Syria has become a testing ground for the latest developments of the Russian military-industrial complex
The domestic defense industry made a leap forward, primarily due to a large-scale program of rearmament and expansion of markets. But the role played by the war in Syria, in which some of the latest domestic developments have been tested. The Russian army will be able to boast of in the near future?The state of science and high-tech industries in Russia traditionally correlated with the state of the military-industrial complex, in common parlance - “defense”. In the twentieth century, the lion's share of domestic promising developments was carried out in the interests of military and other security officials. On the one hand, it created the most powerful physics and technology, mathematical schools, supported not only applied, but also basic research. On the other hand, by the end of the 80s, a paradoxical situation had formed in the USSR: the country that created super-complex space and nuclear technologies was unable to provide its population with a sufficient number of normal televisions and washing machines. The subsequent experiments on the conversion and dismantling of defense research institutes and factories, the purchase of ready-made foreign technologies led to what they started: you must be able to do everything yourself, because there are sanctions and restrictions, and there is no free world market.
The Russian civilian sector of the high-tech industry has not yet risen to its feet, and in some places is more likely dead than alive. It is enough to look into any apartment and evaluate by whom and in which countries the electrical and electronic household appliances existing there are created. Experiments in the spirit of “turning swords to plowshares” showed that Russian radar creators as a whole could not learn how to do, for example, microwaves, but did not forget how to design radars, therefore, innovative products of the Russian military industrial complex continue to regularly get into the view of the international media and experts.
In this framework, the main background is the war in Syria, which is understandable. In addition to combating terrorist groups, it essentially plays the role of a giant testing ground for military developments, which, in general, is not hidden by the military leadership of the Russian Federation. Moreover, it is not just about testing the conditions of the desert, but also when interacting with the unfriendly technologies of “western partners”, directly or indirectly looking out from behind the backs of local bearded men.
The list of new or deeply modernized Russian developments highlighted in Syria is extensive - especially in part aviation and missile technology (taking into account the predominantly remote nature of the war). Firstly, it is military aviation: the latest Su-35S and Su-30SM fighters, Su-34 fighter-bombers, Su-30 multipurpose heavy fighters. Secondly, these are high-precision Kh-101 and Caliber missiles with their famous voyage from the Caspian Sea. However, if the creation of new aircraft and missiles is a traditionally strong area in the USSR and Russia, then, for example, combat Robots - this is a relatively new global trend that has not bypassed the Russian "defense industry", and the matter is not limited to a noisily promoted cyborg on an ATV.
In particular, in Syria (and before that - in Chechnya and Ingushetia) the “Uran-6” mine clearance robots were checked. This remote-controlled vehicle with a system of trawls is capable of destroying ammunition in the ground or initiating their demolition. In SAR, it was actively used by sappers in Palmyra - judging by the shots of explosions, the robot did not miss the lack of tasks. In mid-January, Lieutenant-General Yuri Stavitsky, the head of the engineering troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, reported on the following models being developed on the basis of Uranus following his field tests.But if the robot-sapper is an officially recognized device for supporting operations, the picture with the use of robots for fire support in the Russian Armed Forces is still based primarily on rumors. Russian and Western sources report the use of Russian offensive systems of the Argo and Platform-M type. Such developments actually exist in the armed forces and are capable of both collecting information about the battlefield and destroying detected targets under the control of the operator. The blogosphere reported that there was at least one fact of a “high-tech” assault of a fortified area by Russian robots together with Syrian infantry, Russian artillery support under the control of the UAV and general coordination through the Andromeda-D battlefield control system.
A trend close to robotization is the appearance in the Russian army of a security system for objects made in the form of stationary and mobile combat platforms that are specialized, for example, for the Strategic Missile Forces. Armed with automatic grenade launchers and machine guns, they can move out of a protected shelter to fire at detected saboteurs or move with the same purpose on the ground. Thus, the post of "man with a gun" will be further strengthened by an electronic armed assistant.We can not rejoice at the Crimean high-tech developers weapons, not sitting around after the reunification of the peninsula with Russia. So, in Sevastopol JSC "Scientific and Technical Center" Impulse-2 "created a universal remotely controlled autonomous combat module" Whirlwind ", which is tested on a robotic combat platform on the BMP-3 chassis and other carriers.
