Russian attack aircraft begin a new life
The Su-25 attack aircraft has been one of the most belligerent vehicles for more than thirty years. Behind the shoulders of the Rooks are the wars in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, both the Chechen conflicts, the Georgian campaign and, of course, the ongoing operation in Syria.
To date, the Su-25 fleet has been modernized. The updated machines, which received the SM index, are equipped with modern navigation systems and an aiming system. There were other improvements as well. But since the August 2008 events, it can no longer be denied that the modified Su-25SM are too vulnerable in modern warfare, even against a technologically underdeveloped enemy. The two main problems of the Rook are how to timely detect the enemy and evade air defense fire.
“Vladimir Babak:“We made a large set of heat traps of different calibers, and also developed various programs for their shooting, which are selected automatically depending on the angles from which the threat comes to the plane””
On August 9, 2008, in Tskhinvali, as a result of an oncoming battle with Georgian troops, a part of the battalion tactical group of the Russian 135th SMR was cut off and, having occupied a perimeter defense, repulsed enemy attacks. At 15.30, the command of the 4th Army of the Air Force and Air Defense reoriented the aircraft of the 368th Assault Aviation Regiment, based in Budennovsk, to support the blocked motorized riflemen. Both conventional Su-25 and Su-25SM took part in the operation.
It turned out that in the conditions of a city battle, when Georgian troops not only responded with small arms fire, but also actively used MANPADS, the Rooks were not effective enough. Due to the lack of modern optoelectronic systems, it was very difficult for pilots to find an enemy in urban combat and heavy smoke. Suffice it to say that one side searched for the target for almost 11 minutes. All this time, the Georgian military fired at the Rook from small arms and MANPADS.
The intensity of the work of the enemy air defense in that battle is evidenced by the fact that, according to the research and production corporation Sukhoi Stormtroopers, on average, for every Su-25, which in that battle supported the fighters of the 135th infantry regiment in Tskhinval, up to six missiles were launched MANPADS. Only their high professionalism saved the attack pilots from losses. At 17.00, unable to withstand continuous airstrikes, as well as fire from Russian artillery and close combat with cut off motorized riflemen, Georgian units and subunits began to retreat, and after 19.00 they completely left Tskhinval. Undoubtedly, the most important role in that battle belonged to the pilots of the 368th oshap.
Now you're a bomber
At the time of the first air strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces on the positions of militants in Syria, ten Su-25SM and two Su-25UB combat training units from the 960th separate assault regiment from Primorsko-Akhtarsk were deployed at the Khmeimim airbase. By the beginning of the withdrawal of troops, according to the "military-industrial complex", "Rooks" performed 3500 sorties out of a total of nine thousand. On average, each of the ten attack aircraft spent 250 to 300 hours in the air in five months of combat. Combat trainers, performing primarily auxiliary tasks (weather reconnaissance, inspection of areas), flew only 60-80 hours aboard.
Note: in Syria, the Su-25 did not work like classic attack aircraft. They performed in a somewhat unusual role for themselves as ordinary bombers, dropping ammunition on the enemy from a height of five thousand meters. Moreover, the pilots did not even look for targets, their coordinates were put into the onboard systems before departure.
The eyes of the Su-25 were unmanned aerial vehicles and soldiers of special operations forces, who, after detecting and identifying enemy targets, gave out their exact coordinates. Depending on the type of target, the attack aircraft went on a task with two or four free-falling aerial bombs.
After takeoff from the Khmeimim airbase, the pilot went to the target area and activated the onboard sighting system, which would bring the attack aircraft to the object and automatically drop bombs.
The Rooks showed very high accuracy in Syria, sometimes not inferior to the front-line bombers Su-24M, equipped with a special computing subsystem SVP-24. So, according to the "Military-Industrial Courier", the overwhelming majority of bombs dropped by attack aircraft, regardless of the time of day and weather conditions, lay within a radius of 10-15 meters from the aiming point.
At the same time, due to the higher operational characteristics of the Su-25, they managed to make more sorties per day than the Su-24M and Su-34 that worked together with them. On the busiest days, stormtroopers took to the skies up to ten times.
According to a representative of the Russian Aerospace Forces who is familiar with the situation, now that the intensity of the fighting has dropped sharply, there is no need for the Su-25. But if the confrontation resumes with the same tension, the first to return to the Khmeimim airbase are the Su-25s, which, as the interlocutor put it, are capable of bombarding the enemy with high precision.
