Combat drones and their use in war. The most dangerous combat drones of the armies of the world (10 photos). They rarely break and require minimal support

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In garages and hangars across Kyiv, an army of inventors is challenging the Russian war machine.

The sound of a flying drone cuts through the night silence of the forest and reaches the rebel checkpoint, which is a jumble of concrete blocks and torn camouflage nets. The checkpoint is on the outskirts of Donetsk, the largest city in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. The road is pockmarked with small craters from mortar shells. Wires hang lonely from power transmission poles. We slow down to avoid running over a pine tree trunk placed across the road as a barrier. At this moment, a separatist comes out of the concrete bunker and points his Kalashnikov assault rifle at us. He then looks at the octocopter hovering above him and makes an obscene gesture in its direction. “They're always watching us,” he says. “And we are always watching them.” This was the situation in September 2014, six months after Russia annexed Crimea. News of the war in Ukraine spread throughout the world, and during this period unmanned aircrafts (UAVs) became increasingly widespread, appearing even in combat areas. Today, thanks in part to technological know-how Soviet era

, the skies over eastern Ukraine are buzzing with 21st-century unmanned aircraft, flying over trenches reminiscent of the First World War and over Soviet-era artillery positions.

When the war began in 2014, the Ukrainian army was the second largest in Europe, but it did not have a single modern UAV. The Ukrainian government forces were opposed by the Russian army, which was in the process of modernization, and supported rebel forces in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin has used asymmetric tactics, using a variety of tools, from covert operations under false cover to cyber warfare. On the Ukrainian side there was an army of conscripts, which was greatly weakened by many years of corruption and insufficient funding. Over the past four years, the conflict has become more deadly. On, which began when some residents of the industrial Donbass rebelled and supported Russia, more than 10 thousand people died, about 30% of them civilians. The Guardian wrote about this at the end of 2017. The Minsk agreement concluded in 2015 between Kiev and Moscow was supposed to lead to a ceasefire and the implementation of a plan to reintegrate the separatist regions into Ukraine. Following this, new elections were to be held in rebel-held areas. But none of this happened.

In the town of Avdeevka, close to the front line separating government-controlled areas from the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, the seemingly peaceful situation continues to be frequently and suddenly disrupted by explosions artillery shells. According to the United Nations, anti-vehicle mines killed people in Ukraine in 2016. more people than in any other country in the world.

There remains little chance of peace being restored, but Ukraine has managed to step up its weight in this conflict by turning to its world-renowned aviation industry. A unique feature of this war was a new group skilled volunteers who make unmanned aerial vehicles with their own hands.

Context

"Furies" and "Valkyries" against Donbass

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Military lessons from Donbass from the American point of view

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"Red Robots": Russian military robots

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The fighting in Ukraine continues to kill people almost daily, and the battlespace has become much more complex, forcing homegrown basement inventors to come up with ever new innovations. They began to design combat drones and develop tactics for their use that are superior to anything available in other countries.

U.S. Army National Guard Lt. Col. Ty Shepard, who works as an adviser at Ukraine's Delta command and control center, said the Ukrainians were able to quickly adapt to the new conditions on the battlefield. “In the two years since the creation of this organization, they very quickly abandoned the use of airships and balloons for reconnaissance, and moved on to creating their own UAVs,” he notes. “And they started from scratch.”

About 40 specially selected graduates of Ukrainian military schools and academies work at the Delta center. Their main task is to reduce the time it takes for information collected by drones and CCTV cameras to reach the Ukrainian General Staff, as well as to ensure real-time monitoring of the situation on the front line. Some of the collected intelligence is passed on to American military attaches, who analyze it to better understand Russia's combat capabilities.

Shepard serves on the Military Education Advisory Group, which is part of the US Embassy's Office of Military Cooperation. He was greatly impressed by the knowledge and skills of Ukrainian specialists creating drones. “They are constantly thinking about improving various methods of operating UAVs,” says the lieutenant colonel. “As for small drones, some of them are superior in capabilities to our drones.” He calls those military personnel who work at the Delta center “a group of great enthusiasts.”

Brains of Ukraine

“Ukraine’s main strength is our brains,” says Denis Gurak, who works as deputy director for foreign investment at state company"Ukroboronprom." - Mathematics, physics, mechanical engineering - this is our key potential." Gurak himself previously worked in the field of international management and marketing.

He is now advocating a revival of Ukraine's defense industry, which was once a key element of the Russian economy. Before the war, many important components for Russian military equipment, from tanks and rockets to helicopters and missiles, were manufactured in Ukraine. “If you compare our capabilities and the capabilities of Russia,” says Gurak, “we are 100% their competitors in almost all technical areas, especially in the defense industry."

Munching a croissant in a French café in central Kyiv, he declares that Ukraine's defense sector is huge, resembling a state within a state. “Drones are a pretty good example,” says Gurak. “I don’t know of a single country in the world, with the possible exception of the United States and China, that could start producing their own drones in two years.”

It must be said that the traditional industries of the Ukrainian military industry, such as aircraft manufacturing, tank building, and ammunition production, are in decline, while a new industry - the production of UAVs - is thriving. This is explained by such important strengths Ukraine as computer programming and engineering, which does not require heavy industrial equipment and does not require large initial costs.

Human capital is abundant here. Four specialized aerospace universities in Ukraine annually graduate about 10 thousand specialists in information technology, however, half of them eventually leave the country in search of work. (Last November, one analyst from the Ukrainian think tank CEDOS told the Kyiv news agency UNIAN that the Ministry of Education does not want to monitor how university graduates get jobs, because it knows that information on the number of people leaving the country or going to work work that doesn't require higher education, will put Ukraine in an awkward position.)

