UAV storm rises
Each military conflict serves as a test of the strength of the armed forces.
Each military conflict tests the strength of the strategy, tactics and performance characteristics (TTX) of weapons.
Each military conflict tests the ability of defense industry enterprises (DIC) to adapt to a rapidly changing situation on the battlefield.
They say that "generals are always preparing for the last war." This is partly true, the armed forces (AF) of any country is a very inert system. But sometimes someone appears, like "the father of the atomic fleet” Vice Admiral (since 1958) Hyman George Rickover, who says “nuclear submarines will be,” and this decision radically changed the US Navy (Navy) and the navies (Navy) of other leading countries of the world. And sometimes revolutionary weapon systems appear on the principle of "need to invent cunning", when a weaker adversary, in anticipation of an imminent attack, is desperately looking for opportunities to tip the scales in his favor.
Understanding the mistakes and opportunities comes at the moment of the onset of a new military confrontation, and a confrontation with an enemy approximately equal in strength - otherwise it can easily be concluded that you won’t have to fight with anyone worse than bearded terrorists. And it was precisely such a confrontation that the Russian special military operation (SVO) on the territory of Ukraine became, of course, taking into account the “contribution” that Western countries bring to this conflict. Yes, it is the war in Ukraine that is the most significant military conflict of recent times, since the US/NATO attack on Iraq and Yugoslavia is like a schoolboy being beaten by the Mike Tyson team.
Perhaps the most significant discovery of the SVO can be considered an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-kamikaze "Geran-2". It was the use of the Geran-2 kamikaze UAV during the Russian military defense in Ukraine that showed how effective these complexes can be - and in fact, almost no one had heard anything about them before or did not attach much importance to them. Everyone was familiar with the Turkish Bayraktar UAVs, which performed well in a number of local conflicts, but became the legitimate prey of Russian air defense systems (air defense) during the NMD.
So, UAV "Geran-2". What is remarkable about it?
UAV "Geran-2" / "Shahed 136" became widely known during the NWO in Ukraine
"Geranium-2" or "Shahed 136"?
Disputes over the question of what the Geran-2 UAV is, a Russian development, a Ukrainian development (there is such an opinion) or an Iranian Shahed 136 UAV, have not subsided since this weapon was applied in Ukraine, and to this day. However, the Iranian roots of the Geran-2 UAV are unlikely to raise any doubts, and the degree of localization of these weapons in the Russian Federation is not so important now - there is a war going on, it is necessary to use all available resources.
UAV-kamikaze "Geran-2" / "Shahed 136" operators
The key advantages of the Geran-2 UAV have also been voiced more than once. First of all, it is the price, the price and again the price. According to various estimates, the cost of the Geran-2 UAV ranges from $20 to $000. In any case, this is 200-000 (!) times lower than the cost of "real" cruise missiles (CR), such as the Russian Caliber cruise missile or the American Tomahawk cruise missile. Of course, the characteristics of the Geran-5 UAV and the Caliber / Tomahawk CR are incomparable - the mass of the warhead and the flight speed of the Geran-50 UAV are 2-2 times lower than those of the Caliber / Tomahawk CR. However, other characteristics are quite comparable - the flight range, which for the Geran-4 UAV is estimated, according to various sources, from 5 to 2 kilometers, as well as the targeting accuracy provided by the Russian global satellite navigation system (GLONASS), and it is possible that and its American counterpart GPS.
Why did the Shahed 136 UAV concept in its current form appear and become widespread in Iran? And all according to the same principle: "the need for inventions is cunning."
Being under severe international sanctions for many years, in conditions of serious financial and technological restrictions, under the constant threat of attacks by Israel and the United States, Iran had no other option than to “get out”, look for ways to inflict maximum damage on the enemy in the event of a conflict. It is possible that in the event of an American invasion of Iran, the US fleet would also expect some small-sized remote-controlled "surprises" that could significantly damage American aircraft carrier strike groups (AUGs). However, let's get back to the Geran-2 / Shahed 136 UAV.
According to foreign media reports, Iran supplied several thousand Shahed 136/Geran-2 UAVs to Russia, which Russia and Iran deny. Let's assume that some kits were delivered, allowing to assemble the indicated several thousand UAVs "Geran-2" on the territory of Russia. It is unlikely that Iran has delivered everything it has. Then how many Shahed 136 UAVs are in service with Iran? Four thousand? Ten thousand? Even if right now Iran does not have ten thousand Shahed 136 UAVs, then with a high probability in 5-10 years they can produce such a quantity, or even much more.
