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Korrektiruemye Avia Bomby - guided aviation bombs

KAB-20	20 kg corrected bomb
KAB-50	50 kg corrected bomb
KAB-250L	250 kg corrected bomb
KAB-250S-E	250 kg corrected bomb
KAB-500	500 kg corrected bombs
KAB-500Kr	corrected air bombs
KAB-500L	semi-active laser guidance
KAB-500LG
KAB-500-OD	corrected Volume-detonating
KAB-500S	Adjustable air bomb
KAB-500S-E	Glonass Adjustable air bomb
KAB-1500Kr	1500 kg HE corrected air bombs
KAB-1500L	controlled semi-active laser guidance
KAB-1500L-F	1500 kg HE smart bomb
KAB-1500LG
KAB-1500L-Pr	controlled bomb
KAB-1500TK	controlled bomb TV-command guidance
KAB-1500S-E
UB-2000F	2000 kg Chaika radio-controlled
UB-5000F	5000 kg Condor TV or radio-controlled
UPAB-1500
UMPK	Unifitsirovannogo nabora Modulei Planirovanie i Korrekcii

Russia had a very un-American air force. As early as the first Gulf War in 1991, upwards of 10% of Americaan air dropped munitions were Precision Guided Munitions [PGMs]. And by the second Gulf War a decade later, most air dropped munitions were PGMs. Not to be outdone, Russian industry regularly displayed counterpart PGMs at trade shows after the turn of the century. And yet subsequent Russian air operations over Syria were singularly devoid of PGMs - possibly a few were tested, but the public record is singularly devoid of images of PGMs being loaded onto aircraft or dropped in combat. There is no shortage of such depictions of "dumb" bombs, just a complete absence of smart bombs.

In the early days of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Tom Cooper noticed that "The Sukhoi Su-34 is a Russian light bomber, the price tag of which is US$40-50 million. Yet, due to the lack of PGMs, the Russians are deploying it exclusively armed with ‘dumb’ bombs."

Justin Bronk later noted "the limited quantities of air-delivered precision-guided munitions (PGMs) available to most VKS fighter units. During combat operations over Syria, only the Su-34 fleet has regularly made use of PGMs, and even these specialist strike aircraft have regularly resorted to unguided bomb and rocket attacks. This not only indicates a very limited familiarity with PGMs among most Russian fighter crews, but also reinforces the widely accepted theory that the Russian air-delivered PGM stockpile is very limited. Years of combat operations in Syria will have further depleted that stockpile, and may mean that the bulk of the 300 VKS fixed wing combat aircraft massed around Ukraine have only unguided bombs and rockets to draw on for ground-attack sorties. This, combined with the lack of targeting pods to spot and identify battlefield targets from a safe distance, means that the VKS fixed wing pilots’ capacity to provide close air support for their forces is limited. As a result, the VKS leadership may be reluctant to commit the bulk of their potential striking power against Ukrainian troops before political approval is granted to employ unguided munitions to bombard Ukrainian-held urban areas. "

Russia's arsenal of precision-guided munitions [Korrektiruemye Avia Bomby - guided aviation bombs] was very limited. Russia lacked most of the modern guided ammunition types, and the available ones are very expensive, one of the main reasons being the small scale of their production. It is clear that precision-guided munitions are very expensive, since their production requires advanced navigation and targeting systems. It is unrealistic to claim that Russians could independently manage to miniaturize the guidance systems for smart ammunition.

Russia does have precision guided missiles, but these are vastly more expensive that precision gravity bombs dropped from aircraft. And even such missiles are in short supply. In early 2022, the P-800 Onyx supersonic missiles fired by the Bastions, designed primarily to destroy cruisers and aircraft carriers, were used against the centers of radio and electronic intelligence of the Ukrainian army in the settlements of Veliky Dalnik and Velikodolinskoye in the Odessa region. And on March 26, they also turned the fuel base of the Ukrainian military in the Nikolaev region into smoke and ashes.

