Boris Johnson proposed arming Ukraine with World War II fighter jets Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week that Ukraine needs the simplest aircraft to combat unmanned aerial vehicles - such as British Spitfire fighters from World War II.
Someone considered Johnson's words a joke, but the military columnist of the newspaper.En" Mikhail Khodarenok thinks otherwise - an airplane from the past has some advantages over UAVS that are unexpected for the layman.
To effectively defeat the enemy's unmanned aerial vehicles, "the Ukrainians will have enough Spitfire fighters, it's a pity that we don't produce them anymore," Boris Johnson said.
Some sources suggest that the former Prime Minister of Great Britain made such a statement as a joke. However, in fact, this is far from a joke, but a very, very sensible proposal.
Recall, the Supermarine Spitfire, ("angry, hot-tempered") is a British fighter aircraft of the Second World War. Various modifications were used as a fighter, interceptor fighter, high-altitude fighter, fighter-bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. A total of 20,351 Spitfires were built, including two-seat training vehicles. At the moment, 44 cars are in a state of airworthiness (according to other sources, 53 aircraft).
The Supermarine Spitfire fighter in the Mk IXE version, equipped with a Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 engine, develops a speed of 650 km / h at an altitude of 6,400 m, and the practical ceiling of the machine reaches almost 13 thousand m. The machine is armed with two 20 mm guns "Hispano" Mk.II and two 12.7 mm Browning M2 machine guns.
Why is mentioning these characteristics important? For example, the American reconnaissance and strike MQ-9 Reaper is equipped with a turboprop engine, it allows this UAV to reach speeds of more than 400 km / h (here and further Western-made UAVs are given only as examples, many other MALE/HALE class devices have similar characteristics). The practical ceiling of the Reaper is 13 thousand meters, and the MQ-1C Grey Eagle UAV flies at about the same height. Again, the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 UAV usually operates from heights of 7-8 thousand meters.
At such heights, UAVs of this type will not hit every anti-aircraft missile system. In most cases, the most modern attack helicopters will not fulfill the task of destroying MALE/HALE class unmanned aerial vehicles.
Some UAVs (the same MQ-9 Reaper) helicopters just won't catch up. Recall that the maximum speed of the AH-64D Apache is 365 km / h (cruising speed is 265-270 km / h), and the maximum permissible speed of the Russian multi-purpose attack helicopter Ka-52 "Alligator" reaches 350 km / h. With such high-speed characteristics, the helicopters will be able to hit the MQ-9 Reaper type UAV with small-gun fire only in the front hemisphere. At catch-up courses, this task is no longer possible.
In addition, helicopters "will not reach" unmanned aerial vehicles at altitudes of 8-11 thousand meters. The practical ceiling of the AH-64D Apache is 5915-6400 m, and the maximum flight altitude of the Russian Ka-52 "Alligator" reaches 5500 m. Of course, attack helicopters can hit their opponent with air-to-air missiles. However, to do this, helicopters must be displayed with sufficiently high accuracy using radar reconnaissance and automated control systems in the vicinity of the target with sufficiently high accuracy.
In addition, in the fight against certain means of attack, it is always necessary to take into account economic characteristics (they also have a very considerable importance in combat operations). For example, the cost of one flight hour of the 5th generation F-35 fighter is approximately $ 45 thousand. If we take into account all other costs (preparation for combat departure, post-flight maintenance, etc.), then this value is approaching $ 60 thousand. That is, to use combat vehicles of this type in the fight against UAVs - to fire from guns of special power at sparrows. In many ways, this also applies to fighters of the 4++ generation. These considerations are certainly taken into account in operational and strategic calculations.
What are the weaknesses of the proposal of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson? There is no exact data on what is the remaining resource of the 44 surviving Supermarine Spitfire fighters and whether it will end after the first two or three sorties. Whatever it was, these are museum-plan machines and they simply will not withstand high combat tension. In addition, obvious difficulties for operators will arise when providing fighters from the Second World War with the required brands of aviation fuel, oils, spare parts, ammunition (the production of a number of components will have to be organized anew).
Therefore, Boris Johnson's quite sensible proposal needs to be reformatted somewhat (that is, to move to a more modern level) and offer aircraft of the EMB-314 Super Tucano type as a means of combating unmanned aerial vehicles. By the way, this applies equally to the domestic Aerospace Forces. The problem of combating UAVS is no less acute for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. And there is no aircraft comparable to the Super Tucano in the combat composition of the Russian Aerospace Forces yet.