Gift of sight

In the spring of 2014, Ukrainian graduates and information technology specialists found a new occupation. In Donbass, which is a coal-mining and industrial center Ukraine, fighting units began to emerge, and angry miners began to erect checkpoints and barricades on the roads. When Russian ammunition, military equipment and troops poured into the region in a powerful stream, the Ukrainian army began to suffer one defeat after another.

Seeing that the military was essentially blind, model airplane hobbyists, inexperienced commercial drone pilots, and homegrown inventors headed to their garages and began creating drones to give the defenders of the homeland the gift of sight.

© AP Photo, Efrem lukatsky Ukrainian drone during an exercise

One such company, Matrix UAV, soon found success after moving from a garage to a dilapidated Soviet-era industrial estate. The parking lot in front of Matrix U.V. is filled with delivery vehicles and the doors are wide open. The pipes of a drone dubbed “Commander” protrude menacingly from them.

I enter the room where the main element of the company's air war is located, but no one notices me. From the far corner I hear some voices. The room where I was sent is a real paradise for home-grown craftsmen. The giant table is cluttered with miniature rotors, microcircuits, pliers, fuselages, and wires. There is also a small racing drone there. American electrical engineer Rudolf Kalman, who invented an algorithm widely used in guidance systems ranging from the American space shuttle to drones, smiles from photographs on the wall of the workshop.

Designers and constructors are finally looking up from their soldering irons and computer screens. The lean founder of Matrix U.A.V., Yuri Kasyanov, comes up to me, firmly shakes my hand and declares that I am a spy.

I force out an awkward laugh before he leads me back to show me the Commander.

Andrei Pulyaev returns from the kitchen with a mug of tea. "Commander" is his brainchild. The rest of the team are in their early 20s, and they all sit in a workshop where chaos reigns. Pulyaev is 50 years old, and he has his own office, where everything is tidy and quiet. He comes from a front-line town under rebel control. His elderly parents still live there. Unlike Kasyanov, who studied in the Soviet military aviation school, Pulyaev served in the Red Army conscript service. He could have received an education at a Siberian aviation university, but did not take advantage of this opportunity. Siberia was too far from his home and family.

Since childhood, Pulyaev has been passionate about helicopters. In his youth he was a member of the aircraft modeling club and traveled all over Soviet Union, winning competitions in a variety of places, including East Germany and the Baltic states. At age 19, he designed and built a fully functional helicopter. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and he lost all his opportunities. Before the war began, he worked near Donetsk, hacking and repairing computers in the Mercedes of the city's mafia elite. Now, after a 25-year break, he has returned to his favorite business. “Here,” he says, screwing on an aluminum bracket, “I can make any fantasy come true.”

Well, it doesn’t look much like any fantasy. The Commander's sleek aluminum frame houses missile guides, a GPS navigation system, and a gasoline engine that drives 10 rotors that together make the bike sound like it's working at its limit. Pulyaev wants to create an even larger drone, capable of transporting wounded soldiers, delivering blood to the battlefield and putting out fires. “But America doesn’t want to sell us powerful engines,” says Kasyanov. He points to two motors with Chinese characters. The craftsmen from his company have to buy low-quality Chinese components or make them themselves.

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"Many governments Western countries“The USA, Germany, France and so on do not want to supply powerful engines to Ukraine, because we are waging a war, and they do not want to quarrel with Putin,” says Kasyanov.

“Due to the fact that Ukraine cannot purchase parts and components High Quality“It’s not able to move forward,” said Beatrice Bernardi, a senior aviation analyst and UAV expert at defense analytics firm IHS Jane’s. “The Ukrainians are doing well with what they have,” she adds, “but their drones are not sophisticated enough in terms of weapons. They are mainly used for reconnaissance and surveillance."

Kasyanov is unshakable. “We don’t need a Minsk [ceasefire agreement] to win this war, we need a hundred of these vehicles,” he says, pointing towards the Commander. “With missiles that will destroy Russian armored vehicles. Then we can easily We will liberate our land. If the war really intensifies, then we will fight with the “Commander.” And not with just one.”

"Katana"

But Matrix's real contribution to the war effort today is not this formidable combat drone. No, we are talking about a different aircraft - a drone made of foam material with a wingspan of one and a half meters. They called it “Katana”, which means “sword” in Japanese. But the Katana, with its white foam body, doesn't live up to its name, looking more like a cartoon version of a B-2 bomber than a formidable samurai weapon. Matrix began mass production of the Katana with funds received from a Canadian donor. This aircraft can carry several types of cameras on board, although only one camera at a time, due to which its cost is about five thousand dollars. Matrix trains National Guardsmen to use the drones and then donates the drones to National Guard units on the front lines.

Everyone agrees that there is nothing exotic about the drones being produced and used today. Most craftsmen and manufacturers base their drones on the designs of RVJET model aircraft, which are produced by the amateur aircraft company RangeVideo, operating in Miami. Its slogan: “Have fun, don’t fight!” Today, Matrix UAVs fly over the battlefield, taking pictures and videos that are stored on a memory card. Since they are very small and quiet, and fly at an altitude of 300-400 meters, the biggest concern is not that they will be shot down, but that their batteries will run out, or that their radio signal will be suppressed by Russian means, and the device itself, along with its memory card, will be lost.