For Iran, the main regional rival is Israel, the distance to which is more than covered by the estimated range of the Shahed 136 UAV. According to various estimates, Israel has between fifty and four hundred nuclear warheads, the existence of which Israel neither confirms nor denies. At the same time, the alleged attempts of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons are being severely suppressed by Israel and the United States.
The distance from Iran to Israel is just over a thousand kilometers in a straight line.
Let's say that Iran and Israel reached the "hot" phase of the conflict, and Israel launched a nuclear strike on Iran. Without its own nuclear weapons, Iran is using all the Shahed 136 UAVs available, and half of them will carry spent nuclear fuel, representing the so-called "dirty bomb". In addition to them, ballistic missiles of various types will go, how many of them does Iran have there - several thousand? Who will suffer the most damage as a result of such an exchange of blows? Iran will have a hard time, even if Israel has only two hundred nuclear warheads. But everything will be bad for Israel too - the territory is small, living is compact, for years, or even decades, until the area is deactivated by the efforts of the "world community", it may become uninhabitable.
Consider a "softer" scenario of events. Nuclear weapons and "dirty bombs" are not used - only conventional ammunition. Israel is attacking Iran with "classic" precision-guided weapons, ballistic and cruise missiles, Israeli versions of US fifth-generation F-35I aircraft, and other weapons. Iran is responding with thousands of Shahed 136 UAVs, which will be supplemented by conventional ballistic missiles and other weapons.
There is simply no chance of intercepting thousands of Shahed 136 UAVs from Israeli air defense - at best, they will shoot down 5-10%. Moreover, good neighbors may well take part in the raid, occupying Israeli air defense / missile defense with cheap unguided Kassems.
Who will suffer the greatest losses as a result of such a conflict? According to the author - definitely Israel. All for the same reason - this country is too compact, the population density is too high (over 400 people per square kilometer).
Let's face it, Iran does not and will not have any chance to harm Israel with traditional weapons - aviation, fleet, ground forces. In any scenario, he will be doomed to failure. But the appearance of the Shahed 136 UAV radically changes the situation, and there is no doubt that Israel seriously thought after looking at the work of the Geran-2 UAV in Ukraine, and yet they are used there by tens or hundreds, not thousands or tens of thousands.
Millions of Geraniums - is it real?
In what volumes can UAVs like "Geran-2" or "Shahed 136" be produced?
Here the most important factor is the price. Earlier we said that the cost of the Geran-2 UAV is estimated in the range from $20 to $000. Let's take something in between - $ 200. Then a million Geranium-000 UAVs will cost $100 (one hundred billion dollars). For Russia, this amount is unbearable, as well as for the rest of the world, with the exception of the United States.
For the US, one hundred billion dollars is a little over 10% of their defense budget. But does the US need a million conditional Geranium-USA UAVs? And why not, if they understand that with their help they can win a conflict with almost any opponent, and using only them. According to open data, during the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), the United States and NATO countries used about 23 bombs and missiles and quickly broke this country. And how many high-precision strikes are needed to break Russia, especially in winter? What about a smaller country?
In the material Ukrainian UAV strikes on the airfield in Engels as an indicator of the extreme vulnerability of aviation at base points we considered that even with the existing arsenal of long-range precision weapons, the United States could potentially destroy all Russian aviation right on the airfields.
It is hard to even imagine what opportunities a million precision-guided munitions with a range of several thousand kilometers will provide. It is possible to destroy not only aviation at airfields, but also the fleet in naval bases, the entire fuel infrastructure of the armed forces, all ammunition depots, enterprises of the military-industrial complex (MIC), military bases, barracks - everything that is related to the armed forces . At the same time, they may not even touch the nuclear deterrence forces (SNF), government infrastructure and civilian facilities. It seems that the country is intact, but it has no military capabilities left - come, take it with your bare hands. And there are enough greedy hands around the perimeter of Russia - the United States itself can not “get dirty”, they will supply and induce whoever needs it - the same Ukronazis will gladly go even as far as Khabarovsk.
A million kamikaze UAVs a year, five million in five years, ten million in ten years. In fact, you can simply keep the enemy in the Stone Age, inflicting almost three thousand blows on him daily. For years.
Do you know who our main ally is to prevent the United States from having such weapons and in such quantities? This is the American military-industrial complex, which does not need any revolutions and applicants for the budget - they are more interested in producing three Zumwalt destroyers or a dozen or two B-2 bombers, in general, something very expensive and small-scale. The problem is that sooner or later a person or company may appear who will make the US Armed Forces such an attractive offer that they cannot refuse it. Or they will be forced to do so by reality, by the experience of other countries, by the threat of defeat that cannot be denied.
