Evaluating Russian Drone Technology and its market
The Unmanned vehicles proved themselves to be very reliable for ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and reconnaissance) operations, especially the unmanned areal vehicles, some of them which can fly around 80 hours at a go without needing to land or refuel and travel as far as 7400 km. But Russia is a little behind in this competition, the indigenous production of advanced areal drones is going at a slower pace compared to the industry leaders. Russia is developing towards Electronic warfare where the casualties on its side can be reduced.
The Russian military is currently operating more than 500 drones, The use of combat drones can play a key role if the ongoing tussle at the Ukraine border materializes into a full-fledged engagement between the forces, as it will reduce the number of casualties on the Russian side. Rusia acquired 14 Bird-Eye 400, I-View Mk 150 and Searcher Mk II drones from Israel in 2009. Russia also tried to procure medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) drones from Israel, but Israel didn’t go through due to pressure from the US and jeopardizing its arms trade with the neighbours of Russia. The Russian MoD has tested and placed orders for various small drones, some of them are the Granat and the Takhion (Izhmash Unmanned Systems, Izhevsk), Eleron-3SV (Enics, Kazan), and the Korsar (United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation, Rostec, currently in testing).[1]
The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is equipped with Zala drones (Zala Aero Group, Izhevsk), Zala-421, Irkut-10 (Irkut company), and Orlan systems the lightweight (18 kilograms) Orlan-10 (Special Technological Center, St. Petersburg), is being used for reconnaissance, surveillance, communications jamming, artillery correction and positional unit support. These are tactical drones, relatively smaller than combat drones and have lesser flight time, and very lightweight to carry payloads and weapons platforms. In 2011 Russia launched the development of three categories of heavier drones: the 4.5-ton Altius-M (developed by Tranzas and Simonov, its capabilities are often compared to the MQ-9 Reaper), the 1-ton Inokhodets (developed by Tranzas, similar to the MQ-1 Predator class), and the 15-ton Okhotnik (Sukhoi, MiG). Even with the shortage of critical electronics due to the sanctions Russia completed the testing of the Altius-RU drone, which is supposedly equivalent to U.S.A.F.’s RQ-4 Global Hawk.
Recently Russia also released images of their Orion drone taking down another drone which is 100km away, with a missile, this is the first time that Russia showed a dog fight capability in a drone, Russian General Staff Alexander Novikov said that the Orion drone can shoot down Turkish Bayraktar(TB-2) and other drones, which devastated Russian supplied forces in Libya, Syria and Armenia. The recent series announcements made by Russia regarding updates on various drones and their Electronic warfare capabilities can also indicate that Russia is trying to show the world its capabilities and make them understand that it is no less than any other nation, Turkey was highlighted in the drone development arena in recent times due to the live transmission of its drones video feed to the public while testing and other video releases by Turkey bought it some limelight in the arena. There is a chance that Russia is speeding up the development and announcement to secure its position in the development race.
Russia is also working towards using “dumb bombs” with its drones, the bombs which don’t have any guidance or manoeuvring capability, but they make precision hits by dropping with accuracy, which is very cheaper to make compared to the guided missiles used by western nations which are very expensive. Recently a video was released where S-70 Okhotnik (“Hunter”) stealth combat drone was using an unguided missile with an SVP-24 aiming system developed for the Su-24 tactical bomber to hit the target. They claimed that it can drop bombs with 3-5 metres accuracy by calculating speed, altitude, wind, humidity and other factors.
The defence ministry of Russia also released a testing video of an S-70 Okhotnik (Hunter) heavy combat drone in 2019, which is expected to be ready for fielding by 2024. It is being developed by Chkalov’s Novosibirsk aviation plant in western Siberia. It has a takeoff weight of 20 tons, with a wingspan of 19 meters, and measures 14 meters long. It has a flat nozzle to increase stealth capability, which resembles the American stealth bomber Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. It is using a Russian made-engine — the Al-41F1, giving it a range of up to 6,000 kilometres. Reports claim that the coming versions can reach a speed of 1,000 kmph.
In September 2021 The Kronshtadt Company announced their latest drone, the ‘Grom’ (Russian for “Thunder”), according to the company the drone is a high-speed unmanned vehicle and can use all the latest fighter jet missiles and bombs. The electronic and the Artificial intelligence onboard this drone will be able to interact with Su-35 fighter jets, Su-57 fifth-generation aircraft and get mission updates. The Grom can lead a swarm of small reconnaissance and attack drones Armada with it. The reconnaissance drones will head back after the mission, while the Kamikaze drones act as “loitering munition”, that can be directed to attack when required. These small drones can be in constant communication with the Grom and the Grom can reassign the drones according to the requirements. Grom’s four hardpoints can accommodate a wide range of bombs and missiles, including KAB-250 and KAB-500 guided bombs, the Kh-38 air-air-surface missile, and a new “item 85 smart air bomb.” [2]
According to JSC "Kronstadt", which is developing "Thunder", “|The Grom will be able to control the swarm of 10 small-sized Molniya drones in reconnaissance and strike configurations with the ability to change tasks for each member of the group.”[3] The Molniya drones are designed for “high-precision destruction of stationary and mobile ground targets, use as decoys to complicate the air situation, suppress enemy air defences, create and control a strike group breakthrough zone and promptly destroy suddenly discovered air defence objects, provide group electronic warfare during execution tasks in conjunction with manned aircraft.” [4]
Russia also unveiled their new kamikaze drone armada in their Army 2021 exhibition in August. Kamikaze drones do not carry any missiles, they are suicide drones that crash into the target and explode, causing more damage. These are being developed by the ZALA Group within the Kalashnikov Concern. These drones can stay in the air for a longer time and fly towards the target in packs when required. These are relatively small and carry less amount of explosives than their foreign counterparts, but that makes them less noisy and smaller targets. These can be used against sea, land and air targets. This project is a modification of the 2019 “KYB” project which intended to create a flying swarm with a 3Kg payload. Currently, these drones are working with a special launcher that can store up to 15 drones and can be mounted to a speed boat or light armoured ground vehicle.[5]
Russia recently mentioned in a report that they are working on combat drone development with no western counterparts. But to achieve the advanced level capabilities it will take a considerable amount of time, especially when they are being developed entirely indigenously, so we need to be sceptical about the actual capabilities of these drones in the initial stages. And the ambition for indigenous development is leading to bottlenecks in the process as all the aspects of development are not the same standard. Russia can also engage in “No contact warfare”, where there is no involvement of Russian regular forces. Ukraine military shot down a drone in 2014 and claimed it to be a Russian Orlan 10 reconnaissance UAV, and Russia is using drones to support the Moscow backed separatists in the region. Russia has developed a comprehensive strategy to integrate the drone and robotic technologies in different branches of its forces like their army, air force, navy, the Federal Security Service, MVD, Ministry of Emergency Situations Accordingly. Developing new technologies and using various techniques for their efficiency can lead to a potentially good market for Russian drones if they decide to export.
Notes
[1] “Russian Army to Receive Corsair Surveillance Drones in Late 2016,” SputnikNews.com, December 25, 2014.
[2] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/meet-drone-russians-call-thunder-194153
[3] https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/10902409
[4] https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/10902409
[5] https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/334174-russia-unveils-new-kamikaze-drone
Pic Courtsey-Michael Parulava at unsplash.com
(The views expressed are those fo the author and do nto represent views of CESCUBE.)