Katana and similar drones are not the most advanced, but they are very important. The operator is usually nearby, but behind the front line. Drones themselves collect and transmit intelligence information about the firing positions of artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems. The news they report is dark and scary. Since the beginning of the war, more than 10 thousand people, both military and civilian, have died on both sides, and almost 1.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the fighting.

The battlefields over which drones fly are reminiscent of the First World War. The ground is pocked with a huge network of trenches, which are protected by gun emplacements, minefields, anti-tank traps and barbed wire. The positions of the warring parties are sometimes only a few hundred meters away from each other. Soviet-era machine guns fire from small rifle cells. Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas on both sides of the front terrorizes the population and leads to death. Hundreds of thousands of people are too poor, sick and old to leave the front-line areas. Sometimes they hide from artillery shelling for several days in a row in damp, unheated basements where there is no electricity.

And only drones indicate that today is the 21st century.

Drone Wars

A battered Soviet-era tank emerges from a forested area, crawls over a parapet in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes, and then heads towards Ukrainian positions. The wall of screens in the center of the Delta shows the tank turning sharply and silently driving away.

“If we had seen this tank from American positions somewhere else in the world, it would have been a dead tank,” says American officer Shepard. “They would definitely have destroyed him if he had gotten that close.” But they have nothing in that position. No artillery. Maybe an 82mm mortar, an RPG (anti-tank grenade launcher) or a recoilless rifle. They can also call in artillery fire later and they will precisely bombard the area to protect their troops' positions.”

During his time at Delta Center, Shepard witnessed how this war quickly mutated. “From the ground, it looks like trench warfare,” he says. “We dug in, powerful artillery duels are taking place, the sides seize and then hold the territory. But on the other hand...there is a completely different game going on in the air. This is electronic warfare, electronic warfare. It's almost like " star Wars"where interception is constantly carried out, interference is created, there is constant surveillance, reconnaissance, identification of targets using a variety of systems."

He saw all this on the screens more than once. “Skirmishes between soldiers, powerful artillery shelling, tanks fighting each other, air attacks by drones. The tactics used there are quite exotic. Not just one drone, but entire formations of aircraft that use various tactics. It turns out that you are like a wingman pilot. A wide variety of means are used there. And it's quite interesting."

Drones need GPS or radio signals to fly. Therefore, pro-Russian rebels and, to a lesser extent, Ukrainian military personnel interfere with each other, conducting a kind of arms race in the communications war. Shepard calls this war an innovation incubator. "WITH Russian side they use this war as a testing ground, practicing various tactics. I guess that this is quite convenient for checking and testing. They gain experience, learn lessons, and then apply innovations in places like Syria, further improving them in other conditions,” he says. At the same time, the United States, which provides logistical and organizational support, is also watching and learning.

But Ukrainians are at a disadvantage in this war, according to Omar Lamrani, a senior military analyst at Stratfor. "I think, weak spots Ukraine, for the elimination of which it needs a foreign partner or foreign assistance, say, from the United States, these are data transmission lines, communications, ensuring the safety of UAV flights, so that all this is protected from enemy electronic warfare, from interference, from loss of communication. Ukraine has been a big revelation for the UAV market in other ways as well. It showed a lot about how complex the modern battlefield is. The United States was somewhat surprised to see how successful the Russians were in using and interfering with these small combat systems.”

Shepard argues that Ukrainian and Russian drones are capable of not only conducting surveillance, sometimes deep in enemy territory, but also carrying out strikes. “There are devices that fly out and simply interfere, and there are those that conduct surveillance. And then there are those who drop bombs,” he says.

I ask again if the Ukrainians really launch missiles and drop bombs from their drones. He smiles and replies: “I cannot comment on this topic. I can only say that they have very modern tactics, methods and methods of warfare, which in many ways help them defend the sovereignty of their country.”

But some airstrikes take place deep inside Ukrainian territory, targeting ammunition depots and military bases. In September, a military warehouse in the Vinnytsia region exploded (the cause could have been a drone strike), as a result of which 83 thousand tons of ammunition were destroyed and 30 thousand had to be evacuated local residents. The Ukrainian security service says that in March a Russian drone dropped a ZMG-1 incendiary grenade on a military base in Balakleya in eastern Ukraine, 100 kilometers from Russian border. The explosion destroyed several tons of ammunition.

Flying Fury

Ukrainian manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles also create kamikaze drones that can remain in a combat patrol area for several hours, after which they are sent to a target and blown up.

One of the founders of Atlon Avia, Artem Vyunnik, disapproves of this idea. He says: “Every time I come to the General Staff, they ask me: ‘When are you going to give us a kamikaze or something like that?’ We didn’t want to do that from the very beginning. We didn’t want to kill people.” His company creates the Fury drone, which is used for reconnaissance of targets and adjustment of heavy artillery fire.

Atlon Avia is located in a two-story building adjacent to an apartment building in one of the residential areas of Kyiv. Graffiti can be seen everywhere on the beige walls. There is no signboard. The company next door sells South Korean massage beds.

Inside the workshop, with its gleaming white and gray walls, electronic music pulses from speakers. A 21-year-old computer programmer tinkers with the Fury's ground control panel, entering code and setting up a proprietary software target designation.

Vyunnik is not an engineer or a technician. He is a born businessman with a keen business sense. He was born in the semi-impoverished eastern city of Konstantinovka, which in Soviet times made glass for the red Kremlin stars. At the age of 25, he ran a large company in Donetsk, which exported suits to European stores Zara and Marks & Spencer. He moved to Kyiv because he was tired of the clan-oligarchic system that dominated the east. In the meantime, he received a law degree. Vyunnik got involved in drones because he was interested in it.

