The arrow is said to be the "world's first supersonic UAV that pushes the boundary with state-of-the-art swarm and autonomous aerial flight logic — making it a formidable UAV."
Bullshit.
Exhibit A Tu-123
And regarding the swarm and autoonomous aerial flight logic..
Exhibit B Granit SS-N-19
Take Russia the bulk of Russia's drones are for battlefield observation then clobbering the targets with artillery/MLRS/cruise missiles or airstrikes ... Russia is lagging on the front of low cost strike drones ....the Mig Skat is not yet operational but like the new UAV Hind they are not exactly low cost platforms
I disagree... Russia creates a broad spectrum of cheap drones... but cheap is relative... a cheap store bought drone with a 20 minute battery and 2km flight range is simply not good enough for most military purposes because it is too easy to intercept the datalink and the cameras will be a bit cheap too.
Most high flying UAVs need much better cameras than that fitted to most civilian drones, and of course stabilisation systems so those good cameras take a decent and useful image.
They had literally dozens of different drone prototypes in 2008 when they started actually spending money to buy some but being prototypes they were cobbled together with cheap cameras and datalinks that were weak and short ranged and easily jammed or intercepted etc etc.
That is why they bought the Forepost from Israel.... it was not new technology by any means, but it was combat proven and solid and with good cameras and good datalinks and produced to a reasonable performance and quality level and of course the software and control equipment was all fully developed and combat tested.
It set the benchmark that other UAV makers in Russia have aimed for and exceeded by the look of it.
Forepost is still used but these new systems are Russian designs with Russian components intended to take its place, and they will only expand their fleet options...
You see today that drones are used in training and in combat and with that experience they will further ask for new capabilities... they have disposable suicide drones.... as camera technology matures and improves older models become obsolete and therefore cheap and expendable so you can mount what is still quite a decent camera on a drone you intend to use as a weapon.
Mass production of components will drive down costs and as new technology and new components are developed you get a ready supply of older cheaper components you can use on more expendable models... not state of the art but good enough for the job.
General western air defence capacity to drones is rather weak anyway... because all the funding and support for small light cheap attack drones has been funnelled to terrorists to use against bases in Syria, so they have be testing and practising against such systems for a good 5 years and during that time they have made a lot of changes and upgrades to their systems for detection and destruction of such systems.
When such systems and low flying weapons were used in Saudi Arabia the result was a little shocking... they didn't know they were under attack till the targets of the attack started exploding.
I am sure they will be better prepared next time, but they clearly didn't expect to be attacked at all... a bit like HATO.
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
