Chinese MALE, HALE (and rotary, small, suicide) UAV/UCAV thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
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My question is how would CAS work in a contested air environment, I'm going to hazard a guess here that the TB-2 is stealthier than the TB001, yet they were made quick work of by GBAD. Although it has very long endurance, but with A variant having 3 engines compared to other single engine UAVs already utilized by the PLA, I doubt it will win on the cost front in an attritional war.
Previous images does show that it can haul a cruise missile sized payload, so there's some potential there as a missile hauler for extended range deep strikes.
by78
General
Well, Jane's? What should I say and it is not meant as an overall bashing, but if you look who wrote this and similar reports?
I don't want to over-rate myself, but the general mess there was a reason to quit writing for them. It all started with a new editor - in fact the former one was a really cool guy and we had a very good cooperation - who constantly edited and changed so much that it barely had the original content left. Even more so, he or another consultant constantly were then named as main author (also getting their share of payment) and the final nail on the coffin was the discovery of the WZ-7 with serial number 21071:
In my report I noted that the serial proves it to be assigned to the 16th Special Mission Division's 48th Air Regiment, presumably based at Shangliao. The reply was, this unit and this base do not exist ... my reply, the number alone says so and yes, it was a formerly abolished unit, but it must be reestablished since then. Also there are images showing this base with several WZ-7s ... again the reply was, thsi base does not exist and the unit too since none of them is in Jane's database.
My reply again, that this is the news worth to report was turned down again with "we cannot say this since we don't have it in our database!" ... and who runs this database? Anyone want to guess?
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What kind of egotistical attitude is that? We should all avoid Jane's in the future because obviously facts aren't as important to Jane's as maintaining a certain institutional pride that is increasingly undeserved, considering its body of work on the Chinese military in the last decade or more.
@Taiban
Can you expand on that? One can't provide CAS against half competent enemy even having ~okay anti-air systems. Look how Bayratkars have completely disappeared from the news and have been mostly useless after the first month of invasion when Russians were still in picnic mode.
Perhaps I'm missing something here
Except most countries militaries lack such air defense systems. You have Tor, Pantsir, its clones, the rest are basically irrelevant.
Shoulder launched missiles like the Stinger or Verba have really short ranges. The Bayraktar TB-2 can fire UMTAS air to surface missiles with 8km range which outrange most of these shoulder launched systems. Quite often these drones also have lower heat signatures than conventional aircraft which makes it harder to get a lock on them with IR guided missiles.
Tor and Pantsir have enough range to engage such targets plus both radar and optical/IR guidance. Range of these air defense systems is typically 12-15km with some more modern variants having double that range.
Other than Tor which other system can you think of which has all those sensors and which can fire on the move? Most self-propelled SAM systems have to come to a halt before firing. The only relevant Western based system is the Crotale NG but not that many countries operate it and it is available in limited numbers.
I would say the drones proved their worth in the Azerbaijaini-Armenian conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. There they proved capable of disabling even upgraded Strela-10 systems.
Shoulder launched missiles like the Stinger or Verba have really short ranges. The Bayraktar TB-2 can fire UMTAS air to surface missiles with 8km range which outrange most of these shoulder launched systems. Quite often these drones also have lower heat signatures than conventional aircraft which makes it harder to get a lock on them with IR guided missiles.
Tor and Pantsir have enough range to engage such targets plus both radar and optical/IR guidance. Range of these air defense systems is typically 12-15km with some more modern variants having double that range.
Other than Tor which other system can you think of which has all those sensors and which can fire on the move? Most self-propelled SAM systems have to come to a halt before firing. The only relevant Western based system is the Crotale NG but not that many countries operate it and it is available in limited numbers.
I would say the drones proved their worth in the Azerbaijaini-Armenian conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. There they proved capable of disabling even upgraded Strela-10 systems.
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CAS is typically conducted when the enemy air defense has been “sufficiently” degraded. Yes, it will no longer be as common as it would be in the past due to GBAD’s, but GBAD’s do have their limits as @gelgoog pointed out. Finally, the enemies China face will not have air defenses that can sufficiently take on drones like the Russians can.
Russia has either the most, or second most advanced and complete ground-based air defense system. It has invested an enormous amount of money and research into procuring advanced anti-air capability in numbers that have an obvious effect on the battlefield.
99% of other countries do not have that luxury.
That said, capable drone systems also get rather expensive. Few countries can treat such assets as attritable unless they have deep pockets/inventory.
Wouldn't something like iron dome absolutely shred any amount of UAVs you throw at it? It has happened before and the economics definitely favor the defensive even with Chinese cost advantages. You can't even SEAD it properly since it could intercept whatever you're throwing at it.
It doesn't necessarily need to be mobile if the role is defensive.
If everyone had SHORAD like Iron Dome widely deployed then current drones would simply need to evolve.