According to the Global Network quoted by the Indian media "Eurasian Times" news reported on March 15, local time, near the Kiev region of the Ukrainian capital, the Russian"cube" suicide drone wreckage was found. This small drone also became a cruise missile or wandering ammunition. As one of the suicide drones that Russia has vigorously developed in recent years, the "cube" has been put into the Syrian war since 2016 to be tested in actual combat, and has now spawned a number of models and sold to the international market. It is worth mentioning that in addition to conventional operations, the "cube" can also carry out precision strikes and swarm operations, which means that their situation will be more difficult for the Ukrainian army near the Kiev region.
The "Cube" suicide drone, a product of russia's Kalashnikov Group, began development in 2010, entered the Syrian battlefield in 2016, and debuted at the IDEX-2019 Defense Exhibition held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in February 2019. In addition to the Kalashnikov Group's dedication to "make-up lessons" in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles, the development of the "Cube" drone bee has also received technical assistance from the Israeli drone industry.
The length of the "cube" suicide UAV does not exceed 1 meter, the wingspan is about 1.2 meters, the height of the aircraft is 0.16 meters, and a small propeller engine is used in terms of power, the maximum flight speed is 70 km ~ 130 km / h, the stay time is 30 minutes, and the warhead payload is 3 kg. In terms of shape design, the aircraft highlights the characteristics of concealment, the overall is relatively flat, the main body is cylindrical, the wing is composed of two trapezoidal wing surfaces, and there is a vertical stability surface at the wing tips, so that the aircraft can achieve unexpected damage effects in the actual combat process.
The aircraft is low cost, compared with millions or even tens of millions of dollars of unmanned aerial vehicles, the production cost of "cube" suicide drones is controlled in the range of hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars, even the batteries are very ordinary and cheap 18650 batteries, so there is no need to consider recycling, large-scale production can be carried out, and in the actual use of swarm tactics investment.
The Cube suicide drone is easy to operate, and in a field environment, the Cube drone can also be launched from an aircraft in addition to being launched with a portable catapult. The target coordinate position used to navigate the combat payload can be entered manually by the operator or imported graphically from a dedicated device.
Soldiers using the aircraft can easily get started after only relevant basic training. In actual combat application, when the "cube" UAV takes off, it immediately enters the search mode, and after finding the enemy's living target, it immediately swoops at a high speed and almost vertically to attack the target.
In addition to the warhead it carries, the "cube" UAV can also enhance the lethality with the help of large potential energy, and according to the relevant person of the Kalashnikov Group, the "cube" is not affected by the concealment of the target and terrain and other factors, and can complete the set task at different heights, with good combat effectiveness.
After being put into the Syrian battlefield in 2016, the aircraft can easily destroy syrian opposition or extremist cars, weapons launch sites, and militants clinging to the top of buildings.
Although the actual combat performance is good, the "cube" still has major defects, that is, the ammunition is well manipulated on one axis, but the movement on the other axis is not good, so that the "cube" has limited effectiveness in attacking enemy moving targets in the actual combat environment, while the X-type aerodynamic layout using rockets has no defects.
Therefore, the Kalashnikov Group subsequently developed the "Lancet" UAV cruise missile to make up for the shortcomings in this regard. The "cube" has now launched a number of versions, such as the Russian military's own KYB-UAV, KUB-BLA and other models, in addition to the KUB-E type for the international market, the aircraft in addition to the Russian Army in a large number of procurement and installation, the Russian Navy is also interested in equipment, in order to use to attack small targets on the ground and at sea.
Judging from the actual performance of the current Ukrainian battlefield, the "cube" UAV is not only used by Russia for battlefield reconnaissance, precision strikes and other tasks, but also to explore the use of swarm tactics.
The so-called swarm tactics refer to the low-cost, small-size, and limited-function unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with a variety of mission payloads, and in the actual combat process, they draw on the action modes of natural biological groups such as "bee swarms", "bird swarms", "fish swarms" to form unmanned aerial vehicle swarms, so as to coordinate a variety of tasks covering reconnaissance, search, interference, deception and attack.
The intuitive advantages of swarm tactics are as follows: First, due to the low cost and single function of the UAV, the research and development and procurement costs can be greatly reduced. Second, the number of battlefield sensors and attack weapons can be increased, so that they can have a certain scale of air equipment in the local battlefield environment. For example, in air-to-ground combat, the UAV bee swarm can carry out tasks such as regional reconnaissance, air defense suppression, electronic confrontation, fire deception, and fire strike, while in urban operations, in addition to carrying out close reconnaissance, killing and injuring high-value targets, distributing leaflet slogans and other propaganda materials, the UAV bee swarm can also provide escort for ground troops in the process of advancing, attract firepower, and make it difficult for the enemy resistance forces to lose sight of each other.
In response to the UAV swarm tactics, a number of countermeasures have been developed at home and abroad to deal with it. For example, in addition to the most basic dispatch of the same drone swarm to fight back, it can also be intercepted and destroyed by means of electronic interference suppression, dense weapons, microwave weapons, laser weapons and so on. One of the most noteworthy is electronic interference suppression, because drone swarms almost all rely on radio communications and GPS to locate and form, so through electromagnetic suppression, selective interference, GPS electronic deception and electromagnetic pulses and other means to intercept and suppress it. Compared with the hard damage system, the electronic interference suppression range is wide and the effect is good, so it is valued by all countries.
For the Ukrainian army in the Kiev region and even throughout Ukraine, their weapons against the drone swarm tactics are only traditional air defense systems, and hard damage systems such as directed energy weapons are not at all, and electronic jamming suppression systems are also ranked in the world. Therefore, once the Russian military uses the "cube" drone to use the drone swarm tactics to put into follow-up operations, the trouble they face will be unprecedented!