Expensive "toys" of the US Armed Forces
The United States has everything necessary for this - the Germans will provide them with mass production of the Limbach L550E engine, moreover, in the United States. There will be no more problems with the body, electronics and other problems. Moreover, the appearance of satellite communication in smartphones has already become a reality: Apple was the first to do this, and now Qualcomm, the largest manufacturer of ARM chipsets, has introduced a Snapdragon Satellite solution that can provide two-way satellite communications to smartphones. What does "Geranium-USA" have to do with it? And despite the fact that this technology can get into every UAV, providing them with the ability to retarget in flight, which will increase the efficiency of such drones.
Snapdragon Satellite Solution - satellite connectivity to every smartphone from Qualcomm
Production can be carried out at fully robotic enterprises in a full cycle, human participation can be minimal. With such a large-scale production - a million items a year, the cost per unit will inevitably decrease, especially if developers, engineers, technologists are properly stimulated - they reduced the price by a dollar, saved the country a million dollars a year, received a hundred thousand in the form of bonuses, and so on.
In general, the issue of US production of a million Geran-USA kamikaze UAVs per year is a political issue rather than a technical or financial one.
Who else can produce a million kamikaze UAVs?
Of course, this is China. The characteristics of "Geran-CN" will be slightly worse than the American version, but clearly no worse than the Iranian original. And the price will be lower, which will allow the Chinese to reach volumes comparable to the United States with a smaller budget. It is possible that the European Union will also be able to produce a comparable amount of "Geranium-EU" "in clubbing".
As for Russia, if it doesn’t work out to reach a volume of a million items a year, then, with a strong desire, it is most likely possible to reach hundreds of thousands. But only with great desire and determination at the level of the country's top leadership. Of course, we return to the cost factor. If the cost of the conditional "Geran-RF" can be kept at $20, a maximum of $000, then potentially our country will pull a million products a year, even to the detriment of the purchase of some other weapons, because a million UAVs "Geran-RF "will give our armed forces much more opportunities than the "Armaty", "Sarmaty", Tu-30M and many other types of weapons that are now unable to significantly affect the course of the conflict.
Earlier in the article Project Condor: death from heaven we have already considered the concept of planning kamikaze UAVs of the operational-tactical level, designed to strike at the enemy at a distance of about 100-200 kilometers when dropped from a transport aircraft at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. The concept of the UAV-kamikaze "Condor" provides for its production in the amount of about 300 units per year. In many ways, the concepts of the Geran-000 kamikaze UAV and the Kondor planning kamikaze UAV are similar - inexpensive components, large-scale production and the cost of ammunition, which is less than the cost of anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAM), with which it can be shot down.
The concept of planning UAV-kamikaze "Condor"
The Condor UAV is more difficult to shoot down - there is no thermal signature and engine sound, it obviously should be cheaper to manufacture, but its use is also more difficult - transport aircraft are needed, while almost any carrier platform can be adapted for the Geranium-2. But the main thing is that if the Condor kamikaze UAV is an operational-tactical weapon, then Geran-2 is actually a strategic weapon.
A million kamikaze UAVs of the Geranium-2 type per year will allow not only to turn Ukraine into ruins, but also to adequately pay off all European accomplices of the Nazi regime, starting with Poland and the Baltic countries.
With an offensive potential of a million kamikaze UAVs per year, all other armed forces can not be used at all. For example, the air force (Air Force) can only be used to provide air defense of its own territory - no pilots captured by the enemy, no losses from enemy air defense. Equally, ground units will not need to enter enemy territory, because, having completely lost their transport and energy infrastructure, weapons depots and repair facilities, the enemy simply will not be able to conduct any serious offensive operations, because what is happening now in Ukraine is only a consequence of limited strikes against key infrastructure in that country.
If strikes by thousands of kamikaze UAVs are supplemented by traditional types of armed forces, then the synergistic effect of their joint use will be even higher. For example, when kamikaze UAVs are followed by electronic reconnaissance aircraft (RTR), electronic warfare aircraft (EW) and stealth fighters with anti-radar missiles (PRR), capable of opening and completely destroying enemy air defenses.
What if the US can and we can't?
The potential receipt of a million long-range kamikaze UAVs per year will definitely provoke the United States to intensify hostilities around the planet, primarily against Russia. Moreover, at the initial stage, they may not even strike at Russian territory - they will destroy all of our few military bases abroad, including in Syria, and with massive strikes they will destroy all Russian armed forces on the territory considered by Ukraine to be its own. Of course, this will only be the beginning - then the process will no longer be stopped.
