StandOff & PGM Weapons

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Ukraine's "Baba Yaga" Drones Now Appear Capable Of Launching Guided Munitions

Making Ukraine's large multi-rotor industrial drones capable of launching guided munitions at targets behind enemy lines would certainly be a major capability upgrade.
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...one that has a seeker head that appears to be designed for laser guidance, although other possibilities also exist, including an electro-optical type. The weapon is marked BK-30F in Cyrillic and has what appears to be a relatively large fragmentation warhead section that takes up the middle of its body.
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Alex Hollings from Sandboxx has just put out a video about how a B-2A Spirit sunk a target in the RIMPAC2024 exercise held earlier this year using a Quicksink JDAM:


During a massive series of Maritime wargames called RIMPAC 2024 held earlier this month, a U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber demonstrated a new relatively low-cost — but extremely effective — means of engaging even large enemy warships dubbed QUICKSINK. This weapon, which could be thought of as an anti-ship JDAM, has significant implications for the future of naval warfare, so let's talk about it.
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This is quite impressive and I suspect it was also a pointed message to the PLA:N.
 
Simon Whistler from Megaprojects has this interesting new video about the Rapid Dragon programme:


Discover the evolution of long-range weaponry from ancient stones to the advanced USAF Rapid Dragon missile system. Explore its origins, functionality, and groundbreaking efficiency in modern warfare. Watch now!
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If Ukraine has suitable transport aircraft this would be something very handy for them to use.
 
Millenium 7* posted a video about three weeks ago concerning the Russians jamming western supplied standoff and PGM weapons used by the Ukrainians:


One obvious solution is to equip these GPS aided munitions with anti-GPS HOJ seekers to destroy the Russian GPS-jammers (From what I understand the Ukrainians have been fairly successful in identifying and destroying Russian anti-GPS jammers.
 
Josh_TN said:
Not sure where he gets 700 from but certainly it was a big boom.
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Yes, it's a fairly precise figure, albeit rounded to the nearest 100. Possibly intel. There were probably other munitions in a fighter bomber airbase dump too (AAMs, SAMs for base defence, Kh-59s/69s maybe).
 
NMaude said:
Millenium 7* posted a video about three weeks ago concerning the Russians jamming western supplied standoff and PGM weapons used by the Ukrainians:


One obvious solution is to equip these GPS aided munitions with anti-GPS HOJ seekers to destroy the Russian GPS-jammers (From what I understand the Ukrainians have been fairly successful in identifying and destroying Russian anti-GPS jammers.
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IIRC, the first announced contract for HOJ seekers was going into stuff heading to Ukraine.
 
Alex Hollings from Sandboxx has a new video about how Rapid Dragon has enabled the USAF to turn cargo-lifters such as the C-130 and C-17 into ship-hunting bombers:


Rapid Dragon is a palletized munition system developed by Lockheed Martin and the Air Force Research Laboratory to allow cargo aircraft like the C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster III to deploy large numbers of low-observable cruise missiles in rapid succession.
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Let's talk about how Rapid Dragon works, and what it's capable of.
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Defense Updates has just put out a video about Ukraine's Baba Yaga drone (Which scaring Russian soldiers):


About two years ago at the same time of the year, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones had a cult-like following.
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So popular were TB2s with the Ukrainian army that it was celebrated in a song,“We took offense at these orcs. Russian bandits are made into ghosts by Bayraktar,” and posted on the country's land force's Facebook page.
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A new legend has recently taken shape - ‘Baba Yaga,’ a heavy bomber drone that rains destruction on Russian forces.It is also being described as a "vampire bomber drone" and Chechen soldiers of the Russian armed forces claimed the drone has claws and could abduct soldiers.
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In this video, Defense Updates analyzes why the ‘Baba Yaga’ heavy bomber drone is feared by Russia?
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#defenseupdates #ukrainekurskoffensive #ukrainerussiawar
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Chapters:
00:11 INTRODUCTION
01:44 OVERVIEW
02:56 BATTLE EFFECTIVENESS
05:58 SILENT BABA YAGA & ESCORTS
07:28 ANALYSIS
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timmymagic said:
With Russian? That can't distinguish between a tank and combine harvester at 10km? No chance...
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To be fair, it's older ones, and older western helicopter optics aren't exactly timeless either. Mi-28nm and especially ka-52m have them much clearer from much longer ranges.

