Defense Ministry, contrary to forecasts, is beginning to buy Russian unmanned intelligence complexes
Supervise the development of Russian unmanned military systems of short and medium range entrusted to the main command of the Land Forces. The first result of this innovation was the decision of the Minister of Defense to purchase four Russian-made unmanned reconnaissance systems selected on a competitive basis. As a result, in 2011, troops will receive more than 70 unmanned systems. Moreover, this decision, contrary to media hints about a drastic change in the attitude of the Defense Ministry towards Russian “dronelessness”, does not at all contradict the harsh statements made by First Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin, whose statements about wasted billions were attributed to specific manufacturers and large Stroy-PD complexes created by order of the RF Ministry of Defense , "Tipchak" and "Walker". Because for the Ground Forces, completely different ones will be acquired - in industry, small unmanned complexes created by industry.
There was nothing to fight
The idea of buying Israeli drones, as you know, was born not from scratch, but as a result of the Russian-Georgian war, when the air defense systems of our paratroopers were not reached by Georgian drones flying above 3 kilometers, and our unmanned systems "Reis", "Stroy-P", "Stroy-PD "and" Tipchak "were not able to help the warring group.
The “voyage” put into service at the end of the 1960s is the “wagon train” of 12 machines and 1200-kilogram jet drones. It was possible to use this obsolete bulky complex in Georgia only by turning it in the right direction even before the war. But even in this case, due to the issuance of photography, only 45 minutes after the return of the drone (after printing and gluing the obtained photos) would hardly be useful: today's goals will not wait until the film appears.
The Stroy-P complex with the Pchela unmanned aerial vehicle, created for the Airborne Forces and put into service in 1997, passed the video image of the reconnaissance zone to the control point and allowed to see it in real time, determining the coordinates of the targets. It consists of three cars and 10 flying at a distance of up to 60 km of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). However, the flight performance of the drone container made to the size of the landed container turned out to be unenviable: it did not rise above 2400 meters, which means it was not suitable for working in the mountains, it was unstable when it flew in the wind and had a noisy engine. The modernization of the complex to an improved Stroy-PD model ordered by the Ministry of Defense was to solve these problems. But the result was again disappointing. Two years ago, the former intelligence chief of the Airborne Forces Colonel Valery Yakhnovets (now the Minister of Defense of South Ossetia) spoke eloquently about the use of the modernized complex in the Abkhaz direction of the Russian-Georgian war at a meeting of representatives of the Defense Ministry with the developers of unmanned systems
- Together with the complex in the grouping arrived six cars with specialists who prepared the device for launching for more than three hours. As a result, the first drone fell during takeoff, and the second did not allow us to consider our convoy of ten armored personnel carriers. On the bad image, we hardly found only five cars. At the same time, Georgian UAVs flew at inaccessible heights for our air defense, and the “Bee” so low that it seemed to get into it from a slingshot, and “roared” at the same time as an armored personnel carrier.
At the same meeting, held at the Main Directorate of Combat Training, officers criticized the Tipchak unmanned aerial vehicle designed to adjust the fire of the missile forces and artillery.
- To ensure that the complex having an 40-kilometer range does not get into the enemy’s target artillery strike zone, it must be moved to 15 – 20 km from the leading edge, thereby limiting its real operating distance 20 to kilometers. So there is no smell of rocket troops here, ”stated Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov, who headed the GUBP then.
The use of Tipchak to adjust artillery fire also seemed problematic: due to the poor air stability of the 50-kilogram drone, its unstabilized video camera with so-called lower-resolution scan produces such a blurry picture that it is not always possible to even identify visible objects.
The cause of our unmanned insolvency was then directly formulated by a representative of the Air Force Institute, who accused the manufacturers of lobbying for adjusting technical tasks to the samples they were creating in the direction of lowering all the parameters.