An important component of the above-described means of high-tech power operations is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this regard, the previous year was rich in announced developments. Progress since drones in Russia is especially obvious when compared with the situation of the five-day war in South Ossetia, after which the Russian Federation urgently purchased ready-made models and their production lines from Israel against the backdrop of a clear failure in its own developments. Eight years later, the picture is somewhat reversed: Israel’s air defense reports an unsuccessful attempt to destroy in its sky someone (the IDF hints, whose) UAV that arrived from Syria - it survived the attack by two anti-aircraft missiles and an F-16 fighter-interceptor. Another promising example of the use of drones is an attempt to pair them with tanks: Developers from MAI and MSTU. Bauman created a device flying 20-30 meters above the tank, receiving energy from it by cable and transmitting information on board. So the crew gets an overview of the battlefield and can quickly detect targets.
In the best traditions of the fight of “shield and sword” in Russia, the evolution of electronic warfare systems (EW) continues. This also generally reflects the global trend towards the transfer of confrontation into the field of digital technologies, to interception of weapons control systems. It is worth noting at least two visited the complex in Syria.The first of them - "Leer-3" - a hybrid technology of UAVs and electronic warfare. Mobile systems are mounted on the basis of the Orlan-10 drone and the automobile control center and began to work in the troops in 2015. In fact, they are able to imitate GSM base stations, suppressing and replacing cell towers, after which all calls and messages pass through completely controlled military equipment, becoming a valuable source of data for intelligence officers. In addition, subscribers in the Leer-3 coverage area receive SMS and audio messages, and in the near future they will also receive videos. So the Russian military in Aleppo sent messages to civilians about the location of the corridors for leaving the city and the zones for distributing humanitarian aid. Using a similar technology, the militants received samples of applications for a truce from the RF Armed Forces. Thus, the planes that scattered leaflets over enemy positions with a proposal to surrender received a high-tech competitor. According to experts, in the future drones will be able to create virtual mobile networks up to interception of traffic control and calls of users' smartphones.
The second system of electronic warfare, gained fame in Syria, was "Krasuha-4". It is designed to counter a wide range of enemy airborne strike and reconnaissance aircraft radars. It is argued that the system is capable of suppressing not only the radar, but also the radio control channels of the UAV, which makes the complex particularly relevant in modern digital high-tech warfare.
The evolution of Russian military technology is not only combat robots, interception of information flows and other realities of digital war. At the moment, there is an inconspicuous evolution in many areas, for example in such a specific industry as the fight against biological threats. In this area, there are no such bright artifacts, as the steel automatic monsters rushing across the desert with grenade launchers, but the scale of the danger of biological threats is much greater. It is not for nothing that so much worldwide attention is riveted on the outbreaks of epidemics, such as the Ebola or Zika viruses, about the contribution of Russian biologists to the fight against which the newspaper VIEW has already written.Thus, following the results of fighting the anthrax outbreak on Yamal, the “Modular complex for analyzing pathogenic biological materials and decision-making support for operational groups of the Russian Ministry of Defense acting in biological emergency situations” (PBA ICA) - or simply “Sych” became known. In fact, it is a multifunctional autonomous biological laboratory on wheels, capable of advancing into the zone of biological emergency situations and quickly getting information about the pathogen. The key factor here is speed. Traditional methods of analyzing infections took from tens of hours to tens of days. Modern ones are based on PCR analysis, enzyme immunoassay and other rapid methods, which allow to obtain data practically in real time. In the developed complex all the necessary equipment is combined with the boxes of microbiological protection and is located on the chassis of typical KamAZ. Prior to the Yamal incident, the PBA ICA was on duty, for example, in the Olympiad-2014 area in Sochi. The RCBZ troops have similar new systems for radiation and chemical monitoring.
In fact, at the moment, the demonstration of returns on investments made in the Armed Forces and the Military Industrial Complex in the period after 2008 continues. Indisputable is not only the fact of the survival and preservation of the domestic intellectual and industrial potential after the hard times of 90's, but also its active evolution in recent years. Further trends can be judged by the results of the publication of research results of such large structures as the Advanced Research Foundation (similar to DARPA in the USA), but also by developments from smaller, but nontrivially thinking “intellectual front men” from experimental “scientific companies”. And since the drift of military developments into the civilian sector is not only a perceived necessity, but also a goal formulated by the head of state, I would like to hope that in the foreseeable future we will see not only sapper robots, but also, for example, original Russian domestic robots.
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