But despite the rather good results of the Syrian mission, it cannot be denied that the attack aircraft actually worked as bomb carriers. The Su-25 proved to be invulnerable to the militants' air defense systems, primarily due to the fact that they flew at least five thousand meters. There remains a serious problem with the search for targets and, as the Sukhoi Stormtroopers admit, if it were not for the KSSO fighters and reconnaissance drones that found targets, the effectiveness of the Rooks in Syria would have been much lower.
Sharper and Stronger
Currently, the Russian Aerospace Forces includes four separate assault aviation regiments (Chernigovka, Domna, Budennovsk and Primorsko-Akhtarsk) and an assault squadron (Crimea). Until 2017, it is planned to restore the 899th oshap disbanded during the transition to a new look at the Buturlinovka airfield. So while the Aerospace Forces do not plan to abandon the Su-25 attack aircraft.
According to a representative of the military department, since the beginning of the 90s, the idea to write off the Rooks came up several times. The main argument of the opponents of attack aircraft - the Tbilisi Aviation Plant, which mass-produced them, remained outside of Russia, and in Ulan-Ude, only the production of the combat training Su-25UB and the anti-tank Su-25T, created on its basis, was mastered. …
At the same time, the Su-25 is a reliable, unpretentious and fairly cheap machine to operate. "Flying Kalashnikov assault rifle", as the pilots themselves and the technical personnel of the assault regiments say. The experience of fighting in Chechnya showed that only these vehicles could provide support for ground forces.
In 2011, the Russian Ministry of Defense made an attempt to find a replacement for the Rooks by opening a competition for the so-called promising attack aircraft (PSSh). Several projects were considered, including a vehicle based on the Su-25UB, which was planned to be equipped with a pressurized cockpit, a new optoelectronic system, a radar and armed with Vikhr anti-tank guided missiles.
But as far as "VPK" knows, at present the work on the PSSH is closed. The military department made a choice in favor of the project of deep modernization of the "Rook", which received the Su-25SM3 index
According to the chief designer of the Su-25, Vladimir Babak, the first work on the SM3 began immediately after Georgia was forced to peace. The attack aircraft had to be made capable of hitting well-protected mobile targets covered with modern air defense systems.
The heart of the new attack aircraft is the SOLT-25 optoelectronic system and the Vitebsk electronic protection system. The SALT, installed in place of the Klen laser station, allows not only detecting, but also tracking a target day and night in poor weather conditions at a distance of up to eight kilometers with an accuracy of half a meter. The system, capable of giving an image with 16x magnification, includes a television channel, a thermal imager and a laser rangefinder, which not only determines the distance to the target, but also illuminates it for missiles and bombs with a laser homing head. True, work on the optoelectronic system, which the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant was developing for the new attack aircraft, was somewhat delayed and it is only now being released for testing as part of the entire Su-25SM3 complex.
“In August 2008, the Georgian air defense received information from the radio equipment of the southern flank of NATO. As soon as the Su-25 of the Budennovsky regiment rose above the Caucasian ridge, they were immediately detected by stationary radars, and AWACS aircraft, and radar stations standing on the ships. The data was transmitted to the Georgian military in automatic mode, and a heated meeting awaited the "Rooks". After all, Georgia had fairly modern air defense systems. Not only MANPADS, but also long-range "Buks" and "Wasps", - Vladimir Babak recalls.
Therefore, the second most important task, in addition to detecting targets on the battlefield, for the designers of the Sukhoi Stormtroopers was to equip the Su-25SM3 with an airborne self-defense system capable of coping with both the Buk, Osa, Tor and Patriot air defense systems. and with anti-aircraft cannon installations and MANPADS.
“Previously, a breakthrough in air defense meant overcoming a certain line. Crossed it - and the resistance is already minimal. But in modern combat, all possible targets are covered by object air defense. We must not be afraid of it, but destroy it,”the chief designer of the Su-25 believes. Therefore, the Vitebsk electronic warfare system not only puts powerful noise and imitation interference, but detects a MANPADS missile launch on the plane, fires off special traps, but also allows you to hit enemy radars using X-58 missiles.