In this regard, the fate of Tipchak is very indicative. Research and experimental work on its creation was given by the MSU back in 1990 year. Only its design had little in common with the result obtained through 17 years: “Tipchak” was created not to correct artillery firing, but for supplementary reconnaissance of the targets of the Smerch MLRS. The competition was won by the development of the designer from Kazan Valery Pobezhimov, who placed a drone flying in a missile for half an hour. Having flown in it to the reconnaissance zone, this one-time apparatus made it possible to further explore the targets and evaluate the results of their defeat. At the same time, the “flying projectiles” were placed in the ammunition, and the entire complex was placed on just one (!) Car.
But the troops did not receive it.
“Having completed the research and development research in 1996,” recalls Pobezhimov, “they showed the work of the experimental sample to the representatives of GRAU. All liked it. But instead of an order for developmental work, we received news of the transfer of work to another manufacturer. In two years, with small progressive movements, he managed to change not only the technical task, but also the essence of the project: a reusable drone instead of a projectile, four cars instead of one. And as an aircraft, a model aircraft designed at MAI for spraying useful larvae on farmland ...
Well, how can you not understand the rhetoric of the First Deputy Minister of Defense, which reminds our manufacturers who are displeased with the Israeli contract, that billions of rubles were invested in their development, and there wasn’t any result?
UNVISED SELECTION
However, the decision to buy Israeli UAVs, as it turned out, did not at all mean giving up their designs. Moreover, a number of manufacturers precisely after the hype around this contract, had real chances to break into the state defense order. To understand the situation we explain a number of points. The fact is that until this summer, the development and purchase of any unmanned aerial systems was under the authority of the Chief Command of the Air Force and the ordering Air Force Directorate, who were interested in the residual principle working in the interests of the Ground Forces. That is significantly less than the equipment and weapons for the parts of the Air Force. In addition, by a joint order of the two ministries, the head developer of unmanned systems was identified as one of the concerns of instrument engineering, whose enterprises were more interested in expensive orders for the development of large systems than in the creation of small complexes. And although other, not part of the concern, Russian developers, on their own initiative, created similar mini-systems a few years ago, because of the reluctance of the Air Force command to consider their development, they were ordered to join the army. When the urgent need for such means of the Ground Forces, which were not secured by them, pushed the Defense Ministry leadership to procure them from Israel, the situation was ambiguous. On the one hand, the manufacturers of mini-complexes were perplexed about the acquisition of comparable in potential, but more expensive foreign analogues, and on the other, the Ministry of Defense wasted on unmanned development for billions of rubles of support for the support of the domestic manufacturer to provide troops with really effective UAVs.
Everything fell into place with the decision of the Minister of Defense to transfer the functions of determining the necessary unmanned forces to the general purpose forces to the High Command of the Ground Forces. As a result, the issue of the delivery of unmanned short-range complexes (radius of work up to 25 km), as well as short (up to 100 km) and medium (up to 500 km) range, finally came under the jurisdiction of those who are interested in them.
Having received these powers, Colonel-General Alexander Postnikov, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, who has the reputation of being an educated and caring general, immediately indicated his intention to adopt the best Russian complexes meeting the needs of the troops, inviting all the developers of such systems to participate in comparative tests.
The tests, which he personally led, were held at the Gorokhovetsky and Alabinsky testing grounds. The unmanned systems presented there were evaluated according to the following criteria: the quality of the transmitted video signal, distance, flight duration and UAV controllability, accuracy in determining the coordinates of targets, compliance with the real capabilities of the declared performance characteristics, possibility of interfacing with the Unified Tactical Control System (ESU TZ), reliability of operation, and also the cost of the complex itself and its operation. And although many developers, by inertia, believing that when a competition appeared to be visible, the contract would still be given to the monopolist concern, they were initially skeptical about participating in such a competition, as a result, they all recognized it to be unbiased and honest.
The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Army General Makarov personally examines the capabilities of the UAV. “We were not in a hurry, giving everyone the opportunity to show their goods their face, and truly the best designs won,” one of the participants in the comparative tests shared with NVO.
