VVS Russian Airforce Force: News #2

They began to create a stratospheric strike and reconnaissance complex for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation . It will consist of an aircraft, suspended containers with radars, electronic reconnaissance systems and optical-electronic stations. The new complex will be able to transmit target coordinates in real time to ground-based missile systems, artillery, naval and aviation ships. This will significantly increase the effectiveness of our missile strikes, experts are sure.

View from the stratosphere

In the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the development of a new reconnaissance and strike complex (RUK) has begun, sources in the military department told Izvestia and confirmed by interlocutors in the defense-industrial complex. The new product is based on an aircraft capable of performing missions at high altitudes, including in the stratosphere (a layer of the atmosphere located at an altitude of 11–50 km - Izvestia).

According to Izvestia’s interlocutors, the aircraft will have a modular configuration. Depending on the mission, it will be possible to install radar, electronic or optical-electronic reconnaissance systems on board. The new product will be capable of detecting targets in real time both on the battlefield and in the operational rear and providing target designations to carriers of precision weapons, artillery, aviation and naval ships.

It is planned that the RUK equipment will include suspended reconnaissance containers created as part of the Sych development work, sources told Izvestia.

Now the M-55 Geophysics high-altitude aircraft is confirming the possibility of operating suspended containers at high altitudes. Based on the test results, they will be finalized. The possibility of transmitting information in real time to the ground is also being tested. Photos of the aircraft at the time of testing have already appeared on social networks.

The M-55 “Geophysicist” was not chosen by chance as a platform for testing reconnaissance equipment for the new RUK. It is capable of rising into the stratosphere - to a height of up to 20 km. Initially, it was intended to intercept high-altitude reconnaissance balloons regularly launched by the United States to photograph objects in the USSR. But in the 1980s, these tasks were no longer necessary, and the aircraft were reclassified as reconnaissance and research aircraft.

Conducting reconnaissance from high altitudes is a very promising direction, Honored Test Pilot Igor Malikov told Izvestia.

“This is constant monitoring of space,” he explained. — You need to know where the enemy is, where he is moving, where he is amassing forces. In the current situation, this is very necessary knowledge so that we can respond instantly. The difficulty of conducting such reconnaissance depends on the equipment you have. Firstly, this is radar equipment. At one time we made such reconnaissance aircraft - the M-17, which had a side-view antenna that scanned enemy territory.

In modern armed conflicts, it is important to reduce the time from detection to destruction of a target to a minimum, military expert Dmitry Kornev told Izvestia.

“Aircraft operating in the stratosphere will primarily provide targets for ground forces missilemen, ” he believes. — The same MLRS “Smerch”, “Tornado-S” with precision-guided ammunition, as well as missile brigades with “Iskander”. This complex can fire two types of missiles - ballistic, which will provide minimal flight time, and cruise, which fly more slowly. The latter are suitable for destroying stationary objects. Front-line aviation will also receive relevant targets, including helicopter units armed with high-precision LMUR missiles.

According to the expert, the main consumers of information from the created complex will be Su-34 and Su-34M bombers. They can use not only high-precision missiles, but also high-precision bombs with unified planning and correction modules.

In Long-Range Aviation, target designation from the RUK will increase the effectiveness of the MiG-31 with the Kinzhal hypersonic systems, the expert believes.

“In this case, it will take a matter of minutes to destroy a remote target, ” noted Dmitry Kornev.

In addition, ships with Kalibr cruise missiles, and in the future also with hypersonic Zircons, will use RUK target designations. Also, new aircraft could patrol large areas and seas. For example, areas where Western missile submarines or aircraft carrier strike groups patrol.

Three container options

All equipment of the new reconnaissance complex will fit into three containers with different reconnaissance loads. The UKR-RT version is designed for electronic reconnaissance, UKR-OE for optical-electronic reconnaissance, and UKR-RL for radar reconnaissance.

It is known that the development of UKR-RT began in the late 2000s. This equipment is capable of detecting and accurately determining the coordinates and technical characteristics of targets such as communication and information transmission systems, radar stations, and control lines for unmanned aerial vehicles.

It will be able to detect radar radiation, the operation of radio communication centers and even cell phones at a distance of hundreds of kilometers. Test flights with the UKR-RT container installed under the fuselage were also carried out by Su-34 front-line bombers.

The UKR-RL electronic reconnaissance container with the fourth-generation Pika-M radar has completed state tests and has already been tested in a real situation , Vladimir Maksimov, general director of the Kulon Research Institute, previously stated. It can work at any time of the day and even in heavily cloudy conditions.

UKR-OE containers “extract” information by receiving and analyzing radiation in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared ranges, which are created by reconnaissance objects.

The RUK equipment accurately determines the coordinates, type and other parameters of the found object.

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The MiG-31 can fly at even higher altitudes than the M-55. It could be turned into a reconnaissance aircraft if they wanted to.

This means an aircraft with a carrying capacity somewhere in between the Il-76 and An-124.

Perhaps a twin PD-35 engine powered Il-76 replacement aircraft?