By the way, "Vitebsk", developed by the Samara Research Institute "Ekran", was included in the onboard equipment of the Mi-8AMTSh and Mi-8MTV-5 transport helicopters, as well as the Ka-52 attack helicopters. Machines with the latest complex, a characteristic feature of which are the "balls" of laser projectors installed on the fuselage and suspension nodes, are actively participating in hostilities in Syria.
True, to accommodate the entire complex on board the aircraft requires a lot of space, so some of the elements of "Vitebsk" in containers L370-3S-K25 are placed on the hardpoints, where the R- 60.
The self-defense complex detects the operation of MANPADS using ultraviolet sensors. True, again, due to the design features of the Su-25SM3, it was not possible to place a laser searchlight on board that could suppress even the latest multispectral thermal homing heads.
“By creating the Su-25SM3, we, based on the experience of August 2008, laid down a situation when up to six MANPADS missiles were already flying behind the plane and each had to be fought off. In such a situation, it is necessary to set up a group hindrance. A laser spotlight can only do one thing. Traps save. We have made a fairly large set of heat traps of different calibers, as well as developed various programs for their shooting, which are selected automatically depending on the angles from which the threat comes to the plane,”explains Vladimir Babak.
The Su-25SM3 will be able to use the entire range of modern aviation weapons, including those with laser and television guidance, as well as those corrected by GLONASS. Unfortunately, the Su-25T supersonic ATGM Whirlwind, already implemented on the Su-25T, was not included in the armament of the new Rook, since, according to representatives of the Sukhoi Shturmoviki NPK, difficulties arise with setting the laser-beam channel necessary for missile control.
As Vladimir Babak noted, the Klevok complex, also known as Hermes, created by the Tula Instrument Design Bureau, is being considered as a standard ATGM for the newest Su-25SM3. But as the work continues, alas, it has not yet entered the Rook's armament.
The Russian Aerospace Forces plan to receive at least 45 Su-25SM3 attack aircraft by 2020. The modernization will be carried out at the 121st aircraft repair plant in Kubinka, from where the Su-25SM will also come out. But the plans of the command of the Aerospace Forces and the NPK Sukhoi Stormtroopers may be influenced by the fact that during the work on the modernized Rooks it will be necessary not only to install on-board equipment, but also to carry out a comprehensive repair of aircraft beforehand - with the restoration of components, assemblies and mechanisms.
As a further development of the Su-25 family, its developers have now proposed the Su-25SMT aircraft to the Russian Aerospace Forces.
“At the plant in Ulan-Ude there are several previously produced Su-25T gliders. We propose to install on-board equipment similar to the Su-25SM3 on them. The new aircraft will increase the flight range, and due to the pressurized cockpit, the ceiling will grow to 12 thousand meters. We are ready to make other changes to increase the capabilities of the new attack aircraft. If we get the go-ahead, we will be able to take the new car into the air next year,”sums up the chief designer of the Su-25, Vladimir Babak.
Role change
If you look at the modern aviation fleet of the Russian Aerospace Forces, it is striking that it does not include relatively light cheap multifunctional fighter-bombers. In the early 1990s, the then president of the country, Boris Yeltsin, decided that only combat aircraft with two engines should remain in the Russian Air Force. As a result, the Su-17 and Mig-27, which formed the basis of strike aviation, were decommissioned, and their tasks were transferred to the highly specialized Su-25.
As further experience of wars and military conflicts showed, the Russian Air Force was acutely short of light, easy-to-operate and capable of performing a large number of sorties per day of strike aircraft equipped with modern optoelectronic stations and using both high-precision and unguided aircraft weapons. Not only the old Su-24s, but also the newest Su-34s are quite complex and expensive aircraft that require lengthy preparation for a combat mission. It can be assumed that it was for this reason that unpretentious Su-25s were deployed to Syria, performing the tasks of front-line bombers.
The Su-25SM3 is no longer a classic attack aircraft - the heir to the Il-2, as they say. It is a multifunctional vehicle capable of solving a wide range of tasks, from destroying tanks and other armored vehicles to suppressing enemy air defenses. The updated "Rook" can effectively act both against a high-tech enemy and against militant units.
In fact, the Su-25 has left the niche of a highly specialized vehicle for direct support of troops on the battlefield and is now gradually taking the place of light multipurpose attack aircraft that solve a wide range of tasks, spending moderate funds on it. Therefore, the appearance of the Su-25SMT becomes quite logical, which will finally consolidate the status of a multifunctional machine for the Rook family.