Initially, 27 enterprises that offered a total of more than 50 complexes with short-range and short-range UAVs volunteered to participate in the selection. When the commander-in-chief of the Land Force clarified that not projects, but real samples would be evaluated, and not at the exhibition, but in work, the number of applicants decreased by half, and only 12 manufacturers with 22 complexes came to the first stage of testing. At the second stage, 9 complexes continued their struggle, and four short-range systems became victorious: Orlan-10, Lastochka, Navigator-2 and Eleron-10. Now, after a little refinement in accordance with the requirements of the main command The ground forces, all of them will have to go through state tests for 2 – 3 months and, after being put into service, already in the 2011 year, they will join the troops. In total, it is planned to purchase about 10 complexes of Orlan-10, as well as 20 – 25 samples of Eleron, Swallows and Navochnika next year.
“And this is only the beginning, the requirements of the Ground Forces in such means are much more,” said Colonel Musa Khamzatov, who led the tests in the absence of the commander in chief, in charge of the military-scientific work.
And the expert on unmanned systems Denis Fedutinov adds that the interest of the Defense Ministry in domestic development that finally woke up means significant savings in public funds:
“It's not a secret that the same“ Eleron-10 ”worth about 330 thousands of dollars in technical capabilities considerably exceeds“ Virdeye-900 ”purchased from Israel for 400 thousands of dollars, the expert says.
In a word, both the military budget and the Ground Forces won. As well as the winners of the competition who invested in their time in the creation of these systems. Well, in order to interest manufacturers to continue to improve them, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, summing up the results of the tests, promised to make them annual.
“Only a field competition, and not some other selection, will allow the troops to provide truly effective means of unmanned reconnaissance,” said Colonel Mikhail Teplinsky, the Chief of Staff of the 20 Combined Arms Army, Hero of Russia.
Speaking about the difference between unmanned complexes, the officer states that the small systems “Pear” and “Dragonfly” that came to one of the brigades of his association, for example, are no good, because they give out a vague, blurred picture. But aleron-3, similar in size and weight (the enlarged analogue of which became the winner of the tests), according to Teplinsky, during the command-staff exercises on the ECU, the TZ worked no worse than the three-meter Dozor-100 UAV. So, when the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov, who arrived at the KSHU, asked the manufacturers whose UAVs could rise into the air and work with a strong side wind (more than 15 m / s), only “Eleron” turned out to be able to perform this task. ". And the three-kilogram apparatus, even in such extreme conditions, was able to replace the 95-kilogram giant drone that crashed on the eve. By transmitting a clear picture to the big monitor of the brigade command post and determining the coordinates of the targets, the mini-complex allowed the brigade commander to quickly “hit” the objects indicated by the deputy chief of the General Staff.
According to Musa Khamzatov, who was responsible for organizing the comparative tests, the result was made possible thanks to an interest in the objectivity of the competitive selection of the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry:
- Despite the workload, both the Chief of the General Staff and the Minister of Defense kept the test course under personal control. The manufacturers, having seen the objectivity of the evaluation of their products, sometimes themselves suggested to us how best to check certain parameters declared by them in order to obtain maximum reliability, indicates Colonel Khamzatov.
BEST UAV CLASS "FIELD OF BATTLE"
It is interesting that the results of the comparative tests surprised not only those who noted the “impartiality of refereeing” of manufacturers, but also the organizers of the competition. So, according to the officers of the Chief command of the Ground Forces who led the competition commission, all of them, including the commander in chief, were surprised by the capabilities of the best Russian short-range unmanned systems and short-range ones. So, the 14-kilogram drone of the Orlan-10 complex hung in the air for as many 12 hours and surprised by world-class radio electronics of its own production. A small UAV "Swallow" everyone liked the unexpectedly clear compared to its predecessor - "Dragonfly" picture. But the best in terms of the ratio of all parameters to mini-complexes is still to be considered the winner of the Aileron-10 competition and its reduced analogue of the Aileron-3. It was not by chance that the latter was used to demonstrate the capabilities of the ESU TZ during a research exercise, and the work of Eleron-10 was demonstrated to President Dmitry Medvedev at the gathering of the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces.
