Military expert Khodarenok told how to protect Russian airfields from APU attacks In Kiev, after the UAV attacks on long-range aviation airfields, it was assumed that the armed forces of Ukraine would be able to hit any targets on the territory of Russia, including in Siberia.
Military observer of the Newspaper.Ru" figured out what was behind such statements.
It is believed that the military airfields in the Saratov, Ryazan and Kursk regions were hit by Soviet-made unmanned aerial vehicles of the Tu-141 "Strizh" type. However, at this stage, the Russian Defense Ministry has not yet officially confirmed that it was the "Strizh". Therefore, other options are quite possible. Let's consider what capabilities the Armed Forces of Ukraine have in terms of launching missile strikes on the territory of Russia today and in the foreseeable future.
What can APU
We should immediately note that the military-industrial complex of Ukraine, the design and engineering staff has all the necessary capabilities and competencies in the development of guided missile weapons and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles.
In particular, in Ukraine, on the basis of a solid-fuel ballistic missile developed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, the Pavlodar Chemical Plant and the A. A. Morozov Kharkiv Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering, the operational-tactical missile complex "Grom" ("Grom-M", "Grom-2") was created. It is officially stated that the characteristics of the missile allow hitting ground targets at a range of up to 500 km.
However, for the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau named after M. K. Yangel (Dnipro) and the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant, which at one time created the RT-23UTTH "Molodets" and R-36M "Satan" intercontinental ballistic missiles, there are some insurmountable difficulties in the way of transferring the Thunder product to the category of medium-range missiles (the firing range is 1000-5500 km), obviously, does not exist.
For example, information has been repeatedly voiced that the Ukrainian trace is more than noticeable in Kim Jong-un's recent missile successes. In this case, a completely natural question arises - did they help North Korea, but are they unable to do it for themselves? Pyongyang, in particular, was offered a lot of things: the production of rocket and orbital complexes, and high-precision missile weapons, and the acquisition of the latest missiles and technologies, and the receipt of military equipment that was not supplied to other countries.
Against such a background, the task for the Ukrainian military-industrial complex to create a missile system for the AFU with a firing range of 3-4 thousand km looks quite real.
There were 946 of them in total. Of this number, 575 units were subsequently transferred to Russia, and 483 missiles were destroyed on the spot. It should be noted that in Ukraine, part of the X-55CM was in the version of training products with an inert warhead and mockups. But obviously not all of them were transferred and destroyed.
Already in 2001, a major international scandal broke out, related to accusations of smuggling X-55 missiles from Ukraine to China and Iran. Six missiles ended up in China, and six more such missiles and a ground-handling complex were transported to Iran to test the X-55. Again, a completely natural question arises - did they share it with Beijing and Tehran, but they didn't leave anything for themselves? This cannot be, because it can never be. Recall that the firing range of the strategic cruise missile X-55CM is 3500 km.
Finally, it is necessary to say a few words about long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. The UAV itself is a relatively simple design. The difficulties lie only in the creation of a small-sized economical engine with a large resource and a sighting and navigation complex.
There are competencies in the field of engines in Ukraine. For example, the promising Turkish high-altitude long-range unmanned aerial vehicle Bayraktar Akıncı is equipped with two Ukrainian AI-450T turboprop engines with a capacity of 450 hp.
However, Ukraine has not only opportunities in the field of engine development. For example, at the exhibition "Weapons and Security-2021" in Kiev, videos, photos were presented, as well as tactical and technical characteristics of the ACE ONE multi-purpose strike unmanned aerial vehicle were made public.
The ACE ONE UAV is equipped with a dual-circuit turbojet engine of the Motor-Sich AI-322F enterprise with a maximum thrust of 4200 kg. This allows for very significant dimensions (length - 8 meters, wingspan - 11 meters) and weight (maximum take-off weight - 7.5 tons) to develop almost the speed of sound, that is, M - 0.95. At the same time, according to the calculations of Ukrainian designers, the shock UAV will have a combat radius of 1,500 km and rise to a height of up to 13.5 km.
Of course, there is a huge distance from the presentation to the serial sample. However, who knows - maybe several prototypes of this device have already been manufactured in Ukraine.
For us, the traditional question arises - what to do?
Strengthen air defense of critical facilities
During the years of the USSR, the European part of the state was considered an inland region of the country, and there were no significant air defense forces and means deployed in these regions (with the exception of the capital) even in those abundant Soviet times. Moreover, during the destructive organizational and staff measures of the 1990s - early 2000s, the combat and numerical strength of air defense units and formations in this part of the country was significantly reduced. Therefore, it is by no means surprising that a number of important facilities, including some long-range aviation airfields, were left without anti-aircraft missile cover.
An appropriate outfit of air defense forces and means to cover a long-range aviation airfield may look like this in the current situation - an anti-aircraft missile regiment S-400 (S-350) consisting of at least two divisions, one or two batteries of the Pantsir-S or Tor-M2 ZPRK, means of the MZA (small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery) of the ZPU-4 or ZU-2 type (to combat small-sized UAVs of the Geran-2 type).
To do this, at the necessary distances from the defended airfield (or other object), it is required to deploy the necessary number of units and units of radio engineering troops - radar companies, battalions, regiments with appropriate automation complexes.
It is possible to find forces and means to strengthen the air defense of critical facilities. First of all, due to regrouping from the interior of the country, and secondly, from industrial enterprises and the formation of new divisions and units.
In the meantime, it is probably necessary to start implementing very simple priority measures.
To begin with, disperse strategic and long-range bombers to other airfields, and within the same airbase. In peacetime, it is still permissible to place expensive aircraft in the parking lots in a parade formation, wing to wing, but in a special period this can lead to extremely sad consequences. The price of the issue, we note, is very high.
For example, the Tu-95MS strategic bombers were manufactured in the 1980s at one of the largest enterprises of the Russian aviation industry - the Kazan Aviation Plant named after S. P. Gorbunov. But there is no longer the production line on which the Tu-95MS was built, no technological equipment, no specialists. That is, the loss of any of these aircraft will be irretrievable. In order to make up for such losses, it is necessary to practically rebuild the plant.
That is, at long-range aviation airfields (in addition to strengthening anti-aircraft missile cover), it is necessary to build additional taxiways, new parking lots per aircraft, and collapse them. In other words, to create dispersal areas at each airfield. This, taking into account the geometric dimensions of the bombers, is a very expensive event, but the planes are still more expensive. So such costs are well justified.
As a conclusion, it should be noted that it is unlikely that the strikes announced in advance by the Ukrainian leadership on objects deep in Russia will take a massive character and the means of an air attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this case will amount to hundreds and thousands. Most likely, only a few of the SVN listed above will take part in a possible raid. However, if the enemy's UAVs, cruise and ballistic missiles are not intercepted by Russian air defense, the moral damage after such strikes will be more than significant.
Mikhail KhodarenokThe opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.
Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).
