The Chief Command of the Ground Forces has been charged with overseeing the development of Russian short- and medium-range military unmanned systems. 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, the troops will receive more than 70 unmanned systems. Moreover, this decision, contrary to media hints of a sharp change in the attitude of the Ministry of Defense to the Russian "unmanned vehicle", does not at all contradict the harsh statements of First Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin, whose statements about wasted billions were related to specific manufacturers and large Stroy-PD complexes created by order of the RF Ministry of Defense, "Tipchak" and "Drifter". Because for the Ground Forces, completely different ones will be purchased - small unmanned systems created by industry on an initiative basis.
There was nothing to fight
The idea of buying Israeli drones, as you know, was not born out of nowhere, but as a result of the Russian-Georgian war, when the air defense systems of our paratroopers did not reach the 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 "Flight", which entered service in the late 1960s, is a "train" of 12 vehicles and 1200-kilogram jet drones. It was possible to use this obsolete bulky complex in Georgia only by deploying it in the right direction even before the war. But even in this case, due to the issue of photographing only 45 minutes after the return of the drone (after printing and gluing the obtained photographs), it would hardly be useful: today's targets will not wait until the film appears.
Created for the Airborne Forces and put into service in 1997, the Stroy-P complex with the Pchela unmanned aerial vehicle, transmitting a video image of the reconnaissance zone to the control center, made it possible to see it in real time, determining the coordinates of targets. It includes three cars and 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying at a distance of up to 60 km. However, the flight performance of the drone made to fit the size of the drop container turned out to be unenviable: it did not rise above 2400 meters, which means it was not suitable for work in the mountains, it flew unstably in the wind and had a noisy engine. To solve these problems was ordered by the Ministry of Defense to modernize the complex into an improved model "Stroy-PD". But the result was again disappointing. Two years ago, the former chief of intelligence 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 Abkhazian direction of the Russian-Georgian war at a meeting of representatives of the Ministry of Defense with the developers of unmanned systems:
- Together with the complex, six vehicles with specialists arrived in the grouping, who prepared the device for launch for more than three hours. As a result, the first drone fell during takeoff, and the second did not allow us to see our own convoy of ten armored personnel carriers. On the bad image, we could hardly find only five cars. At the same time, the Georgian UAVs flew at heights inaccessible to our air defense, and the "Bee" - so low that it seemed that you would get into it from a slingshot, and "roared" at the same time like an armored personnel carrier.
At the same meeting held in the Main Directorate of Combat Training, officers also criticized the Tipchak unmanned complex intended for adjusting the fire of missile forces and artillery.
- To prevent the complex, which has a 40-kilometer radius of action, from falling into the zone of destruction of the enemy's cannon artillery, it must be moved 15–20 km away from the forward edge, thereby limiting its real operating range to 20 kilometers. So there is no smell of missile troops here, - stated Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, who was then head of the GUBP.
The use of the Tipchak to correct artillery fire also looked problematic: because of the poor air stability of the 50-kg drone, its unstabilized video camera with the so-called line scan produces a picture so blurry that it is not always possible to even identify visible objects.
The reason for our unmanned insolvency was then directly formulated by a representative of the Air Force Research Institute, who accused the manufacturers of lobbying for adjusting the technical specifications for the samples they created in the direction of underestimating all parameters.
By the way, the fate of Tipchak is very indicative in this regard. Research and experimental work on its creation was given to GRAU back in 1990. Only its concept had little to do with the result obtained 17 years later: Tipchak was created not to correct artillery fire, but for additional reconnaissance of targets of the Smerch MLRS, which did not require such precision. The competition was won by the development of a designer from Kazan, Valery Pobezhimov, who placed a drone flying for half an hour in the shell. Having flown in it to the reconnaissance zone, this disposable device made it possible to reconnoitre targets and evaluate the results of their defeat. In this case, the "flying shells" were placed in the ammunition stowage, and the entire complex - for just one (!) Vehicle.
But the troops never received it.
“After completing the NIER in 1996,” Pobezhimov recalls, “they showed the representatives of GRAU the work of an experimental sample. All liked it. But instead of an order for development work, they received news of the transfer of work to another manufacturer. Which in two years, with small forward movements, 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 airplane - an aircraft model designed at MAI for spraying useful larvae on farmland …
Well, how can one fail to understand the rhetoric of the First Deputy Minister of Defense, reminding the manufacturers of our dissatisfied Israeli contract that billions of rubles have been invested in their development, but there has never been a result?