But how did the relatively small enterprises manage to solve the task that turned out to be impossible for a specialized concern to create competitive mini-unmanned reconnaissance complexes?
The developers of Eleron, for example, thanks to the interest in such systems of the Airborne Forces command, spent four years “running around” their complexes in all large-scale landing exercises, which made it possible to significantly improve both models. As a result, the same “Eleron-3” has already found widespread use: the Emergency Situations Ministry uses it for prospecting, polar explorers - for monitoring the state of ice of the drifting Arctic station, police officers of Tatarstan - for identifying illegal labor in the private sector, and law enforcement agencies of Kabardino-Balkaria - to search for gangs in mountain ranges. And this year the complex was adopted by the Interior Troops of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, the commander of the Airborne Forces, Vladimir Shamanov, raised the question of his purchase in the summer of Novorossiysk during the summer of Novorossiysk before the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. After familiarizing himself with the work of the complex, Army General Nikolai Makarov promised to put him into service after meeting a number of his requirements, including “teach” the drone to determine the coordinates of targets visible at an angle. Within six months, these tasks were implemented, and according to the results of the complex’s participation in artillery firing in February 2009, the commander of the artillery regiment of the 2010 division, Colonel Sergei Kovalev, reported to the commander of the airborne forces that his use allowed him to hit the target from the second shot when firing from closed fire positions. Only before the delivery of the complex to the troops, the case did not reach this time either.
However, the developers' efforts in any case did not disappear: after all, the demonstration of this complex to the management probably played its role in changing the attitude of the Defense Ministry’s leadership towards the small Russian “dronelessness”.
"Aileron-3" - by the way, a reduced copy of the winner in the comparative tests and equipped with 12-kilogram drones "Aileron-10". And although the latter is capable of transmitting the video image of the intelligence zone with 50, and its mini-analog is only with 15 km, the developers themselves consider it a smaller complex to be more advanced.
“Because it is the only device in its class equipped with a video camera on a gyro-stabilized platform that provides image clarity even in the wind, when any small drone is chattering in the air,” explains Denis Fedutinov.
Why, then, did the Ground Forces abandon it?
- We believe that the wearable complex should fit in two backpacks weighing no more than 5 kg each, otherwise the soldier, whose individual equipment already weighs more than 10 kilograms, simply cannot be carried away. Therefore, so far, not a single complex of short-range actions has been taken, ”said Colonel Vladimir Marusin, head of the unmanned area supervising the unmanned area.
“Aileron-3” is carried in two 14 and 8 kg packs. In the mountains with him, of course, you will not go out. But the paratroopers and do not consider it as a wearable complex. The main thing for them is that it fits in the airborne combat vehicle.
However, this difference in views is explicable by the specifics of the Airborne and Ground Forces. More interesting, perhaps, more. If the provision of unmanned systems to the Ground Forces has almost been officially announced, nothing is known about their delivery to the paratroopers. Although the commander of the Airborne Forces, Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov began to raise this topic even before the Russian-Georgian war. And whatever the reason for ignoring the “unmanned” aspirations of the latter, we can assume that after the rush around the Israeli contract, we may soon have a new “unmanned” intrigue. This time, due to the fact that, having provided the Ground Forces with not so bad, as it turned out, Russian drones, for some reason, they forgot about the paratroopers starting all the wars.
| The main characteristics of the winning in comparative tests of complexes with UAVs (confirmed during the tests): | ||||
| UAV weight | Working range | Потолок | Max Time in video mode flight altitude (without repeater) | |
| “Orlan-10” | 14 kg | to 100 km | to 5 km | hours before 12 |
| “Aileron-10” | 12 kg | to 50 km | to 5 km | hours before 3 |
| "Swallow" | 4,5 kg | to 25 km | to 3,6 km | hours before 2 |
| “Gunner-2” | 7 kg | to 25 km | to 5 km | hours before 3 |
Information