Putin’s game changer? Russia uses over 800 glide bombs a month

2023-10-05 20:19:00

War in Ukraine Putin’s Gamechanger? Russia uses over 800 glide bombs a month

Photo of an early glide bomb. In series production, the sliding assembly will no longer look so crudely assembled.

© Commons

The Russians convert old bombs into precise gliders. With these bombs they are wearing down Ukrainian logistics behind the front. In the meantime, they are also said to have fitted heavy 1,500 kilogram bombs with stubby wings.

Russia relies on two miracle weapons or Game changer in the Ukrainian war. Disposable drones and glide bombs. Both weapons are neither smart nor particularly technically outstanding. They only excel in two disciplines: they are deadly and very cheap.

Glide bombs appeared at the beginning of 2023, allowing Russia’s air force to intervene again. A pro-Ukrainian site counts over 800 hits from these bombs in September alone. These bombs give the Russians an advantage at the front. They are old “dumb” bombs that are actually released from the plane. But then the jet would be in the area of ​​​​Ukrainian air defense. For a precise hit, it would have to be so close to the target that it could even be hit by Manpads or anti-aircraft tanks.

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Only Patriots can help

Glide bombs are released at high altitude, far from the target and beyond the reach of Ukrainian air defenses, and then glide towards their target. Pro-Ukraine blogger Andrew Perpetua explains the dilemma: In order to repel these bombs, the planes would have to be attacked. If they release the bombs about 50 to 60 kilometers from the target, effective air defense must have a range of about 150 kilometers. Why so much? In order to be able to cover a section at the front, you cannot assume the greatest possible distance; you can only achieve that at one point and not at one section. In order to achieve a reasonable hit probability, you cannot rely on the maximum range. Finally, air defense must remain out of range of Russian kamikaze drones.

In the end, only the Patriot systems meet these conditions. And Kiev has far too few of them to protect the big cities and the front. On top of that, the Russians are working on extending the range of their gliders. They are released at high altitude and at high speed; with appropriate stub wings, greater distances to the target are also conceivable.

Rohe Improvisation

Thanks to the controls, precise hits are possible. Before the war, Russia neglected the issue. At the start of the raid, Russia had few precision-guided glide bombs. To achieve this, the Russians are now upgrading the old free-fall bombs on a large scale with stubby wings and controls. This conversion is technically simple; similar systems have also been developed in the West that cost-effectively convert “dumb” bombs into precision weapons. To put it simply, it can be said that controlling a bomb is no more complex than controlling a small drone. But the bomb brings 500 kilograms of explosives to the target, while the small drone only delivers ten. The gliding kit should only cost the equivalent of around 24,000 euros, which is a fraction of what is spent on a cruise missile.

The Russians already used these glide bombs in the fighting in Bakhmut. The Ukrainians had converted the high-rise buildings in the center into fortresses from which they controlled the lightly built-up areas. But bomb hits tore away half the blocks at once.

A video is said to show the destruction of a bunker by a 1,500 kilogram bomb. The location cannot be verified, but the effect of the explosion would be that of a heavy bomb.

© Telegram / Commons

Produce in large quantities

Over 800 hits in just one month, that’s about 27 precision strikes in a single day. In doing so, the Russians are dismantling the logistics and infrastructure of the Ukrainian armed forces. Fighterbomber, a Russian Telegram channel, introduced the new heavy bomb, the FAB-1500M-54-UGCM, at the beginning of September. A separate slide kit had to be made for the 1.5 ton bomb. Fighterbomber claims the range has also been increased. The hit accuracy is said to be five meters, and the crater from the bomb explosion has a diameter of 15 meters. These bombs have probably already been used several times, including on a command bunker. This cannot be verified beyond doubt.

Bombs are difficult to intercept

The number of over 800 uses shows that it is a cheap, standard weapon that can be produced in large quantities. For comparison: the British Stormshadow is much more advanced, but Great Britain only ordered 900 of them in total, and there were 500 of the French equivalent.

Gliding bombs are difficult to intercept in the air. Due to their small cross-section, they are difficult to detect by radar. And since they don’t have an engine, there’s no source of heat that could give them away. The starter aircraft are likely to be the “bottleneck” on the Russian side. In order to bring two bombs to the target, a flight must be completed.