UAVs in Russian Armed Forces: News #3

Skip through the video to 7:16 to see a section to see a clip about HALE drones being used as low altitude satellites. Stratospheric drones.

They operate over a smaller area that orbital satellites but launch and operational costs are much much lower.

Not sure if the specifications translate properly... it is supposed to be 315kgs and with a 40m wingspan and operate at a flight speed of 120 to 140km/h.

Rocket firing drone...

Have you seen the one that was using a stick to kill an ukro drone?
That was funny!

A drone carrying drones.

Was suggested quite some time ago and I remember thinking it was a silly idea because it is a bit redundant... but actually long range communications with drones and control systems are expensive, while FPV drones are relatively cheap.

If you separate the expensive from the cheap and use each where it makes sense... expensive allows long range and quality cameras and equipment, while cheap and simple is good for suicide drones that are only used once but they lack range.

By having a larger drone that is long range and has good cameras and navigation equipment and put small drones with short range, cheap motors, cheap relatively small batteries that can't be recharged thousands of times... maybe only tens of times or even just once like a hydrogen battery that can be stored indefinitely with onboard "fuel" that does not need charging before use and will work once just fine every time... then you have a good combination for a recon/attack drone and a suicide drone that it could carry.

The carrier drone has good range and speed and good cameras including night vision cameras of decent quality so targets can be found and identified, and can loiter for long periods and then return and be reequipped with more suicide drones.

The suicide drones can be super simple and super cheap... you could even have some with HEAT warheads and some with HE frag warheads depending on the target... soft skin or armoured. You could even use incendiary for attacking building with enemy forces in.. a bit of thermite on the roof will quickly burn through and set fire to lower levels in even the tallest building.

The suicide portion of the drone can use cheap electric motors and cheap batteries... perhaps one use chemical batteries, and a variety of different warheads, and cheap simple datalinks going through the carrier drones comms to operate deep behind enemy lines with a data range of 4 to 5km, which is to reach the carrier drone which might be 200km behind enemy lines at 5km altitude where no one can see or hear it... The suicide drone will be mostly falling... a few guided bombs could be used for easily visible targets and drones to chase down more elusive targets...

The Russians and Soviets have been doing it for years with SAMs... make the missiles cheap and simple because they are the expendable portion of the system. Make the launcher sophisticated and capable of detecting and attacking all sorts of targets, and then the missiles will be cheap enough to produce in eye watering numbers.

Make the recon drones sophisticated enough and expensive enough to find targets and suicide drones and smart munitions cheap enough to buy in enormous numbers.

The expensive recon drones get used over and over and the money spent makes them very effective, while the suicide drones are cheap and effective enough to get the job done well...

I suspect part of the problem is that at low level near a target that is moving there can be complex wind and airflows and that many targets require precise hits in vulnerable areas or you are wasting your time.

For instance an Abrams tank has good armour over most of it frontal area, but the top of the hull near the driver is paper thin and of course the ammo is stored in the turret bustle so a top attack on the turret is bound to hit something important.

Hit it from the front and you need a Kornet warhead or Vikhr warhead... but from the top even the oldest weakest RPG-2 warhead or RPG-7 warhead would do the job just fine.

If the hatches are open even a hand grenade through an open hatch would be devastating in an enclosed space.

Having recon drones flying around the place finding targets and then getting suicide drones in there to actually attack what is found is what led the US to making armed UAVs in the first place... to start off they were just recon drones but they would find targets and by the time an attack on that target could be organised and executed the target had moved on... which led to their large drone UAVs getting Hellfire missiles so when a target is spotted it can be attacked immediately.

The obvious problem is that this works in third world countries with no air defence to shoot down enormous enemy UAVs flying around the place but for a real war the recon drones are much smaller and don't really have the onboard capacity to carry a lot of heavy ordinance.

These suicide drone carrying recon drones improve performance and can chase down individual targets if need be but I wonder if there is scope for a rather large drone that perhaps flys very very high... out of reach of most ground fire but that can carry enormous numbers of small laser homing bombs and glide bombs in the 5kg, 10kg and 20kg weight range that orbits over the battlefield waiting for calls to attack targets from much smaller lighter drones operating lower.

When a target is detected its location is communicated and the nearest bomb truck turns and decides which type and size of weapon to use to suit the target... the recon drone can even mark the target with a laser so the bomb truck can release a bomb on a trajectory to come very close to the target and the recon drone can mark the target in the last few seconds to ensure a kill... the bomb truck could carry enormous numbers of tiny bombs internally in a low drag configuration in a HALE design that might loiter for days depending on the payload and rate of use...

Ironically I would think the manned alternatives should be reversed where the recon drone could be an airship operating at 40-50km altitude with multiple optical pods and radar pods and electronic sensors and systems scanning for targets and even a radio relay to control ground based drones etc, while the platforms carrying the ordinance could be light fighters carrying bombs with glide kits from 20kg to 1,500kg that operate at a standoff distance 10-20km back from the front line releasing bombs at altitude and supersonic speeds that glide in and hit targets marked by the high flying airship.

AI could certainly play a role in dealing with an enormous number of targets to be found and engaged all at once to devastating effect.

Have heard of groups of drones flown from friendly areas to enemy areas and attacks being performed and then those drone operators switch to other drones to continue the attacks... essentially they all fly to the combat area and when ready the drone operator takes control and attacks the target and then swaps to the next drone for the next attack using the recon drone as a communications transmitter/repeater so they can use cheap simple short range drones with short range transmitters for suicide attacks that consume the drones so they can be cheap and expendable... but also effective.