Discussions about the quality of Russian UAVs translate into the purchase of foreign equipment
In mid-October, it became known that the assembly of Israeli drones would begin soon in Kazan. This message caused an ambiguous reaction, and its discussion once again demonstrated the whole set of problems in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles in Russia.
On October 13, Oboronprom Corporation entered into an agreement with the Israeli concern IAI for the supply of components to the Kazan Helicopter Plant, which will produce the UAV. The contract starts in 2011 and runs for three years. The exact amount of the transaction has not been disclosed, but the press of the Jewish state has already named figures in the range of $ 400 million.
Separately, it was clarified that the drones are intended "for the needs of civilian consumers." This form of politeness has once again exacerbated the discussion about the development and supply of domestic drones for the Russian security forces.
DO I BUY DOMESTIC?
Information that Russian unmanned vehicles do not suit the military has been circulating in the media for a long time. Last year, Russian Air Force Commander-in-Chief Aleksandr Zelin made arrows at domestic producers by declaring his refusal to purchase the UAVs they created for our military aviation. In April 2010, First Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin harshly criticized Russian UAV designers. Five billion rubles allocated for research and development and military tests, he said, were actually wasted. “We have collected everything that was from all over the country. Not a single drone passed the test program,”Popovkin was indignant.
In September 2010, at the 252nd training ground of the Ministry of Defense in the Nizhny Novgorod region, another "review" of domestic drones was held. Based on the results of the tests, the Ground Forces commission made a number of streamlined remarks about "UAV manufacturers that have significantly advanced in their work" and "interesting samples" that may be adopted in the future - "with appropriate revision." Translated into Russian, these clerical wording, apparently, should mean that, in the opinion of the military, Russia still does not have unmanned vehicles of the level that the army needs.
Domestic UAV companies criticize the very idea of purchasing foreign vehicles in a harmonious chorus. About a month before the deal on the Kazan project was concluded, the CEO of the Vega concern, Vladimir Verba, said that the industry could independently create functional analogs of Israeli drones by 2013. "Give us money, we will do it ourselves" - the position of Russian businessmen working in this area can be understood: the industry suffered extremely heavy losses in the 90s and needs to be stabilized through an elementary stimulating government order … But you can understand Vladimir Popovkin, too, when he claims that the state has already spent billions of rubles on military unmanned programs and has not received anything even close to a decent device.
The army also has a lot of complaints about the models that have already been adopted. A lot of unflattering words have been said about the Stroy-P type complexes with the Pchela UAV, despite the fact that this heavy drone with a cumbersome basing and launching system was a faithful assistant to the Airborne Forces reconnaissance during both Chechen campaigns. Even after modernization (on R&D for which more than 400 million budget rubles were spent), the complex, according to military estimates, demonstrates completely inadequate capabilities for the removal and operational transmission of intelligence information.
The new "Tipchak" apparatus, which underwent military tests right during the "five-day war" in 2008, also causes skepticism. First of all, due to the extremely insignificant effective range (only 40 kilometers, which, according to General Vladimir Shamanov, in conditions of full-scale hostilities will immediately be halved due to the need to withdraw the Tipchak launchers from the enemy's cannon artillery), high noise, complaints about the elemental base of electronics and poor stabilization of surveillance cameras (which leads to an extremely low-quality picture). Secondly, to put it mildly, confuses the cost - 300 million rubles for the complex. “We still need to see if this vehicle is needed by the troops,” Shamanov transparently hinted at the ambiguous future of Tipchak, holding a meeting in 2009 on the development of military UAVs.
STRATEGIC CHALLENGE
Today, drones are becoming a key link in tactical lighting systems, a critical component of modern military infrastructure. Russian law enforcement agencies, it seems, are not yet ready to directly purchase drones abroad, preferring to seek results from domestic designers. The FSB, represented by its subordinate border guards, has repeatedly stated that, despite the urgent need for unmanned control over state borders, it will not acquire foreign UAVs, although tests of such samples were carried out. After the war with Georgia, the Ministry of Defense is in much more cramped conditions: the army needs modern drones like air.
"Screwdriver assembly" of Israeli UAVs at the Russian plant is an attempt to get technical solutions that our manufacturers do not have. This, of course, is not yet a full-fledged transfer of important defense technology, but at least the first step towards it. In addition, such a move should spur domestic developers as well - in fact, this contract made them "the last Chinese warning", and ahead more and more clearly looms, if not the cancellation, then at least a sensitive reduction in the much-desired government order.
However, the "licensed" assembly of Israeli UAVs cannot even be considered a palliative solution to the problem of supplying drones to Russian law enforcement agencies. The contradictory statements of the FSB and the Ministry of Defense indicate the absence of a single agreed strategy that unites the interests of all interested government agencies in the design and operation of unmanned vehicles. And this strategic issue certainly has nothing to do with the ability of our developers to deliver ordered products on time.
On the other hand, it is impossible to allocate any large-scale funding for the development and production of UAVs in Russia without understanding what vehicles are needed by law enforcement agencies, in what quantity, for what purposes, what should be their characteristics and how the production and technological capabilities and the operational interests of departments should be deployed into a single line of samples of domestic unmanned vehicles. Otherwise, as world practice shows, haphazard lobbying by individual manufacturers and intermediaries has a habit of flourishing, gradually leading to inadequate spending of the military budget and the introduction of systems that do not meet the real needs of the army and special services.
Therefore, until a unified approach to the construction of an unmanned air fleet is agreed upon, the law enforcement agencies can only accumulate experience in operating foreign vehicles, and the industry that has received the "top three" - to study their design and technological features. If everything is done as it is now, then in a few years we will see domestic samples suitable for widespread use, created by repeating Israeli technologies at our production base. The development of original Russian drones of the latest generation by this time is also possible, but a conservative inertial scenario with copying foreign solutions still seems more likely.
