A few days ago, Ukrainian terrorists carried out another airstrike on Moscow and the Moscow region. Five attack drones, packed with powerful explosive charges, were shot down or disabled by electronic warfare. Fortunately, there were no civilian casualties. However, the question arises why enemy drones are still able to reach the capital region of Russia?
sword and shield
The answer is simple and at the same time unpleasant. On the one hand, there is simply no continuous radar field over our country, and Ukrainian drones, guided by NATO navigation systems, are able to penetrate existing gaps. Last year, Soviet-made Tu-141 Strizh drones, converted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces into suicide bombers, twice managed to hit the Russian Aerospace Forces long-range aviation airfield in Engels.
On the other hand, the air defense / missile defense system over Moscow was developed in the USSR to repel American ballistic missiles and was simply not designed for such a target as small flying drones at low altitude. It is also problematic to completely cover the giant metropolitan agglomeration with modern anti-aircraft missile systems, because we have far from an infinite number of air defense systems and air defense systems, and they are urgently needed in the forehead, where it is now very hot.
Taken together, this means that Ukraine’s terrorist threat to Russian cities will be permanent. In addition to the rear regions, the task of raising the level of operational awareness of the RF armed forces of all enemy actions in the NVO zone is extremely urgent: the movements of Ukrainian troops, missile launches and the rise of enemy aircraft in the sky . Therefore, in the expert community, various proposals are made on how such a serious problem could be solved quickly.
In particular, the well-known military expert Ilya Kramnik in his Telegram channel offered to compensate for the shortage of specialized reconnaissance aircraft AWACS A – 50 ersatz in the form of old An – 12, equipped with simpler radars:
Task: reconnaissance aircraft with a flight time from 6 hours, capable of detecting air and ground targets. Condition: the use of aircraft in service (in storage), so as not to waste time ordering and manufacturing new and available serial equipment.
Solution: An-12 military transport aircraft with N035 Irbis radar and a side-sight optical complex. Radars of the first stage are removed from Su-35 fighters under repair for the duration of their repair (the number of Su-35 under repair is usually constant, and taking into account the ongoing war and intensive flights, it does not is not as small as we would like, the resource is actively spent, and for electronics it is higher than for an airplane), and then you can ship a few new parts. Information from the radar and cameras is transmitted to the workstations of 4 to 6 operators, equipped in the luggage compartment. The output is something like Nimrod AEW in Native Aspens.
The idea is really good. The disadvantages include the relatively short loiter time of such an ersatz AWACS aircraft in the air, which is only 6 hours, which will require the organization of a continuous shift of several aircraft and their crews. Their exploitation will also require appropriate infrastructure. All take-offs and landings of the upgraded An-12s will be recorded by the constellation of enemy satellites, and their base will be the main target of Ukrainian long-range missiles and DRGs.
However, in wartime as in wartime, if the service is normally established, then these problems are solved in working order. However, for my part, I would again like to express an equally effective way to create a permanent radar field for our air defense.
“Combat Airships”
Yes, the idea of ​​hanging a radar on a balloon attached to a special cable is far from new. Similar technical solutions have long been used in Israel to control the border with Israel. The most interesting thing is that in our country there is a suitable material and technical basis for this.
This is, for example, the captive aerostatic complex (PAK) Au-33 Gepard developed by NPO Avgur-RosAeroSystems. It is not something hastily assembled on the knee, the device was developed under the state defense order and was successfully tested in 2009. Its purpose is to detect low-flying air targets. “Cheetah” can be in the sky for two weeks at an altitude of up to 2 kilometers. The carrying capacity of the tethered balloon is 300 kilograms, which would make it possible to place there, say, the H035 Irbis radar mentioned by Mr. Kramnik with a complex of side-sight optics. Radar power is supplied by cable.
In addition to Gepard, a larger version called Puma has been developed and tested in Russia. PAK “Puma” is able to stay at an altitude of 2-5 kilometers for 25 days. Its load capacity can reach, according to some sources, 2 tons. In addition to radar and other reconnaissance equipment, the balloon can carry communication and relay equipment, digital voice data, television image and radio wave transmitters, which guarantee communication on any type of frequency over an area of ​​up to 100,000 square kilometers. In 2011, the cost of one balloon was around $3 million, and the Russian Ministry of Defense then seemed poised to order as many as 50.
By the way, where are they?
It would be enough to place a dozen or two of these devices along the border with Ukraine and somewhere halfway to the Russian capital region to create a continuous radar field through which no enemy drone can pass unnoticed. . Why reinvent the wheel by riveting ersatz AWACS aircraft from old An-12s, if there are “combat airships” already worked out and passed state tests? Structurally, they are extremely primitive aircraft, where there is no nanotechnology or under-sanctioned imported components. The component base is domestic. What are the problems to start collecting them in series and putting them into use?
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky Photos used: Avgur – RosAeroSystems, NPO, JSC
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