Now his hobby has transformed into a thriving company. The army, he says, “needs everything.”

However, Vyunnik and his partners were not interested in creating another undistinguished drone. Instead, they decided that Athlone Avia would be the first company to specialize in aerial artillery fire correction.

“For artillery crews you need very specific software,” explains Vyunnik. — The Soviet standard allowed the use of 300 shells for adjustment and targeting. Using our drones, we fire one shot, then make adjustments, after which six guns fire and the target is destroyed. We are simply improving old methods of warfare. We understand this. But thanks to drones, we have become more efficient.”

But although Atlon Avia's software is from the 21st century, the front-line units and units of the Ukrainian army seem to be stuck in the past. Delta Center must collate the information collected by the Furies and then transmit it to combat units. So far this is not happening, says Vyunnik.

“We tried to cooperate with Delta, but it’s impossible because we don’t understand each other,” he says. “We can’t understand what their goals are. Whenever we come to the test center, people from other departments ask us if we can transfer our data to some system like Delta. They can easily be transferred to anyone, to any system, but no one tells me where to transfer them, or how to do it. The devil is in the details."

But details aside, the massive transformation of Ukrainian 2014 homemade drones into professional UAV manufacturers could herald a revolution in combat drone manufacturing and tactics that could be reaped by smaller countries around the world.

“Before 2014, we had never made drones, but now, in two and a half to three years, companies have appeared in Ukraine that produce military drones,” says Gurak. “The potential of our industry allowed Ukraine to survive this war. This is truly a very big achievement, because no one believed in us. Volunteers gave what they could give, but human energy alone cannot win the war.”

Ukraine shows the whole world that in the conflicts of the future, small countries fighting a stronger enemy will actively use armies of robots, thereby strengthening their human armies.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Just 15 years ago, drones were treated like science fiction. In 2005, Israel launched a test balloon and sent several almost toy airplanes with cameras to the Syrian side. The planes returned with intelligence data and a few hours later the F-16s returned to their place. Since then, combat drones have become much cooler: today they no longer need fighter jets.

• Triton MQ-4C

  A real giant among unmanned vehicles. The Triton MQ-4C was developed by Northrop Grumman for the Pentagon. The wingspan of this giant is comparable to the wingspan of a Boeing 747, but so far there is no exact information about the scope of application of the giant drone.




WU-14

Chinese experimental hypersonic drone designed to deliver missiles across the continent. In fact, the Chinese Ministry of Defense at one time declared the WU-14 as a “scientific aircraft”, but later recognized its military purpose. The WU-14 is the most powerful drone on our list as it is designed to deliver nuclear weapons to a target.




CH-5

A Chinese development, which can easily be called a modified clone of the American “Reaper of Death”. The UAV was created by the military corporation China Aerospace Science and Technology and has already been tested in combat conditions. The drone is equipped with two new types of ammunition (which ones are not yet known) and a laser guidance system.




Taranis

Until now, almost all information about the British intercontinental UAV project is classified. Only the basic parameters of Taranis are known (weight - three tons, length - 11 meters, wingspan - 10 meters) and the fact that the drone is equipped with stealth technology.




Northrop Grumman X-47BC

The brainchild of American geniuses from the famous Northrop Grumman. The second generation combat UAV is capable of taking off and landing without an operator at all, only with the help of an on-board computer. The wings are equipped with rocket launchers, which are controlled by a person from the ground.







MQ-9 Reaper

Perhaps one of the most famous and deadliest drones in the world. The Reaper replaced the MQ-1 Predator unmanned reconnaissance system. Reaper is capable of taking off to a height of thirteen kilometers, lifting a total of 4.7 tons and staying in the air for a whole day. It will be very, very difficult to elude such a steel predator.




Outpost

In fact, the Russian “Outpost” is a slightly modified version of the battle-tested Israeli Searcher 2. At the moment, these complexes are just beginning to arrive in the Russian Army, but are already being used in combat operations in Syria.

Nowadays, many developing countries allocate a lot of money from their budgets to improve and develop new types of UAVs - unmanned aerial vehicles. In the theater of military operations, it is not uncommon for cases when, when deciding a combat or learning task the command gave preference to the digital machine rather than the pilot. And there were a number of good reasons for this. Firstly, it is continuity of work. Drones are capable of performing a task for up to 24 hours without interruption for rest and sleep - integral elements of human needs. Secondly, it's endurance.

The drone operates almost uninterruptedly, under high overload conditions, and where human body If the drone is simply not able to withstand 9G overloads, the drone can continue to operate. Well, thirdly, this absence human factor and completing the task according to the program embedded in the computer complex. The only person who can make a mistake is the operator who enters information to complete the mission - robots do not make mistakes.

History of UAV development

For a long time now, man has had the idea of ​​​​creating a machine that could be controlled from a distance without harm to oneself. 30 years after the Wright brothers' first flight, this idea became a reality, and in 1933 a special remote-controlled aircraft was built in the UK.

The first drone to take part in the battles was. It was a radio-controlled rocket with a jet engine. It was equipped with an autopilot, into which German operators entered information about the upcoming flight. During the Second World War, this missile successfully completed about 20 thousand combat missions, carrying out air strikes on important strategic and civilian objects Great Britain.