Anyway, (preferably stealth) fighters can afford to laze from altitude for extended time. For helicopters it isn't exactly healthy.
 
1.5 million seems like a very modest cost goal. That’s not an especially cheap missile, especially for those rather modest specifications. Outside of range, would not JSM meet the RFI?
 
Josh_TN said:
1.5 million seems like a very modest cost goal. That’s not an especially cheap missile, especially for those rather modest specifications. Outside of range, would not JSM meet the RFI?
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Doesn't JSM meet the range? I mean given the trajectory (i havent seen any stated) it can do some +500km
 
TomS said:
Bear in mind that JDAM and relatives are limited glide bombs, which is how they achieve standoff (strakes and body lift). They are not going to free-fall at near vertical angles like a WW2 block buster, more like about a 2:1 glide ratio (15nm from 45kft). JDAM can be supersonic, when released by a supersonic aircraft like the F-22, but it's not clear it stays supersonic for long after a supersonic release or that it will accelerate to supersonic speeds after a subsonic release.
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@TomS those strakes provide a surprising amount of glide for their size. Publicly available numbers give us 20+Nm for a Raptor dropped GBU-32 @ 50 kft and M 1.5, no word on terminal parameters. And that last phrase is the key one, because with JDAM you can program an impact angle and impact velocity, among other things, so there is no one real value for a given airspeed/altitude. I've personally conducted a mission where we dropped a GBU-31 from 1,500 ft AGL and 0.94 M with no loft from the dropping aircraft and it flew a long way, the bomb pitched up and climbed above the releasing aircraft, it was pretty eye opening in the control room, there may have been a few, "Holy shits," uttered. I've also seen the LAR's for other mission I conducted from the mid 30's, which were pretty nice sized, enough to make us think about some range safety constraints.
 
Something i greatly overlooked until is that Rafael is stating that for the Spice 250 ER a reduced warhead weight (reduced from what? The Spice 250 75kg?) will get them a range of +300km and all the fun swarm stuff. At that point its hard to argue for the Spear 3 anymore given that i probaly doesn't have the same payload / range but also does not show to be a super cheap weapon (from which its likely to cost the same or more).

Edit:
Also the stuff they dropped on ICE Breaker make it also mutch more atractiv given its 250-500Ib warhead option with an +300km range (probaly 300km with 500Ib and more with the smaller option and the given launch parameters).
 
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The Russians look to be using a new bomb,the FAB-500T,with the UMPK glider.
The use of this appears to pre-date the new UMPK extended wing variant
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NMaude said:
Why is it that Russian air-dropped bombs look like they're WWII relics?
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Because USSR for a long time preferred to separate fighter planes from strike planes - and thus felt no specific need to work out a highly-aerodynamic series of bombs (like American Mk-80s)
 
Dilandu said:
Because USSR for a long time preferred to separate fighter planes from strike planes - and thus felt no specific need to work out a highly-aerodynamic series of bombs (like American Mk-80s)
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Fab-500t is an aerodynamic one, though. It's a version of m63 for mig-25rb long range (25 mile) drops.

So IMHO it's just style - like indian dumb bombs look like cartoon toy bombs. Cute lil fish
 
Scott Kenny said:
They never designed a specific set of low-drag bombs like the Mk80 series.

Also, their bomb designs are better for internal carriage, take up less bomb bay length.
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Exactly. USSR preferred specialized planes, optimized for specialized functions. The idea of fighter-bomber, which became mainstream of Western aviation wasn't so popular on the East. USSR preferred to have a specialized bomber with high carrying capacity and (if possible) internal bomb bay, and specialized fighter with only marginal strike capabilities.
 

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