The EMB-314 Super Tucano, recall, is a light attack aircraft produced by the Brazilian company Embraer. The machine is equipped with a Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68/3 turboprop engine, which allows the EMB-314 to reach a maximum speed of 590 km / h and reach a practical ceiling of 10 thousand m. The small-gun armament of the aircraft is represented by two 12.7 mm FN Herstal M3 machine guns and a suspended 20 mm cannon on the fuselage assembly. Such a machine with such tactical and technical characteristics will easily multiply by zero any unmanned aerial vehicle.
As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", and this should be taken into account especially, any active air defense means will prove effective only if it is an element of a well-thought-out and properly constructed air defense system, during the creation of which consistency and complexity should be at the forefront. To give something of the samples of weapons in bulk means to doom the whole further business to failure.
How to deal most effectively with UAVs (and barrage ammunition)? To begin building an air defense system to combat UAVs of all types, it is necessary to create an effective radar reconnaissance system. At the same time, radar detection zones of all types (with multiple overlap) should provide detection and tracking of all possible aerial objects from extremely low altitudes. It should be added to this that an optical channel should be added to almost all types of modern locators. A very important requirement for a standby radar in this case is their high mobility. The time of folding and deployment of the locator should not exceed five minutes.
Further - and this, apparently, is one of the most important and most important tasks - the construction of an automated system for collecting and analyzing radar information and issuing timely target indications to all possible firing means. Most likely, there is no way to do without artificial intelligence, and the time lag of information should be no more than a few seconds.
In addition to short-range, short- and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, combat helicopters (specially trained crews and combat vehicles), equipped with suspended containers with 12.7 mm machine guns - from 6 to 12 on each helicopter, and, of course, should be involved in the fight against UAVs. Yak-130 aircraft and light attack aircraft such as EMB-314 Super Tucano.
In addition, apparently, specialized armored combat vehicles on the ground also need to be equipped with anti-aircraft machine guns of 12.7- 30 mm caliber, and the number of barrels should be from four and higher. Optical sighting devices at the same time must meet all modern requirements. Such vehicles should be designed primarily to combat barrage ammunition (so-called kamikaze drones).
In this regard, it is advisable to return on a new basis to installations of the ZPU-4 type (14.5-mm anti-aircraft installation of quad KPV machine guns (Vladimirova heavy machine gun), designed to hit targets at an altitude of up to 1500 meters), quad anti-aircraft machine gun installations based on a large-caliber DSHKM machine gun with a height of 1200-1500 m, anti-aircraft installations of23 caliber 23 mm with an effective firing range of up to 2000 m (it is advisable to increase the number of barrels to 4-6).
It is quite possible that it is worth considering the conversion of six-barreled aviation guns of 30 mm caliber into a ground version. There is a similar experience abroad. For example, this applies to the M167 Vulcan air defense system (VADS), which is a six-barrel aviation 20 mm cannon with a rate of fire of 3000 rounds/min and an effective firing range of 1200 m.
The domestic complex "Derivation-air defense", equipped with a 57-mm automatic cannon with a high rate of fire, seems to be a very promising means to combat shock UAVs.
This system will largely make it possible to block the range of use of high-precision weapons by drones, that is, it will allow to destroy UAVs even before they launch weapons of destruction.
A kamikaze attack drone (also known as a barrage munition) can cost several hundred dollars, and the price of an anti-aircraft guided missile even short-range reaches several tens of thousands of dollars (and this is according to the most conservative estimates). Therefore, the use of classical means of combat (short-range and short-range air defense systems) with such aerial objects can lead to extreme exhaustion of the capabilities of the defending side and entail, without any exaggeration, the collapse of the military-industrial complex of this country during prolonged warfare.
Finally, an extremely effective means of combating all types of UAVs is the use of electronic warfare.
It is EW that can largely nullify all the combat capabilities of UAVs, because in any case, there are radio channels on drones of all possible types, without which navigation and the combat use of weapons of destruction become impossible. In addition, the blinding of video (optoelectronic) channels, which are available on almost all UAVs, will also be effective.
The main thing in the fight against UAVs is a systematic and integrated approach. If at least one link is missed, the effective defeat of drones becomes impossible. That is, it is either a system with an unusually short reaction time, or the complete domination of the probable enemy's UAV in the air with all the subsequent extremely negative moments.
It should be noted that laser weapons, artificial intelligence and fighter drones in the fight against UAVs are issues of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. And the task should have been solved yesterday. Against this background, both Supermarine Spitfire and multi-barreled anti-aircraft machine gun/cannon installations look quite realistic. That is, Boris Johnson was not joking at all.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.Mikhail Khodarenok