After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union, in the course of growing mutual claims against each other, which became a springboard for the start of the Cold War, began to allocate huge amounts of money from the budget for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Thus, during the fighting in Vietnam, both sides actively used UAVs to solve various combat missions. Radio-controlled vehicles took aerial photographs, conducted radar reconnaissance, and were used as repeaters.

In 1978, there was a real breakthrough in the history of drone development. The IAI Scout was introduced by Israeli military representatives and became the first combat UAV in history.

And in 1982, during the war in Libya, this drone almost completely destroyed the Syrian air defense system. During those hostilities, the Syrian army lost 19 anti-aircraft batteries and 85 aircraft were destroyed.

After these events, Americans began to pay maximum attention to the development of drones, and in the 90s they became world leaders in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Drones were actively used in 1991 during Desert Storm, as well as during military operations in Yugoslavia in 1999. Currently, the US Army has about 8.5 thousand radio-controlled drones in service, and these are mainly small-sized UAVs for performing reconnaissance missions in the interests of ground forces.

Design features

Since the invention of the target drone by the British, science has made huge strides in the development of remote-controlled flying robots. Modern drones have a greater range and flight speed.

This happens mainly due to the rigid fixation of the wing, the power of the engine built into the robot and the fuel used, of course. There are also battery-powered drones, but they are not able to compete in flight range with fuel-powered ones, at least not yet.

Gliders and tiltrotors are widely used in reconnaissance operations. The former are quite simple to manufacture and do not require large financial investments, and some designs do not include an engine.

Distinctive feature The second is that its take-off is based on helicopter propulsion, while when maneuvering in the air, these drones use airplane wings.

Tailsiggers are robots that the developers have endowed with the ability to change flight profiles while in the air. This happens due to the rotation of either the entire or part of the structure in a vertical plane. There are also wired drones, and the drone is piloted by transmitting control commands to its board via a connected cable.

There are drones that differ from the rest in their set of non-standard functions or the functions performed in an unusual style. These are exotic UAVs, and some of them can easily land on water or stick to a vertical surface like a stuck fish.

UAVs, which are based on a helicopter design, also differ from each other in their functions and tasks. There are devices with both one propeller and several - such drones are called quadrocopters, and they are used mainly for “civilian” purposes.

They have 2, 4, 6 or 8 screws, paired and symmetrically located from the longitudinal axis of the robot, and the more there are, the better the UAV is stable in the air, and it is much better controllable.

What types of drones are there?

In uncontrolled UAVs, a person takes part only when launching and entering flight parameters before the drone takes off. As a rule, these are budget drones that do not require special operator training or special landing sites for their operation.

Remotely controlled drones are designed to adjust their flight path, while automatic robots perform the task completely autonomously. The success of the mission here depends on the accuracy and correctness of the operator entering pre-flight parameters into a stationary computer complex located on the ground.

The weight of micro drones is no more than 10 kg, and they can stay in the air for no more than an hour, drones of the mini group weigh up to 50 kg, and are capable of performing a task for 3...5 hours without a break; for medium-sized ones, the weight of some samples reaches 1 ton and their time work is 15 hours. As for heavy UAVs, which weigh more than a ton, these drones can fly continuously for more than 24 hours, and some of them are capable of intercontinental flights.

Foreign drones

One of the directions in the development of UAVs is to reduce their dimensions without significant damage to technical characteristics. The Norwegian company Prox Dynamics has developed a helicopter-type micro drone PD-100 Black Hornet.

This drone can operate for about a quarter of an hour at a distance of up to 1 km. This robot is used as a soldier's personal reconnaissance device and is equipped with three video cameras. Used by some US regular units in Afghanistan since 2012.

The most common U.S. Army drone is the RQ-11 Raven. It is launched from the soldier’s hand and does not require a special platform for landing; it can fly both automatically and under operator control.

US soldiers use this lightweight drone to solve short-range reconnaissance missions at the company level.

Heavier UAVs of the American army are represented by the RQ-7 Shadow and RQ-5 Hunter. Both samples are intended for brigade-level reconnaissance.

The continuous operating time in the air of these drones differs significantly from lighter models. There are numerous modifications of them, some of which include the function of hanging small guided bombs weighing up to 5.4 kg on them.

MKyu-1 Predator is the most famous American drone. Initially, its main task, like many other models, was terrain reconnaissance. But soon, in 2000, manufacturers made a number of modifications to its design, allowing it to carry out combat missions related to the direct destruction of targets.

In addition to suspended missiles (Hellfire-S, created specifically for this drone in 2001), three video cameras, an infrared system and its own on-board radar are installed on board the robot. Now there are several modifications of the MKyu-1 Predator to perform tasks of a wide variety of nature.

In 2007, another attack UAV appeared - the American MKyu-9 Reaper. Compared to the MKyu-1 Predator, its flight duration was much higher, and in addition to missiles, it could carry guided bombs on board and had more modern radio electronics.

Type of UAV	MKyu-1 Predator	MKew-9 Reaper
Length, m	8.5	11
Speed, km/h	up to 215	up to 400
Weight, kg	1030	4800
Wingspan, m	15	20
Flight range, km	750	5900
Power plant, engine	piston	turboprop
Operating time, h	up to 40	16-28
up to 4 Hellfire-S missiles	bombs up to 1700 kg
Service ceiling, km	7.9	15

The RQ-4 Global Hawk is rightfully considered the largest UAV in the world. In 1998, it took off for the first time and to this day carries out reconnaissance missions.