UNPRECEDENTED SELECTION
However, the decision to purchase Israeli drones, as it turned out, did not mean abandoning their developments. Moreover, it was after the excitement around this contract that a number of manufacturers had real chances to break into the state defense order. To understand the situation, let us explain a number of points. The fact is that until this summer, the development and purchase of any unmanned systems was under the jurisdiction of the main command of the Air Force and the ordering department of the Air Force, which were interested in the means working in the interests of the Ground Forces on a leftover basis. That is, much less than the equipment and weapons for the Air Force units. In addition, by a joint order of the two ministries, one of the instrumentation concerns was identified as the lead developer of unmanned systems, whose enterprises were more interested in expensive orders for the development of large systems than in the creation of small complexes. And although other Russian developers who are not part of the concern on their own initiative created similar mini-systems a few years ago, due to the reluctance of the Air Force command to consider their development, their way into the army, as they say, was ordered. When the urgent need for such means of the Land Forces, which they did not provide, pushed the leadership of the Ministry of Defense to purchase them from Israel, an ambiguous situation developed. On the one hand, the manufacturers of mini-complexes were perplexed about the acquisition of comparable in capabilities, but more expensive foreign analogues, and on the other hand, the Ministry of Defense, which had wasted billions of rubles on unmanned development, preferred to provide troops with really effective drones to support the domestic manufacturer.
Everything fell into place with the decision of the Minister of Defense to transfer the functions of determining the necessary unmanned vehicles to the General Command of the Ground Forces. As a result, the issue of supplying unmanned short-range systems (operating radius up to 25 km), as well as short (up to 100 km) and medium (up to 500 km) ranges, has finally come under the jurisdiction of those who are interested in them.
Having received these powers, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General Alexander Postnikov, who has a reputation as a competent and caring general, immediately indicated his intention to adopt the best Russian complexes that meet the needs of the troops, inviting all developers of such systems to participate in comparative tests.
The tests, which he personally supervised, took place at the Gorokhovets and Alabinsky proving grounds. The unmanned systems presented on them were evaluated according to the following criteria: the quality of the transmitted video signal, the range, flight duration and controllability of the UAV, the accuracy of determining the coordinates of the targets, the correspondence of the actual capabilities to the declared performance characteristics, the 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, out of inertia believing that with the appearance of a competition, the contract would still be given to a monopoly concern, at first were skeptical about participating in such a competition, as a result, they all recognized it as impartial and fair.
Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, General of the Army Makarov, is personally studying the capabilities of the UAV.
“We were not rushed, giving everyone the opportunity to show their product with their face, and the really best developments won,” one of the participants in the comparative tests shared with NVO.
Initially, 27 enterprises volunteered to participate in the selection, offering a total of more than 50 short-range and short-range UAV complexes. When the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces clarified that not projects, but real samples would be evaluated, and, moreover, not at the exhibition, but at work, the number of applicants decreased by half, and only 12 manufacturers with 22 complexes entered the first stage of testing. At the second stage, the struggle was continued by 9 complexes, but the winners were four short-range systems: "Orlan-10", "Swallow", "Navodchik-2" and "Eleron-10". Now, after a little revision in accordance with the requirements of the main command Land forces, all of them within 2-3 months will have to pass state tests and, after being put into service in 2011, enter the army. In total, next year it is planned to purchase about 10 Orlan-10 complexes, as well as 20-25 samples of Eleron, Lastochka and Gunner.
“And this is just the beginning, the needs of the Ground Forces in such means are orders of magnitude greater,” says Colonel Musa Khamzatov, his assistant for military scientific work, who led the tests in the absence of the commander-in-chief.
And an expert on unmanned systems, Denis Fedutinov, adds that the Ministry of Defense's interest in domestic developments, which has finally awakened, means significant savings in public funds:
- It's no secret that the same "Eleron-10" worth about 330 thousand dollars in its technical capabilities significantly surpasses the "Virdeye-400" purchased from Israel for 900 thousand dollars, - the expert says.
In a word, both the military budget and the Ground Forces benefit. 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 provide the troops with really effective means of unmanned reconnaissance,” says Colonel Mikhail Teplinsky, Chief of Staff of the 20th Combined Arms Army, Hero of Russia.
Speaking about the difference between unmanned systems, the officer states that the small systems "Pear" and "Dragonfly" that entered, for example, one of the brigades of his association are useless, because they give out a vague, blurry picture. But the similar in size and weight "Eleron-3" (an enlarged analogue of which became the winner of the tests), according to Teplinsky, during the command post exercise on ESU TZ equipment worked no worse than a three-meter UAV of the Dozor-100 complex. So, when the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov, who arrived at this command post, asked the manufacturers whose UAVs could take off and work in a strong crosswind (more than 15 m / s), only Aileron ". And the three-kilogram device, even in such extreme conditions, managed to replace the 95-kilogram giant drone that crashed the day before. Having transferred a clear picture to the large monitor of the brigade command post and determined 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 due to the interest in the objectivity of the competitive selection of the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense:
- Despite the workload, both the Chief of the General Staff and the Minister of Defense kept the course of the tests under personal control. Manufacturers, seeing the objectivity of evaluating their products, sometimes themselves told us how best to check certain parameters declared by them in order to obtain maximum reliability,”says Colonel Khamzatov.
