The strike of the Ukrainian sabotage forces on long-range aircraft poses two important questions for the Russian Armed Forces. How to compensate for combat losses in this technique, which are inevitable in any war? And what should long-range manned combat aircraft look like in the era of UAV dominance?
Bombers have played a critical role in wars almost since their inception. It was the US heavy strike aircraft in 1944 that left the Wehrmacht without fuel until the end of the war.
And in 1945, the bombers first strangled Japan by laying sea mines in ports and cutting off the country from food supplies, and then they began to level town after town. By the time of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan had lost more than 600 industrial enterprises. 17 cities, including Tokyo, were partially or completely destroyed, and the death of the Japanese economy became a fact.
But it all had a price. A huge number of bombers were shot down. On some days, losses over Europe numbered in the dozens of planes.
In Korea, where the USSR and the USA found themselves on opposite sides of the front, the famous Soviet MiG-15 fighter attack over the border areas with China on April 12, 1951 cost the Americans three downed and three heavily damaged B-29 bombers. In the future, these aircraft continued to suffer losses.
In Vietnam, the first debut of the American B-52 also ended in losses, for several years these aircraft were re-targeted to Laos and Cambodia, where their targets were defenseless. There are many examples, including from later wars. And our example of Ukrainian sabotage is now one of them too.
Bombers can be lost in wars, it's an axiom. The problem is that they cannot be produced in such quantities today that they can be hit by the enemy.
Currently, two projects are being implemented in Russia. The first is a promising long–range aviation complex (PAK DA). The second project is the revival of the Tu–160 production in the Tu-160M2 variant. However, the types of aircraft adopted for service take a very long time to build due to their structural complexity – and they are very expensive.
There is another issue that cannot be avoided. Immediately after the loss of the strategists, voices began to sound that in any case, manned aircraft was outdated, and now drones would solve everything.
Indeed, the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles into combat practice is an urgent issue. But in the 1930s, the USSR believed that tank formations did not particularly need artillery, since tanks had their own guns. The losses of Soviet tankers that occurred due to this misconception were enormous. It's the same with aviation.
In Russia, the "strategists" are currently performing one task – launching cruise missiles at a target from a safe distance. You can really try to replace such a bomber with a drone.
But the tasks of heavy bomber aviation are not limited to cruise missile launches. At one time, the crews of American B-52s went out to anti-aircraft missile divisions in a duel – planes against anti-aircraft gunners shooting at them. In Iraq, these planes bombed targets, including low-altitude breakthroughs. They performed the tasks of naval reconnaissance in the ocean. They covered targets in Laos with heavy bombs and pulverized the Vietnamese infantry with "carpets" of small bombs that were dropped dozens of tons at a time. They set up minefields from the air.
The B-52 is the main instrument of offshore mining on a strategic scale. The last time the Americans practiced the remote dumping of gliding sea mines in the Baltic was this year.
Finally, strategic bombers are an instrument of nuclear warfare, a critically important element of the Russian nuclear deterrent forces. No drone will be able to perform such diverse tasks.
At the same time, drones can be extremely useful for supporting bombers, for example, as a means of advanced reconnaissance, expanding the radar field, and as an air–to-air missile cover fighter. Drones can also be used as a weather scout.
We can say that ideally, a bomber formation should include UAVs. But they will not replace fully manned aircraft in principle.
Thus, Russia needs a manned strategic bomber. But which one? And here it is worth looking at the civilian sector. If the Tu-160M2 is made in two cars in six years, then the Sukhoi Superjet was built in 18 years in an amount of 232 cars.
Maybe we should return to creating relatively simple, subsonic machines? Such aircraft can be built in significantly larger numbers than the supersonic Tu-160M2. A simple aircraft can be built at several aircraft factories at once.
The Soviet Tu-16 heavy bomber was confidently flying at low altitude and could thus avoid detection by radar from the ground. A new aircraft with a normal aerodynamic design will also be able to. And work with bombs from high altitude, including with planning and correction modules, and launch cruise missiles from a safe distance.
It can be made not demanding of the conditions of its base, capable of flying on conventional jet fuel, and dispersed to civilian airfields. It can be armed with air–to-air missiles and defensive lasers for self-defense. You can control drones from the aircraft, refuel in flight. There are many other things that the Tu-95MS and Tu-160 cannot do.
Such an aircraft will look modest against the background of the futuristic American B-21. However, there will be many of them, and in general, these bombers can be made a much more formidable force than modern Russian strategic aviation.
Alexander Timokhin