This drone is the first robot in history that can use US airspace and air corridors without permission from air traffic control.

Domestic UAVs

Russian drones are conventionally divided into the following categories

The Eleon-ZSV UAV is a short-range device, it is quite simple to operate and can be easily carried in a backpack. The drone is launched manually from a harness or compressed air from a pump.

Capable of conducting reconnaissance and transmitting information via a digital video channel at a distance of up to 25 km. Eleon-10V is similar in design and operating rules to the previous device. Their main difference is the increase in flight range to 50 km.

The landing process of these UAVs is carried out using special parachutes, ejected when the drone exhausts its battery charge.

Reis-D (Tu-243) is a reconnaissance and strike drone capable of carrying aircraft weapons weighing up to 1 ton. The device, produced by the Tupolev Design Bureau, made its first flight in 1987.

Since then, the drone has undergone numerous improvements; an improved flight and navigation system, new radar reconnaissance devices, and a competitive optical system have been installed.

Irkut-200 - more attack drone. And it primarily values ​​the high autonomy of the device and its low weight, thanks to which flights lasting up to 12 hours can be carried out. The UAV lands on a specially equipped platform about 250 m long.

Type of UAV	Reis-D (Tu-243)	Irkut-200
Length, m	8.3	4.5
Weight, kg	1400	200
Power point	turbojet engine	ICE with a capacity of 60 hp. With.
Speed, km/h	940	210
Flight range, km	360	200
Operating time, h	8	12
Service ceiling, km	5	5

Skat is a new generation heavy long-range UAV being developed by the MiG Design Bureau. This drone will be invisible to enemy radars, thanks to the body assembly design that eliminates the tail.

The task of this drone is to carry out precise missile and bomb attacks on ground targets, such as anti-aircraft batteries of air defense forces or stationary command posts. According to the developers of the UAV, Skat will be able to perform tasks both autonomously and as part of an aircraft flight.

Length, m	10,25
Speed, km/h	900
Weight, t	10
Wingspan, m	11,5
Flight range, km	4000
Power point	Double-circuit turbojet engine
Operating time, h	36
Adjustable bombs 250 and 500 kg.
Service ceiling, km	12

Disadvantages of unmanned aerial vehicles

One of the disadvantages of UAVs is the difficulty in piloting them. So, an ordinary private who has not completed the course cannot approach the control panel special training and not knowing certain subtleties when using the operator’s computer complex.

Another significant drawback is the difficulty of searching for drones after they land using parachutes. Because some models, when the battery charge is close to critical, may provide incorrect data about their location.

To this we can also add the sensitivity of some models to wind, due to the lightness of the design.

Some drones can rise to great heights, and in some cases, reaching the height of a particular drone requires permission from air traffic control, which can significantly complicate the completion of the task by a certain deadline, because priority is airspace given to vessels under the control of a pilot, not an operator.

Use of UAVs for civilian purposes

Drones have found their calling not only on the battlefield or during military operations. Now drones are actively used for completely peaceful purposes by citizens in urban environments and even in some industries Agriculture they found a use.

Thus, some courier services use helicopter-powered robots to deliver a wide variety of goods to their customers. Many photographers use drones to take aerial photographs when organizing special events.

Some detective agencies also adopted them.

Conclusion

Unmanned aerial vehicles are a significantly new word in the age of rapidly developing technologies. Robots keep up with the times, covering not only one direction, but developing in several at once.

But still, despite the models still being far from ideal, by human standards, in terms of errors or flight ranges, UAVs have one huge and undeniable advantage. Drones have saved hundreds of human lives during their use, and this is worth a lot.

Video

A robot cannot cause harm to a person or, through inaction, allow a person to be harmed.
- A. Azimov, Three laws of robotics

Isaac Asimov was wrong. Very soon the electronic “eye” will take aim at the person, and the microcircuit will dispassionately order: “Fire to kill!”

The robot is stronger than the flesh and blood pilot. Ten, twenty, thirty hours of continuous flight - he demonstrates constant vigor and is ready to continue the mission. Even when the overloads reach the terrible 10 “zhe”, filling the body with leaden pain, the digital devil will maintain clarity of consciousness, continuing to calmly calculate the course and monitor the enemy.

The digital brain does not require training or regular training to maintain its proficiency. Mathematical models and algorithms for behavior in the air are forever loaded into the machine’s memory. After standing in the hangar for a decade, the robot will return to the sky at any moment, taking the helm in its strong and skillful “hands.”

Their hour has not yet struck. In the US military (the leader in this field of technology), drones make up a third of the fleet of all aircraft in service. Moreover, only 1% of UAVs are capable of using .

Alas, even this is more than enough to spread terror in those territories that are given over to hunting grounds for these ruthless steel birds.

5th place - General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (“Harvester”)

Reconnaissance and strike UAV with max. take-off weight of about 5 tons.

Flight duration: 24 hours.
Speed: up to 400 km/h.
Ceiling: 13,000 meters.
Engine: turboprop, 900 hp
Full fuel supply: 1300 kg.

Armament: up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound JDAM guided bombs.

Onboard radio-electronic equipment: AN/APY-8 radar with mapping mode (under the nose cone), MTS-B electro-optical sighting station (in a spherical module) for operation in the visible and infrared ranges, with a built-in target designator for illuminating targets for ammunition with semi-active laser guidance.

Cost: $16.9 million

To date, 163 Reaper UAVs have been built.