A Senior US Defense Official in a background briefing on 09 May 2022 stated "we've seen they have blown through a lot of their PGMs. In fact, they continue to hit Mariupol with a lot of dumb bombs. And so, they're having inventory issues with precision-guided munitions and they're having trouble replacing PGMs, and we do believe that the sanctions and the export controls, particularly when it comes to components, electronic components has had an effect on the Russian defense industrial base and their ability to restock PGMs".

It must be said that in the new millennium free-falling bombs are no longer created. They were replaced by corrected or planning to bomb capable induced at the target with the help of various physical principles. "Smart bombs" they are called. This type of bombs are not new. They were first used in 1943 by the Germans, with the highest precision bombed from a distance of 8 km British ships. A year later, "smart bombs" were used against the Japanese, American Air Force. With the advent of nuclear weapons, which for a long time it was considered a necessary and sufficient condition for a military victory, this type of ammunition was buried. Designers returned to it only in the middle 1960s.

The first guided aerial bombs (KAB) were imperfect. First of all, because they were directed at a target using a radio signal. And very soon the defending side began to fight with them using radioglushilok. At the moment, there are several ways KAB guidance on target: radar, laser, infrared, television, radio command, the satellite (GPS and GLONASS). The circular interquartile ranges from a few tens of meters to 2.3 meters.

A significant advantage over freefall bombs is not only a sharp increase in bombing accuracy. Overcoming distance in planning mode, up to 60 km, they allow the bombers do not go near the enemy's air defense zone. As for the principle by which the bomb to travel long distances, it is quite simple. With no engine, it maneuvered by rudders. It must be said that the rapid development of information technology is constantly improving the quality of "smart bombs."

The KAB (Korrektiruyeskaya Aviatsionnaya Bomba - Managed (correctable) aerial bomb) refers to the high-precision weapons. It has a guidance system (television, laser, infrared or thermal imaging) and structurally different from conventional aircraft carrying bombs presence and control of aerodynamic surfaces. KAB combines powerful warhead (explosive fragmentation, high-explosive fragmentation, penetration, cassette) normal aviation bombs with precision guided air missiles "air - ground" (probable circular deviation of 3-10 m). Proper planning with KAB allows aircrafts carriers to use them without entering the air defense zone of the object.

Weights of 250 -1500 kg, the maximum flight range of up to 70 km. CC can be equipped with propulsion system to achieve the greatest possible range planning. Altitude range for combat use of bombs weighing 1500 kg is in the range from 1 to 18 km at a speed of the aircraft carrier 550-1700 km / h. Designed primarily for the destruction of small-sized and high-objects (KP strategic, tactical nuclear missiles, runways, bridges, etc.). Consumption of KAB to defeat these goals can be ten times less than conventional bombs.

After the mid-1950s the USSR halted all work on Soviet guided bombs ("Condor," "The Seagull-2" and the BWM 5), and returned to them only in the 1970s. In 1971 the Soviet Union began development work on creating corrected bombs KAB-500 and KAB-1500 with laser homing head 27H. Development CC-500 conducted in SSPE "Region". In 1975, the KAB-500L entered service with frontline aviation.

The Russian Air Force is armed with two "smart bombs": CC-500 and CC-1500. Each of them has some modifications, depending on the warhead. It can be high-explosive, fragmentation-high explosive, armor-piercing, anti-submarine is unique ... concrete-bomb capable of exploding at a depth of 150 meters at sea state 6 points. Their range of slightly more modest than the American CAB, - up to 12 km. Accuracy is in the range from 3 to 7 meters. They use three guidance systems - laser, and satellite television.

Precision-guided weapons (PGM) can tremendously improve accuracy and reduce collateral damage. The Russian Air Force employed very few PGMs in the First Chechen War, perhaps saving them for use in a conventional theater. During the Second Chechen War, Russian aircrews employed many more high-precision aerial weapons. On the surface, this suggests that Russia perceived that the threat of conventional war had receded or that sufficient quantities of PGMs were available for use in Chechnya, while maintaining a strategic reserve. In reality, the increased use of precision-guided weapons reflects the shift in emphasis from unplanned close air support, characteristic of the First Chechen War, to strategic attack and theater-wide interdiction and a greater concern for collateral damage.