And this means that Russia needs its own million Geran-RF UAVs, since the best defense is an attack. Nevertheless, as a defense against a US strike, “our” UAVs “Geran-2” will be of little help - our overseas enemy is too far away, his fleet is too strong - the carriers simply will not let the US reach the coast. We need them only for military dominance within the continent, where the targets will be the armed forces of European countries and US bases in the region.
Therefore, in order to prevent hundreds of thousands of millions of kamikaze UAVs from hitting Russia, it is necessary to be able to destroy the infrastructure that ensures their use - that is, satellites of the global positioning system GPS, communications satellites such as Iridium and Starlink, reconnaissance satellites of all classes.
It is difficult to get satellites in high orbits, but it is possible. However, the enemy is actively developing low-orbit satellite constellations, which include thousands of satellites. Which means we need "Reapers" that can mow down the enemy's low-orbit infrastructure and prevent it from being deployed again.
The concept of the orbital interceptor "Reaper"
Without orbital reconnaissance, navigation and communications, long-range kamikaze UAVs are just useless trash. The leading countries of the world are actively working on autonomous navigation systems based on quantum effects, but so far this work is far from complete.
Conclusions
Impossible! Unreal! It's fantasy! So many argue not only among the inhabitants, but also among professionals. After all, it is so "comfortable" to live in the past, when you yourself were younger and the world seemed so simple. Beautiful boats, sailors in vests and peakless caps run on them, the sun is shining - that's what we need, a huge surface fleet with aircraft carriers. Heroic paratroopers are parachuted from hundreds of transport planes and courageously attack the enemy with their cans. Tanks and artillery, a barrage of fire, "and hundreds of thousands of batteries, for the tears of our mothers" ...
But in our time, all this may turn out to be small and useless - even “clouds fill up” the enemy will not work, or rather, there will be corpses, but there will be no sense from them.
The insight may come too late.
Technology is changing too fast. It is enough to look back and see how the world has changed over the past 20-30 years. More recently, people called from telephone booths, and in the USSR, especially in the regions, many had to go to special communication points to call a neighboring city. And now satellite communication can appear in everyone's pocket. Cities are flooded with electric transport – electric scooters, electric bicycles. A thermal imager with quite good characteristics can already be purchased for a price in the region of about $ 1000.
Civilian UAVs have become commonplace, for $ 1000 you can buy a device with such shooting (read - reconnaissance) capabilities that 10 years ago were available only to a narrow circle of special services - how many civilian UAVs a year does the same DJI company produce with a turnover of $ 500 billion? But back in 2010, DJI had less than 20 people.
By the way, DJI planned to build a plant in the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine in 2022 to assemble 40 UAVs per month.
The armed forces of the leading countries of the world are inert. Only this stands in the way of the appearance of millions of not only conditional Geran-2 UAVs, but also other breakthrough weapons, the creation of which has become possible literally in the last five years.
The transition to extreme production of precision-guided munitions is inevitable. With a high probability, Iran/Israel and China/Taiwan will be in the top four – these countries have the motivation for advancing development in this direction. Iran - in many ways, it has become an "ambassador" of a strategic-class kamikaze UAV. Israel - this country reacts very quickly to the changing situation on the battlefield.
China and Taiwan - they have their own civil war ahead. Both countries (more precisely, two separated parts of one country) have a colossal industrial potential for the production of all the components necessary for the manufacture of kamikaze UAVs. Both parts of the formally unified country are within the range of the Geran-2-type kamikaze UAV.
For Russia, the production of hundreds of thousands to a million UAVs is a matter of fundamental possibility of creating modern production facilities that provide not a single, but large-scale production of high-tech products. Production of not only UAVs, but also satellites for various purposes, night vision devices, thermal imagers and much more. This is a question not only of an exponential increase in the offensive capabilities of the RF Armed Forces, but also of the creation of a competitive civilian industry.
So can the massive use of long-range kamikaze UAVs have an effect comparable to the use of nuclear weapons?
Yes, this question can be answered in the affirmative. Several thousand strikes per day with high-precision weapons on the industry and infrastructure of the victim country in a few months will deprive it of the ability to function normally - there will be no light in cities, there will be no heat in houses, air and rail communications will stop. If the enemy is cruel and cynical, and he is exactly that, then schools, hospitals and any other important social facilities will be destroyed. If not in the Stone Age, then in the Middle Ages the victim will definitely be driven. In this case, the aggressor himself will not suffer any losses. A very attractive tactic for the US and other Western countries, isn't it?
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