The most high-profile case combat use: In April 2010, in Afghanistan, an MQ-9 Reaper UAV killed the third person in the al-Qaeda leadership, Mustafa Abu Yazid, known as Sheikh al-Masri.

4th place - Interstate TDR-1

Unmanned torpedo bomber.

Max. take-off weight: 2.7 tons.
Engines: 2 x 220 hp
Cruising speed: 225 km/h,
Flight range: 680 km,
Combat load: 2000 lbs. (907 kg).
Built: 162 units.

“I remember the excitement that gripped me when the screen rippled and became covered with numerous dots - it seemed to me that the remote control system had malfunctioned. A moment later I realized it was anti-aircraft guns shooting! Having adjusted the drone's flight, I sent it straight into the middle of the ship. At the last second, the deck flashed before my eyes - so close that I could see the details. Suddenly the screen turned into a gray static background... Apparently, the explosion killed everyone on board.”

- First combat flight September 27, 1944

“Project Option” envisaged the creation of unmanned torpedo bombers to destroy the Japanese fleet. In April 1942, the first test of the system took place - a “drone”, remotely controlled from an aircraft flying 50 km away, launched an attack on the destroyer Ward. The dropped torpedo passed directly under the keel of the destroyer.

TDR-1 taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier

Encouraged by the success, the fleet leadership hoped to form 18 attack squadrons consisting of 1000 UAVs and 162 command “Avengers” by 1943. However, the Japanese fleet was soon defeated regular planes, and the program lost priority.

The main secret of the TDR-1 was a small-sized video camera designed by Vladimir Zvorykin. Weighing 44 kg, it had the ability to transmit images via radio at a frequency of 40 frames per second.

“Project Option” is amazing with its boldness and early appearance, but we have 3 more amazing cars ahead:

3rd place - RQ-4 “Global Hawk”

Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft with max. take-off weight 14.6 tons.

Flight duration: 32 hours.
Max. speed: 620 km/h.
Ceiling: 18,200 meters.
Engine: turbojet with a thrust of 3 tons,
Flight range: 22,000 km.
Cost: $131 million (excluding development costs).
Built: 42 units.

The drone is equipped with a set of HISAR reconnaissance equipment, similar to what is installed on modern U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. HISAR includes a synthetic aperture radar, optical and thermal cameras, and a satellite data link with a speed of 50 Mbit/s. It is possible to install additional equipment for conducting electronic reconnaissance.

Each UAV has a set of protective equipment, including laser and radar warning stations, as well as an ALE-50 towed decoy to deflect missiles fired at it.

Forest fires in California captured by Global Hawk

A worthy successor to the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, soaring in the stratosphere with its huge wings spread. The RQ-4's records include long-distance flight (USA to Australia, 2001), longest flight of any UAV (33 hours in the air, 2008), and demonstration of drone refueling (2012). By 2013, the RQ-4's total flight time exceeded 100,000 hours.

The MQ-4 Triton drone was created on the basis of the Global Hawk. A naval reconnaissance aircraft with a new radar, capable of surveying 7 million square meters per day. kilometers of ocean.

The Global Hawk does not carry strike weapons, but it deservedly makes it onto the list of the most dangerous drones because it knows too much.

2nd place - X-47B “Pegasus”

Stealth reconnaissance and strike UAV with max. take-off weight 20 tons.

Cruising speed: Mach 0.9.
Ceiling: 12,000 meters.
Engine: from an F-16 fighter, thrust 8 tons.
Flight range: 3900 km.
Cost: $900 million for research and development work on the X-47 program.
Built: 2 concept demonstrators.
Armament: two internal bomb bays, combat load 2 tons.

A charismatic drone, built according to the “duck” design, but without the use of PGO, the role of which is played by the supporting fuselage itself, made using stealth technology and having a negative installation angle in relation to the air flow. To consolidate the effect, the lower part of the fuselage in the nose has a shape similar to the descent modules of spacecraft.

A year ago, the X-47B amused the public with its flights from the decks of aircraft carriers. This phase of the program is now nearing completion. In the future - the appearance of an even more formidable X-47C drone with a combat load of over four tons.

1st place - “Taranis”

The concept of a stealth attack UAV from the British company BAE Systems.

Little is known about the drone itself:
Subsonic speed.
Stealth technology.
Turbojet engine with a thrust of 4 tons.
The appearance is reminiscent of the Russian experimental UAV “Skat”.
Two internal weapons bays.

What is so terrible about this “Taranis”?

The goal of the program is to develop technologies for creating an autonomous stealth attack drone, which will allow you to deliver high-precision strikes against ground targets at long range and automatically evade enemy weapons.

Before this, debates about possible “jamming of communications” and “seizure of control” caused only sarcasm. Now they have completely lost their meaning: “Taranis”, in principle, is not ready to communicate. He is deaf to all requests and pleas. The robot indifferently looks for someone whose appearance matches the description of the enemy.

Flight test cycle at the Australian Woomera test site, 2013.

“Taranis” is just the beginning of the journey. Based on it, it is planned to create an unmanned attack bomber with an intercontinental flight range. In addition, the emergence of fully autonomous drones will open the way to the creation of unmanned fighters (since existing remotely controlled UAVs are not capable of air combat due to delays in their telecontrol system).

British scientists are preparing a worthy ending for all of humanity.

Epilogue

The war has no woman's face. Rather, not human.

Unmanned technology is a flight into the future. It brings us closer to the eternal human dream: to finally stop risking the lives of soldiers and leave feats of arms to soulless machines.

