UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News #2

Also the Grom prototype have one such weapon.
Izd.85.

Now, could one wonder how can they fit 2tons payload on a plane with 7tons MTOW?

And most interesting thing: how will they drop them?
I see two hatches alongside but they are absolutely too small.
Kratos has not a landing gear but Grom is way heavier and seems to have a full size radar on the nose so maybe they are just the wheel hatches.

Isos wrote:

TROPPA GRAZIA, SAN GIOVANNI!

marcellogo wrote:Also the Grom prototype have one such weapon.
Izd.85.

Now, could one wonder how can they fit 2tons payload on a plane with 7tons MTOW?

And most interesting thing: how will they drop them?
I see two hatches alongside but they are absolutely too small.
Kratos has not a landing gear but Grom is way heavier and seems to have a full size radar on the nose so maybe they are just the wheel hatches.

I guess the 2 ton payload is an upper bound for very short range operations. But even a 1 ton payload is damn impressive for a wingman drone.
These days a 1 ton bomb can do a lot compared to WWII.

It would be more interesting to know the range of this drone for a typical bomb load. It is focused on speed so it burns fuel quite
fast. No point building a drone that does not have the range of the aircraft that it is acting as wingman for.

Isos wrote:Already posted. 700km combat range and it's a subsonic drone. It's a cheap S-70. They will have to use it from airports much closer the front. But they can also use it from long roads...

On my opinion using it just as a "loyal wingman" although certainly as interesting and innovative as it could be it would turn even reductive if seen in the whole complex of the russian armed forces.
Let's think about inserting it and S-70 as integral components in the land based AD network, with them loitering over S-400 and S-350 battery and acting as both an AEW and a mid-course correction signal emitter for their missiles.

Think about it (not S-70) being launched by army trucks and being used for CAS together with Su-25 and helicopters, landing afterward on its own belly like Kratos do or even better through the trademark russian chute /cushion system so to be operated directly by army personnel without overloading the air force landing strips and maintenance crews.

In this way i.e. resting over already well developed networks it could get a decisive advantage over similar systems operated by US/NATO forces in which those structures are lacking or are too often operated in a single armed force perspective.

Moar...








The crop of new UAVs and miniature weapons has already made this Army edition worth following... I am sure these weapons would be massively useful in Syria, Donbass and many other places where the Russian military may be involved.

It is only a matter of time now that Russia has revealed some murder bots and an array of custom designed weapons for them that the US will start to demand limitations on who they can be sold to and how they can be used without it being a warcrime...

LMFS wrote:Moar...

What are these two white munitions? Are these Missiles equivalent to the Hellfire or maverick?

In that bottom image with the Grom UCAV, the left weapon is the Kh-38M, which is sort of a replacement for the Kh-25 family of weapons, the silver pointy bomb is the KAB-500S satellite guided bomb, and the next is the KAB-250LG laser guided bomb.

That last white weapon on the table I have not seen before... the ID chart says it is an LZD-85, but I am not familiar with it... it is new.

The upper image calls that weapon the Kh-50 which is strange... I thought the Kh-50 was supposed to be a cruise missile... perhaps that is its seeker?

And the small bombs are KAB-20... with their bomb designations the K means it is guided... as opposed to something like an FAB-500 which means high explosive air delivered bomb with a nominal weight of 500kgs.

So KAB-20 is a guided bomb that is probably 20-25kgs in weight... optimised for UAVs of course.

GarryB wrote:the ID chart says it is an LZD-85, but I am not familiar with it... it is new.

Izd. 85

The upper image calls that weapon the Kh-50 which is strange... I thought the Kh-50 was supposed to be a cruise missile... perhaps that is its seeker?

You are right, that was supposed to be the new air launched cruise missile...

Flyboy77 wrote:What are these two white munitions? Are these Missiles equivalent to the Hellfire or maverick?

I don't know, but indeed by the looks it seems what you say. The Kh-50 seems to have a laser seeker, the Izd. 85 an IR one

Isos wrote:Already posted. 700km combat range and it's a subsonic drone. It's a cheap S-70. They will have to use it from airports much closer the front. But they can also use it from long roads...

It's shape says that it is a fuel guzzler. And 700 km range is rather limited so I doubt this number is valid. Lots of speculation being passed
of as actual specifications.

Isos wrote:Rob Lee
@RALee85
·
8 min
Details for the Grom UCAV:
It can carry 100, 250, and 500 kg bombs
Wingspan 10 m
Height 3.8 m
Length 13.8 m
Maximum take-off weight 7,000 kg
Maximum payload 2,000 kg
Maximum speed 1,000 km/h
Cruising speed 800 km/h
Maximum flight altitude 12,000 m
Combat radius 700 km

Don't pass this off as official specifications. It is somebody's BS estimates on social media.

I dont believe that 700km combat radius ether because of the ranges on the fregat and okhotnik.

The Valkyrie is smaller and with similar layout and they say it makes 3,000 miles... can be BS, of course, but that is the manufacturer's word.

Data for Grom are official BTW