UPDATE: Saturday, Feb 24, 2024 · 11:44:15 PM +00:00 · Jim Carner
A few other thoughts…
Ukraine could do with the following:
- Drones with EW capability to jam and spoof Russian radars, which would make it harder for Russia to detect and shoot down Ukrainian drones. Therefore the Ukrainian drones would be much more likely to hit their targets and not get shot down en route.
- Drones with self-protection capability. The MQ-9 Reaper drone can carry the Self-Protection Pod (SPP) that consists of BriteCloud decoys to decoy radar-guided missiles and a DAIRCM system to blind infrared-guided missiles. The Reaper can also carry the Angry Kitten Electronic Warfare pod. Ideally Ukraine would get Reapers with the SPP and Angry Kitten, or else equivalents will be developed.
- A variant of the HARM missile with pop-out wings would make sense to extend its range. If HARMs could be launched from say 300km from Russian S-300 and S-400 SAM systems then that would be ideal. A ground-launched variant of HARM would also be useful to take out Russian SHORAD systems.
- Airships would be ideal because of their very long range and endurance (which is measured in days or weeks, not hours).
Ukraine needs vast numbers of drones, including loitering munitions. They’re the best chance that Ukraine has to win the war. A drone coalition is slowly being built up between nations, but it needs to happen much faster: www.reute
Drones, unlike manned aircraft, can be built quickly in huge numbers and this is exactly what Ukraine needs. Plus no pilot is being put in harm’s way, and the logistics burden is far far lower compared to manned aircraft. And considering that Russia has far more people to draw on compared to Ukraine, this is another reason why drones make perfect sense for Ukraine.
Ukraine and its allies need to vastly outproduce Russia when it comes to drones (of all sorts), and they also need to manufacture ludicrous numbers of anti-radiation loitering munitions, which will enable Ukraine to take out SHORAD vehicles, SAM radars, counter-battery radars, EW systems and even ship radars.
Despite the image above, Ukraine needs a huge range of drones from short-ranged to medium-ranged to long-ranged to very long-ranged.
My definitions are as follows:
Short-range drones: By this I mean drones that have the range to take out troops, MBTs, IFVs and APCs near the frontline, so drones with a range of approx 10km or so.
Medium-ranged drones: Meaning drones that can take out gun-based artillery, SHORAD vehicles and rocket artillery, so distances from approx 20km to 100+ km.
Long-ranged drones: Meaning drones that can hit targets such as S-300/S-400 SAM systems, so a range of 400+ km.
Very long-ranged drones: This means any drone with a range beyond 400+ km, especially ones that can hit targets deep in Russia, so you’re looking at drones with a range of 1,000km or more. Such drones can hit targets in Russia such as oil refineries, ordnance factories, aircraft on the ground, subs and ships in port, etc.
Anti-radiation loitering munitions
Such munitions are something that Ukraine desperately needs, but which it doesn’t have. And hardly surprising because the west doesn’t have them either. Or at least not in large numbers.
Germany has HERO loitering munitions, but they’re Israeli weapons and so Ukraine will never end up with HERO weapons. Or Israeli Harpy loitering munitions either.
That said, Taiwan manufactures the Chien Hsiang and South Korea manufactures the KUS-SX. Ukraine could do with either of these weapons. How to make it happen?
Apart from the range of drones, another important issue is whether drones can operate in the face of electronic warfare (EW).
I’ve read tht Ukraine has been losing 10,000 drones a month to EW. That’s absolutely insane.
There are a few ways to make drones resistant or immune to EW:
- The BAE DIGAR system provides anti-jam and anti-spoof GPS capability. (It can also be combined with M-code satellites.)
- The Thales uTMA system provides an anti-jam datalink. This could be a datalink (a) between a drone and a human operator and/or (b) a datalink between one drone and another drone (or multiple drones). This system could also be used to extend the range of drones by using drones as comms repeaters.
- Drones with machine vision/Automatic Target Recognition (ATR)
- VBN = Visual-Based Navigation (no GPS needed)
- Laser comms: Such a system is weather-dependent, but in good weather such a system AIUI is immune to EW. And unlike radio comms, a laser comms system can transfer hi-def video at a far faster rate than a radio comms system could because of far greater bandwidth.