you come across an enemy position and you want to have a look and if appropriate hit hard from an unexpected direction... this system looks ideal to me... I don't understand all the whining.

Regarding the delay the infantry are only now getting Ratnik... what would be the point of issuing UCAVs if your infantry didn't have proper communications equipment including datalink stuff and recon?

This is a drone likely operated by an Engineer unit that would be called in to tackle a building that is directing heavy fire at an attacking force. An RPO_M through a window is what they want... looks to me like it should be able to deliver.

While I like this factual no-nonsense "war is hell" approach far more than the "car-salesman, war is hella fun" approach, it doesn't mean you have to show completely "naked" "poor-man" prototype devices that are about as awe-inspiring as a roll of toilet paper just because they're there.

So pride is your problem... you can't show off so you bitch and moan. OK.

Naturally they can, everything can be jammed, spoofed and defeated one way or another, its part of war, loses. However Sentinel was most likely just picked due to fact they managed to break link with satelite, US underestimated Iranians and thats all.

Not strictly true... these things are not constantly piloted and they don't have to transmit continuously... they can operate in automatic mode and receive no instructions in flight.

"look very clean and developed"... You mean Amazon and Ebay ripoffs with Chinese engines Smile? There is big, big difference between mockup for military expo and something that actually can be used.

You have just looked at video of it launching rockets at targets it is hardly just a mockup. It is clearly not operational either, but this is clearly being field tested.

Everyone operates quadcopters and ultra-light and micro UAVs, noone is saying that idea is somehow wrong, just these things we saw are...beyond patethic.

So hurt pride on your part because you can't boast about how advanced they are?

Doesn't matter that it might be a capable system... it has to look cool or they should just not bother.

https://www.russiadefence.net/t3722p195-iran-latest-and-breaking-news#149887

A rip off of an American drone... perhaps Russia might impress you with their brand new super drone... called F-35.

And what is this assumption based on? Russia has already tested various engines for drones, russian made, not Chinese.

He is just being an ass.

Which is puzzling why certain people are screaming bloody murder over this, and why should Russian MOD waste money on new and expensive drones that can be defeated by archaic, ancient, and crude ECM systems, when that money could be saved to allow more purchases of much more worthwhile 'manned' aircraft, such as the Ka-52 and the Su-32/34. Russian MOD thankfully isn't following Western method of spending immense amount of money outside of budget, so they have to spend their defense budget wisely.

If their going to spend money on drones, I'd rather have them focus on UGV's more than UAV's.

Even the Ka-52 will have the capability to carry and use its own drones... but I am sure they will be awful because being disposable they wont be 5th gen state of the art super UCAVs...

However... deploying this for the army.. you must be kidding me.

So if they are no use why are you bitching that they don't have any currently in the front line saving Russian lives in the war they must be fighting that they need these damn things so desperately?

It took 12 years since they first time annoynced that UCAV development started, it was 2004. I would probably manage to build one by now in my garage with help of few friends that were on mechanical engineering department... And SU25 and UCAV... do not have anything whatsoever in common with except fact that they both fly... Their use is totally different, in perfrect world they actually would operate together.

Who cares how long it took... wtf does that matter?

If they had the perfect UCAV operational 15 years ago... exactly what difference would it have made? Remember 15 years ago they hadn't been fighting in Georgia and their communications and C4IR was not very good, so how would they use all these UCAVs to best effect?

Engine blades are unoprotected, quadcopters are famous for swallowing grass, branches but thanks God there is nothing like that in field, right, right? O.o That thing was made to take off and land on concrete or dry weather.

Blades on a Hind and V-22 are unprotected too...

Its quadcopter so its extremly hard to make modular enough for field use by army, it would make it way to complicated to assemble and disassemble. Construction is more than obviously taken from already existing commercial drone aka "we glued stuff to Chinese junk". There is reason why people made Switchblade instead of stripping AT4 to quadcopter, trust me this is not the first time someone got this idea, however it does not really work well.

Blah Blah Blah... a Kornet missile launcher is quite complex too.. making something modular is making something simple... the AA-1 is complex, the AA-2 is modular and much simpler.... see how that works?