Following Moore's rule of thumb (computer performance doubling every 24 months), the future could arrive unexpectedly soon...

American analysts have given mixed assessments of the latest Russian military ground and airborne drones. Some products, experts note, are practically foreign analogues, while others are clones of foreign designs. Experts agree on one thing: the war of the future is impossible without robots, and Russia will have to comply with modern realities.

Friends are nearby

The Orion drone (flight range - 250 kilometers, duration - up to a day) is suspiciously similar to the Iranian Shahed. The original product was used by Iran in Syria, and was also seen in Lebanon.

The main Russian drone “Forpost” was borrowed from Israel, where it is produced by the IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries) concern under the name Searcher. Bendett ironically notes that Israel manages to receive multibillion-dollar military aid from the United States while simultaneously selling defense technology to Russia.

No connection

According to Bendett, the development of Russia's first heavy-duty drone, the Altair, is behind schedule and under budget, resulting in its creation being delayed indefinitely.

Russian developers claim that a device weighing three tons with a wingspan of 28.5 meters is capable of carrying a load of up to two tons, covering a distance of ten thousand kilometers, rising to a height of up to 12 kilometers and maintaining autonomous flight for up to two days. The prototype of the device made its first flight in August 2016, it mass production planned for 2018.

In his report, Bendett noted that the director of the Kazan Design Bureau named after Simonov, which creates a combat drone, was recently removed from his position (in fact, documents were confiscated in the bureau, and investigators spoke with its director).

Bendett concludes that drones developed directly in Russia tend to be smaller and have limited range compared to foreign ones, but the expert admits that Lately Russian authorities pay great attention to the development of unmanned systems - in particular, innovation and financing.

The Russian military is gaining a lot of hands-on experience with drones, and one of the Orlan-10's main purposes is to assist with radio jamming. Three aircraft, capable of carrying six kilograms of load, are controlled from one KamAZ-5350: one drone acts as a repeater, and the other two are involved in creating radio interference.

In the development of GSM communication suppression systems (in the specific case RB-341V Leer-3), Russia is a leader and is ahead of the United States. It is in creating radio interference, and not in delivering a direct strike, that the United States sees the main danger of the flying drones being created in Russia. In this context, the expert, of course, did not forget to mention a possible attack by the Russian military on Cell phones soldier .

Strong place

Outside the context of electronic warfare, the United States does not yet take Russian military drones seriously, but the ground-based drones being developed in Russia are causing concern. American experts great concern.

"Russia is building a menagerie of armed ground robots - down to the size of armored personnel carriers," said Paul Scharr, director of technology and security at the Center for a New American Security. He noted the 11-ton Uran-9, the 16-ton Vikhr and the 50-ton T-14 (Armata with an uninhabited turret).

Photo: Valery Melnikov / RIA Novosti

“Many of these heavy vehicles are heavily armed, and the Russians often display these prototypes at exhibitions,” agrees Bendett, who attended the recently concluded annual Association of the United States Army conference and exhibition.

On the other hand, according to analysts, many Russian robots look more like publicity stunts than real fighting vehicles. Among these, in particular, experts included the anthropomorphic robot Fedor (FEDOR - Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research), capable of shooting a pistol. The creators of Fedor boasted that the robot could do the splits and mastered the work of a storekeeper.

Most robots, as experts rightly point out, are not created from scratch, but are essentially ordinary armored vehicles converted for remote control. They cannot be considered truly autonomous products, since their control requires the presence of a person, albeit outside the machine.

The automatic turret, created in Russia, according to Scharr, has “problems with distinguishing between ally and enemy when operating autonomously.” However, he admits that with the development of artificial intelligence systems, the unit will cope with this task.

Bendett noted that most American military ground-based drones are remote-controlled (this makes it easier for the enemy to suppress radar), are too light and are practically not equipped with weapons, that is, they are not actually full-fledged combat robots. Currently, American ground-based drones are as militarily useless as Russian drones.

Ultimately, experts found it difficult to name a leader in the development of drones. Scherr suggested that the United States lags behind Russia in developing large ground combat robots due to ethical difficulties in justifying the possibility of killing a person by a machine, as well as a “lack of ideas.” Bendett, on the contrary, believes that Russia is now in the role of catching up, but is actively working to overcome the gap in the development of flying drones.

Just business

It must be admitted that in future military conflicts, unmanned systems will play a key role. This component of weapons is spelled out in the American “third compensation strategy,” which provides for the use of the latest technologies and control methods to achieve an advantage over the enemy. Currently, almost all countries in the world that have any significant weapons are developing promising drones.

“Priorities are mainly given not so much to the modernization of previous types of weapons, but to the creation of new ones. These are promising aviation complexes, including military transport and long-range aviation, these are unmanned systems, robotics, that is, everything related to the possibility and necessity of removing a person from the affected area,” the Deputy Prime Minister explained the concept of the upcoming Russian project state program weapons for 2018-2025.

On the other hand, any discussion of the problem of lagging behind in weapons comes down to the issue of financing. In such a situation, the conversion component of new technologies is interesting. The feasibility of creating hypersonic missiles and electromagnetic weapons in Russia in conditions of economic stagnation is questionable, while there are much fewer of them in the development of unmanned systems.

The latest version of the domestic budget for 2018 provides for an increase in the share of military expenditures by 179.6 billion rubles, while expenditures on social policy, education and healthcare are proposed to be reduced by 54 billion rubles. Thus, in 2018, the share of military expenditures could reach 3.3 percent of the country’s GDP.