Armed drone will decrease the effectiveness of rest of Ruaf at this point.
I think that’s true, Russia doesn’t have the industry or the experience to field advanced UAVs at this time
that said this is an obvious fault of their military leadership, UAVs have proven their value many times over by now, the failure of Russia to keep up is costing them now
The Iraqis have used quite a number of Chinese Ch-5’s and my understanding is they would probably happily trade them all in for a half dozen Su-25’s.
interesting, any quotes on that?
but I guess then you mean that the UAVs can’t carry enough payload to be effective, but I don’t think that’s their job, they might as well complain that their prop COIN aircraft can’t intercept F-22s
incidentally the IqAF does have a number of advanced F-16s with outdated weapons, I’m guessing they’d rather exchange those first 😉
Even the lightly loaded strike Chinese UAVs would be useful – VKS is operating Searchers and I don’t think operational costs would be that much high to outweigh the cost of a light strike capability tied in with real time surveillance.
A thermobaric warhead on even a medium sized missile would have acceptable area effect.
well between purely recon UAVs and the RuAF’s ability to deploy a lot of manned jets quickly I’d say they have it covered
I think they lack of precision weapons is a bigger problem when fighting COIN
which is why I’m thinking of radio guided bombs: cheap and precise, and I doubt ISIS and the FSA have the jammers to affect them
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?141553-Radio-guided-bombs
While it has been locating possible targets as vehicles with the use of radar, the Ka-52 could approach and use the GOES-451 system to confirm them, while it kept out of range of the insurgents, as well as the Ka- 52 could attacking these with its own weapons and to command others aircraft’s or ground troops to engage the enemy.
If UAV has more autonomy than helicopters like the Ka-52, the Ka-52 can operate very close at the enemy from mobile forward bases, since these does not demand air bases or even improvised runways like the UAV.
problem with the Ka-52 is that is has a range of 500km. I’m guessing it won’t be able to stay up for much longer than 3 hours
by contrast a Ch-4 is said to have a 5000km range
what truly makes the Ka-52 so special are its sensors, you put those on an (unarmed) Ch-4 class aircraft (which could be as cheap as $5-10 million) and you’ve got a 40 hour J-STAR equivalent for a fraction of the price
RuAF operate is strict contact with SAA troops on the ground, not sending drones hundred of km into enemy line begging for found a viable target like int. coalition do, so even a tactical drone, just for keep a constant look from the air iis more than enough.
Every time a formation of russian planes take off from Latakia it has several option of intervention thank of troops action on ground.
yeah but if an Su-30 averages at $50 million and Russia were to be able to buy Predator class UAVs at say $5 million then they’d be able to field 10 UAVs for the cost of one Sukhoi, probably costs about the same in fuel too
equip them with small caliber precision guided weapons, and you’ll be able to give 10 ground units 24/7 day/night overwatch and instant strike capability
not bad for buying one less Sukhoi. buy 4 less Sukhoi’s and you’ve got 40 UAVs, that’s probably more air power than the Syrians can bring to bear at this point. hell you can equip them with dumb bombs and they’ll still be more useful than those expensive Sukhoi’s
All this talk about drones. If drones were the be-all and end-all then I doubt that the US would still be using the 60’s era U2. Drones have their drawbacks. Russia has elected not to prioritize them. Yet.
actually the plan was to make the U-2 unmanned as well, which would make the plane even better. sending any human flying that high for that long is absurd. but with the F-35 (another manned plane) taking up all the money there’s nothing left for the really useful stuff
also the U-2 is probably outdated by the USAF’s secret stealth UAV force like the Sentinel
No, Russian companies just have yet to make a modern half decent one.
yeah Russia could be dominating the UAV market if they had gotten on that, as well as greatly improved their declining air power for a fraction of the cost of manned jets
the Russians have decades of experience with unmanned aircraft and missiles, I’m sure they’d be able to figure it out
I don’t understand why Mig isn’t all over this to keep the Mig-29 lines open
keep the wings, ditch one engine and reduce the tail
this gives you a small, light aircraft with lots of fuel and payload capacity
and dirt cheap because you’re using all existing parts that are still in production
and easy to maintain because your conscripts already know the engine and most of the aircraft
There is no reason to have a parallel armed drone program running in Syria when you have a functioning air force right there. SU 25 SU 24 and SU 34’s are already there ready and able to do whatever is needed.
well there’s cost, armed UAVs cost a fraction of manned fighter jets
there’s performance, loiter time is more important in COIN operations, and ground units prefer a 24/7 guardian angel with precision weapons over a manned jet that can take ages to get there, and then can’t do anything because the enemy is too close to the friendlies, which is a good thing because half the time they can’t tell friend from foe anyway (contrary to a UAV which has been watching the terrain for hours and knows perfectly well which is which)
and then there’s the small detail of pilots getting killed, like the Su-24 that got shot down
The AP is reporting that the Air Force is cancelling the RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude spy drone opting instead to keep the legendary U-2 Dragon Lady in service.
the USAF has also tried to cancel the A-10 for decades. they’re idiots
or maybe they knew Congress would never allow that, so they didn’t fund the aircraft knowing that Congress would give them more money for it
nice bureaucratic move: Congress gets to look good for saving the A-10, and if they call the AF’s bluff they get to ditch the A-10, it’s a win-win for them
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