Everything on it screams that components are commercial, just look at it for the love of God.

And for the love of god that is a GOOD THING. Cheap, Mass produced, already half developed, disposable.

Now srsly, tell me you guys are trolling me here, that you actually dont think this is really suited for the field use?

Seemed to hit the targets in the test... is this a sales video trying to sell a finished product or is a test video?

Which does not change fact this is most likely off shelf KittyHawk or analogue with RPG26 and rail on it.

I will take 10.

This on other hand with some work, actually looks like something i might use in field.

Looks like it is too visible and an easy target to me.

sepheronx wrote:And yet a multibillion dollar drone project and its test unit gets hacked and lands in Iran.

These things may not be perfect but if it is dirt cheap and works, I would take it.  I don't care if it is disposable or not.  To me, all of them are.

Add to that, there seems to be a lot of impressive looking drones and UGV so I really wouldn't call it a sad state of affairs for that department.  I have yet to see anyone besides Israel produce such impressive unmanned ground vehicles and most of all the UAV's in Russia are surveillance, probably for a good reason.

sepheronx wrote:

Militarov wrote:

sepheronx wrote:And yet a multibillion dollar drone project and its test unit gets hacked and lands in Iran.

These things may not be perfect but if it is dirt cheap and works, I would take it.  I don't care if it is disposable or not.  To me, all of them are.

Add to that, there seems to be a lot of impressive looking drones and UGV so I really wouldn't call it a sad state of affairs for that department.  I have yet to see anyone besides Israel produce such impressive unmanned ground vehicles and most of all the UAV's in Russia are surveillance, probably for a good reason.

Lets say that Americans took totally different approach that is bad in its own way. Not sure if it was hacked, but if it was its US signal encryption equipment fault, even radios i served on that were from 80s had capability to switch frequencies 100-300 times per second (tho that is not good enough for todays standards). As you know we never got full story on what happened with Sentinel, but its a fact it crash landed with minimal damage.

Things are going forward and that is good. Altius-M has potential to be great platform and few other designs that i am looking forward, these smaller drones are oh well, good enough for the roles they are ment to perform. What i expect to see in future is MALE drone. Reason is that surveiliance drones are needed asap, and in huge quantities. Israelis know their shit when its about electronics no question about it, there is reason why even Lockeed Martin runs to Elbit for assistance whenever they are stuck in some their endless loop project.

They know their electrionics sorta.  But they were really the first to really commericialize it so it was just in the interests of Americans and such to go with them and they didn't choose wrong, neither did Russia when they chose the one Israeli drone to assemble and partial manufacture.

Altius-M is supposed to debut this year or next year, my fingers are on next year as they probably had to import various components before hand and now have to import substitute them (good, will mean even more Russian jobs).  But looking at the ground forces unmanned vehicles, Russia clearly put emphasis on it and surely is paid off.  A BMP style system unmanned, other tank and infantry killers, etc.  The ones I posted above are clear indication.  Then there is the test of the Russian quadrotor being controlled by the mind built in Russian University, and the fact that there are dozens of different surveiliance drones in Russia gives an indication that their priorities are a whole lot different.  I myself would like to see a surveillance drone carrying a bomb to drop on an enemy while it gives coordinates to the ground troops, but those bombs require a lot of carrying weight capacity to carry them.  So something like Altius-M will have to be the one to do it.

BTW, on this quadcopter:
http://sputniknews.com/russia/20160212/1034652875/russian-military-rocket-drone.html

Cool part is it can work autonomous for 7 days.

BTW, is there any picture and videos of the whole exhibition going on?

sepheronx wrote:

Hence why Russia is building all types of unmanned ground systems.

Suicide drones make a lot of sense, especially if said drones are cheap.  Eleron and Orlan are not cheap so it would make sense to use something cheaper.

Militarov wrote:...One of main reasons why Switchblade is becoming so popular in NATO armies is that they were often using Javelin, Milan, TOW or similar fairly expencive ATGMs to attack fortified positions or even men behind dirt cover, so they decided to make Switchblade which is few times cheaper and still will manage to neutralise same target in over 85% of cases.