Frogfoot in Action in Ukraine
During the SVO, ideas about rethinking the use of attack aviation against targets on the front line often began to be encountered in military circles. The conflict made its own adjustments to the construction of combat tactics using aviation directly over the front. And if at the initial stage of the conflict aviators could still attack targets using a combat approach from medium altitudes, as was the case in all previous conflicts, then after a fairly short period of time russia had to reckon with the presence of a large volume of anti-aircraft weapons in the area of the front line, primarily MANPADS and small self-propelled short-range SAMs.
Su-34 fighter-bombers also attacked ground targets from low altitudes with free-fall bombs at the initial stage. The UMPK appeared a year later. The Su-25 attack aircraft, in turn, also had to "hide" to the ground and master the technology of throwing "pencils", i.e. unguided rockets with a pitch-up attitude, hitting area targets. But the nature of the conflict in some places began to turn into a positional confrontation, and the enemy began to build fortifications and dig trenches. Su-34s with aerial bombs equipped with UMPKs also work against such targets. However, exactly the same tasks can be assigned to attack aviation, in particular, we are talking about the Su-25.
Simply put, army aviation (Su-25) must destroy such targets as strongholds in forest plantations, fortifications, pillboxes, etc., and operational-tactical aviation (Su-34) must hit rear warehouses, logistics, airborne assault, concentrations of manpower and equipment in the operational depth. The aircraft is first and foremost a platform, and the success of the aircraft's use will depend on what kind of targeting and navigation system that equip it, and the range of weapons hanging under the wing. The Su-25 aircraft had sufficient thrust-to-weight ratio, and standard external fuel tanks are available.
“Rook” had disadvantages. Basically, they come down to outdated avionics equipment, which does not allow the effective use of precision-guided munitions: to search for a target and aim at it, the pilot has only his own eyes. And the very range of such weapons is limited to modifications of the Kh-25 and Kh-29 missiles with laser seekers. Also, the aircraft does not have a HUD (heads-up display); the archaic ASP-17VS-8 rifle sight, created for the Su-17, is used to use weapons. Yes, this is not a WWII sight, it is coupled with a laser rangefinder and can make adjustments, but it was still far from the most advanced back in the 1970s.
Ukrainian military used Su-25s during the war in Eastern Ukraine and the full-scale war in 2022. The highest-ranking retired pilot, 63-year-old Major General Kanamat Botashev, was also shot down on a Russian Su-25. On May 22, 2022, in the Luhansk region, the military of the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade destroyed his plane with a shot from the Igla MANPADS. There are reasons to believe that the retired general was a mercenary of the Wagner PMC or another similar Russian formation.
On 04 May 2024, soldiers of the 110th separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces destroyed a Russian Su-25 in the Donetsk region. On 22 May 2024, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced the defense forces shot down a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft in the Pokrovsky direction. Since February 24, 2022, about 35-40 such Russian planes had been destroyed in combat.
Kostyantyn Kryvolap, an aviation expert, noted that the Su-25 flies at low altitudes to avoid detection by radar means, and as it approaches the line of combat, it presses even closer to the ground, He told about this on Espresso. "The Su-25 attack aircraft flies at low altitudes. When this aircraft approaches the line of combat, the "gray" zone, it tries to stick low to the ground so that no radar devices detect it and, accordingly, do not shoot it down. And the downed Su -25, apparently, got carried away with his experiments with flying in the "gray" zone. Besides, when we did not have the means to shoot from short- and medium-range systems, the attack aircraft used to fly insolently, and then did not understand the moment when we got something and managed to knock him down," Kostyantyn Kryvolap commented.
The Rostec state corporation planned to modify the Su-25 attack aircraft for new weapons based on their experience of its use in a special military operation in Ukraine. First Deputy General Director of the state corporation Vladimir Artyakov reported this to TASS. “ It is worth noting that the effectiveness of the latest modification of the Su-25SM3 has been increased significantly; the aircraft can also use high-precision weapons. We will continue to improve this machine, taking into account the experience of use in the northwestern military zone, including in terms of its modification for new weapons ,” - said Artyakov.
Militar Informant added that for public awareness of the fact of the almost complete uselessness of the unmodernized Su-25, which is mainly engaged in useless shooting from a nose-up, and recognition of the need to modernize the attack aircraft fleet to at least the Su-25SM3 variant, it took “only” more than a year of combat operations.
In the 1980s, during the war in Angola, South African aviation encountered air defense systems, for which it was necessary to find an antidote. And in the early 1990s, the local defense industry developed the BARB (boosted anti-radar bomb) aerial bomb, which was a modification of the Mk.82 bomb with advanced aerodynamic rudders, a passive seeker, a control unit, and even a rocket booster from a locally produced 127-mm MLRS. All these measures to modernize a conventional bomb allowed the aircraft to hit radars by throwing them from a pitch-up position at a distance of up to 18 km, and if the aircraft rose to an altitude of 10 km, the bomb flew to a distance of 80 km.
Accordingly, if such an aerial bomb is equipped with a laser seeker or a satellite guidance kit, then the bomb will have virtually no limitations in terms of the range of targets it can hit on the battlefield and in operational depth. Dugouts, trenches, concrete structures, buried battalion command posts, etc., etc. I am sure that we have similar ammunition with which the above-mentioned set of modernization measures can and should be carried out. For example, the same FAB-100, or the 130-kg mortar mine "Tulip" (yes, in fact, also an aerial bomb, thrown from a ground pipe with an expelling powder charge). And the corrected 240-mm mine "Smelchak" already has a laser homing head, which turns it into a high-precision projectile. Add aerodynamic control surfaces there, which will also help increase the range, and use not a mortar, but a drop from a Su-25 as a delivery platform.
But, in addition to high-precision aerial bombs , there are also NARs in 80 mm and 122 mm calibers. The first one already has a version with a laser homing head. Well, for a larger caliber, such a modification suggests itself. The Belarusian brothers, for example, did not hesitate and made a satellite guidance kit for the Grad missiles, which in the future will allow not to pour out a package of missiles on the target, but to launch several shells, each of which will fly to the intended point.
As for a missile as the LMUR. The presence of its version in the dimensions of the Kh-25 under the wing of the Su-25 / T / 39 (necessarily a two-seater, to use such ammunition you need a navigator-operator) would allow hitting even moving targets at a range of 30-35 km. During the assault on Mariupol, Spetsnaz fighters provided laser illumination for our Su-25s, which launched Kh-25ML missiles and successfully destroyed the enemy. The next step should be autonomous use at a decent range.
These proposals are a bit bold, but purely theoretical. Many say that the Su-25 project can simply be written off after the SVO due to the depletion of its service life, but an aircraft of this class with the above-described nomenclature of weapons is definitely needed. It's not always necessary to raise "thundercrows" to perform combat missions to support infantry on the battlefield.
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