Expert Fedutinov told how the UAV "Outpost-R" showed itself in the battles in Ukraine At the end of 2022 - beginning of 2023, videos of the combat use of unmanned aerial vehicles "Outpost-R" by the Russian Armed Forces during a special military operation in Ukraine began to appear regularly on the network.
"Newspaper.Ru" dealt with the features of this UAV.
It should be particularly noted that in a number of cases, the use of the UAV "Outpost-R" was noted not only as a means of conducting aerial reconnaissance, but also in the strike version. Let's try to figure out what the activation of the use of this type of device is connected with.
Forpost unmanned systems have been successfully used in the Russian Armed Forces for more than 10 years. They have proven themselves well, including during the armed conflict in Syria. The Russian military has repeatedly acknowledged the fact that the "Outposts" have long remained the most functional drones available in their arsenal. The long duration of the flight, a significant range, and high-quality optoelectronic equipment of this type of UAV ensured the implementation of such capabilities that previously Russian UAVs did not possess.
For several years, the "Outposts" were assembled in Russia under an Israeli license from foreign components. This approach was justified by the fact that it was necessary to quickly close the existing gaps in the equipment of troops with modern UAVs. It also made it possible to better understand the place and role of unmanned systems in the military, to accumulate experience in their use, in order to then formulate requirements for promising systems more consciously.
"However, it is also obvious that in the long term, the use of such an approach was not possible. Firstly, it limited the capabilities of the Russian military to those systems that foreign partners were ready to supply. Secondly, it would lead to stagnation of domestic developments.
Initially, a version of the "Outpost-M" was created - an upgraded version based on the Israeli prototype. At this stage, it was possible to remove several artificial restrictions set by the developer, expanding the functionality of the device from purely observational tasks to the tasks of determining the coordinates of targets, which, in turn, made it possible to adapt it to the requirements of a military operator.
"In addition, the unmanned aerial vehicle was able to use the data of the domestic GLONASS satellite navigation system, was equipped with a secure communication line and a state identification system. A number of other significant improvements were also carried out," Denis Fedutinov said.
At the same time, the creation of such a variant of the "Outpost" was an intermediate step, since it did not fully solve the main problem - the vulnerability of component supplies from changes in the political conjuncture. And this much more significant task was solved at the next stage of modernization, as a result of which a purely domestic version of this UAV was created, which received the name "Outpost-R".
It can be noted that on the way to this version, a deep modernization of the basic model was carried out and the complete replacement of the used subsystems of foreign production with domestic analogues was implemented.
"At the same time, the appearance of the drone remained generally the same. The device is built according to the same two-girder scheme with a straight wing. The maximum take-off weight of the device has slightly increased. She, according to available data, began to reach 450 kg. At the same time, the airframe of the device is made entirely of composite materials," Denis Fedutinov noted.
The UAV is driven by a domestic engine, the power of which has been brought to 85 hp. It rotates a two-bladed screw of the original design. The radius of application of the "Outpost-R" exceeds 150 km. The speed of the drone is from 120 to 180 km / h, the maximum flight duration is 18 hours, the practical ceiling is about 6 thousand meters.
The complex uses only Russian avionics, including digital communication channels and controls, as well as domestic software.
Among the possible variants of the product are the development of the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant (part of the Shvabe holding of Rostec State Corporation) and the St. Petersburg NPP Aviation and Marine Electronics. Both turned out to be quite compact, which made it possible to keep the mass of the UAV approximately in the same framework as the initial version. It is also worth noting that the specific intelligence equipment can be supplemented with a radio intelligence system.
"In addition to the surveillance equipment, the drone under the letter "P" in the name was also able to carry weapons. The mass of aviation weapons placed on two nodes of the external suspension can be several tens of kilograms," Denis Fedutinov emphasized.
As part of the armament, in particular, the corrected KAB-20 aviation bomb can be used, created by specialists of the Moscow Central Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (TsNIIHM) as part of the research work "Ballistics-2".
With a total weight of 21 kg, the bomb is equipped with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 7 kg and can be used to defeat lightly armored vehicles and enemy manpower. The guidance of the KAB-20 is provided both by the laser beam and by the coordinates of the satellite navigation system. It was also reported that in addition to bombs, the "Outpost" can use anti-tank missiles.
The UAV performed its first flight in 2019. In 2020, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko announced that in December 2019, the Russian military department signed the first contract for the production and supply of ten Outpost-R complexes to the troops.
In August 2021, it became known about the delivery of two more complexes with six unmanned aerial vehicles "Outpost-R". It is known that at the same time, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu instructed to conclude a long-term contract for the production of UAVs of this type. Further volumes of deliveries were not made public. However, we can confidently say that the troops need several hundred more similar systems.
In conditions as close to combat as possible, the novelty was tested at the Zapad-2021 exercises, where the complex received high ratings from operators. It was during these events that famous shots were made, which demonstrated the use of weapons of destruction by the "Outpost".
The first official reports on the use of the Outpost-R UAV in Ukraine appeared in mid-March 2022. Then, with its help, the illumination and guidance radar (RPN) of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system of the anti-aircraft missile forces of Ukraine was destroyed. The unmanned vehicle itself was at an altitude of about 4 thousand meters, that is, it was outside the zone of destruction of portable anti-aircraft missile systems.
Based on the experience of combat use of the Russian "Outpost", it can be concluded that it has proven itself not only as an effective means of unmanned aerial reconnaissance, but also as a sufficiently effective weapon for high-precision strikes on sensitive ground targets.
- Denis Fedutinov believes.
Firstly, it is obvious that it is necessary to increase the use of unmanned vehicles in reconnaissance and strike missions as solutions to avoid personnel losses. Secondly, the fighting is inevitably associated with the loss of drones, which also needs to be taken into account in the order plans.
"Any combat use of a particular type of weapon allows you to identify weaknesses of technical systems, determine the need for improvements, etc. And allows you to do it much faster and more objectively than with any tests in peacetime. The experience of the Syrian campaign allowed us to formulate a list of necessary corrections and additions for the developers of Russian UAVs. An even larger array of data is provided by a special military operation," concludes Denis Fedutinov, editor-in-chief of the Unmanned Aviation magazine.
The fighting in Ukraine is radically different from the conflicts of recent decades in that the warring parties use the widest range of samples of sufficiently modern weapons and military equipment, including UAV systems and systems to counter them. The intensity of actions is also quite high. According to the expert, in this regard, circumstances provide invaluable experience, which, with proper use, can be the basis for a qualitative leap in the development of domestic unmanned vehicles.
Mikhail Khodarenok
