The Americans intend to deliver multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicles MQ-9 Reaper to Ukraine. This has been repeatedly stated by representatives of the Pentagon. Why do Kiev need them?
It is worth recalling that the AFU command had high hopes for the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone. As the course of the fighting showed, these hopes were clearly not justified. Now they believe that the American drone will be better and will bring them some combat successes. But this is unlikely.
A drone was created, whose name translates into Russian as "reaper", by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. The cost of the MQ-9 tactical unit is about $ 30 million. It consists of several UAVs, a ground control station, and communication equipment.
On February 2, 2001, the first flight of the MQ-9 took place. Since March 2007, drones began to enter service with the US Air Force, and since October of the same year they have been actively used in Afghanistan. To date, the MQ-9 Reaper, as it was recently claimed overseas, is one of the best multipurpose drones in the world. This was facilitated simply by the deafening advertising of his supposedly incredible capabilities.
At first glance, it is. The flight duration is more than 27 hours, the maximum speed is about 400 km / h, cruising speed is up to 250 km / h, the ceiling is up to 15 km (although for the use of weapons it must drop to 6 km), the payload is 1740 kg. The flight range is almost 6000 km. The Reaper is capable of carrying a wide variety of reconnaissance equipment, as well as missiles and bombs.
In the shock modification, it has 6 suspension points. Two are placed inside the fuselage. They can be attached to bombs or missiles weighing 680 kg. On the underwing pylons - two on each wing - you can hang up to eight small-caliber missiles or two heavy bombs and four missiles. The MQ-9 Reaper, admittedly, was successfully used by the Americans to deliver high-precision strikes that require guaranteed success. In 2010, in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu Yazid (Sheikh al-Masri), the third person in the management of Al-Qaeda (an organization banned in the Russian Federation), was killed by a strike from such a drone.
And the most resounding success of its combat use was the destruction of Iranian Lieutenant General Qasem Suleimani by a high-precision missile in early 2020. He caused a lot of headaches to the special services of Israel and the United States. They hunted him for a long time, but they couldn't get close. With the help of a drone, they were eliminated.
It would seem that this unmanned vehicle is a very dangerous weapon indeed. Only for whom? It was used exclusively where there was no effective air defense. The American edition of Defense News noted back in October 2021 that "he is too slow-moving and will not be able to work in a confrontation with a well-technically equipped enemy." In December of the same year, retired US Marine Corps General Kenneth Mackenzie called the Reaper on Fox News "unviable in the fight against high-class opponents." There was information that the Pentagon has already begun to actively look for a replacement for him. Washington literally imposed its MQ-9 Reaper on Kiev. Is it because they just want to get rid of them overseas, taking a very large sum for it?
According to our experts in the field of air defense, the miracle Reaper in the sky of Ukraine will become an excellent aerial target. In size, it approaches the plane, but does not differ in at least some maneuverability. It will be detected and destroyed by any Russian fighter. It will not be a problem for such military air defense systems as "Tor" or "Buk", especially for the S-300. Reaper is also very vulnerable to electronic warfare systems.
In the American Army, it takes a year to train an MQ-9 Reaper operator. But even this period does not guarantee success. There was information in the media that the Pentagon had lost 12 such devices since 2011 alone. Moreover, only four were shot down, and eight were lost due to the mistakes of those who controlled them.
So the "Reaper" will become a very expensive and almost useless toy in the hands of untrained Ukrainian military.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that they began to launch missile strikes with precision weapons at warehouses where weapons are imported from the West. Several such hangars with newly arrived armored vehicles, artillery and drones have already been destroyed. The rest of the deliveries will face a similar fate.
Sergey Ptichkin