BEST CLASS "BATTLE FIELD" UAVs
It is interesting that the results of the comparative tests surprised not only the manufacturers who noted the "impartiality of judging", but the organizers of the competition. So, according to the officers of the main 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 and short-range unmanned systems. Thus, the 14-kilogram drone of the Orlan-10 complex hung in the air for 12 hours and surprised with world-class radio electronics of its own production. Everyone liked the small UAV "Swallow" with its unexpectedly clear picture compared to its predecessor - "Dragonfly". But the best mini-complexes in terms of the ratio of all parameters should still be considered the winner of the competition "Eleron-10" and its smaller analogue "Eleron-3". It is no coincidence 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 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the meeting of the leadership of the RF Armed Forces.
But how did they manage to solve the task of creating competitive mini-complexes of unmanned reconnaissance, which turned out to be impossible for a specialized concern, at relatively small enterprises?
The developers of the Eleron, for example, due to their interest in such systems of the Airborne Forces command, for four years "tested" their complexes at all large-scale amphibious exercises, which made it possible to significantly improve both models. As a result, the same "Eleron-3" has already found wide application: the Ministry of Emergency Situations uses it for search purposes, polar explorers - to monitor the state of ice of a drifting Arctic station, policemen of Tatarstan - to identify illegal labor in the private sector, and law enforcement agencies of Kabardino-Balkaria - to search for bandit formations in mountain ranges. And this year the complex was adopted by the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, the commander of the Airborne Forces Vladimir Shamanov raised the issue of purchasing it to the Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces in the summer of 2009 during the exercises near Novorossiysk. After familiarizing himself with the operation of the complex, General of the Army Nikolai Makarov promised to take it into service after the implementation of 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 as a result of the participation of the complex in artillery firing in February 2010, the commander of the artillery regiment of the 98th division, Colonel Sergei Kovalev, reported to the commander of the Airborne Forces that its use makes it possible to hit the target from the second shot when firing from closed firing positions. Only this time it did not come to the delivery of the complex to the troops.
However, the efforts of the developers in any case did not disappear: after all, the demonstration of this complex to the leadership certainly played a role in changing the attitude of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense to the small Russian "unmanned vehicle".
"Eleron-3" - by the way, a reduced copy of the winner in comparative tests and equipped with 12-kilogram drones "Eleron-10". And although the latter is capable of transmitting a video image of the reconnaissance zone from 50, and its mini-analog from only 15 km, the developers themselves consider the smaller complex to be more advanced.
“Because this is the only device in its class equipped with a video camera on a gyro-stabilized platform that provides clear images even in windy conditions, when any small drone is chatting in the air,” explains Denis Fedutinov.
Why, then, did the Ground Forces abandon it?
- We believe that a wearable complex should fit in two backpacks weighing no more than 5 kg each, otherwise a soldier, whose individual equipment already weighs more than 10 kilograms, simply cannot be carried away. Therefore, so far not a single short-range complex has been adopted, '' says Colonel Vladimir Marusin, head of reconnaissance of the Ground Forces, in charge of the unmanned direction.
Eleron-3 is carried in two backpacks weighing 14 and 8 kg. Of course, you can't go out to the mountains with him. But the paratroopers do not consider it as a wearable complex. The main thing for them is that it fits into an airborne combat vehicle.
However, such a difference in views can be explained by the specifics of the Airborne and Ground Forces. More interesting, perhaps, another. If the provision of the Ground Forces with unmanned systems has already been practically officially announced, nothing is yet 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, it can be assumed that after the excitement around the Israeli contract, a new "unmanned" intrigue may soon await us. This time, due to the fact that, having provided the Ground Forces with Russian drones, which were not so bad, as it turned out, for some reason they forgot about the paratroopers who started all wars.
| The main characteristics of the complexes with UAVs that won the comparative tests (confirmed during the tests): | ||||
| UAV weight | Range of work | Ceiling | Max Time in video mode of flight altitude (without repeater) | |
| "Orlan-10" | 14 Kg | up to 100 km | up to 5 km | till 12 o'clock |
| "Eleron-10" | 12 Kg | up to 50 km | up to 5 km | up to 3 hours |
| "Martin" | 4.5 kg | up to 25 km | up to 3, 6 km | up to 2 hours |
| "Gunner-2" | 7 kg | up to 25 km | up to 5 km | up to 3 hours |
