After separation from the platform aircraft, Drel can fly up to 30 kilometers and deliver up to the 15 self-aiming submunitions to the target area, which will be guided to specific targets using the GLONASS global positioning system.
The newest PBK-500U SPBE-K aerial bomb weighs around 540 kilograms and the munition is three meters long. It is presumed that Drel will be released from high altitudes and from the stratosphere (in particular, the principal altitude for combat employment of the new munition is given as 14 kilometers). It is reported that the cluster bomb itself and the self-aiming submunitions have a small radar crosssection, which will reduce substantially the possibility of Drel being hit by enemy air defense missile-gun complexes and small-caliber air defense artillery.
¡°Why do we need air-delivered weapons such as the Drel?¡± According to the expert, it is all a matter of price. A gliding munition with guidance based on data of the global positioning system is tens or even thousands of times less expensive than an air-to-surface guided missile. It ensures high accuracy of engagement (3-5 meters) with a long flight range. But the most important thing is that the price of this air-delivered weapon permits using it en masse. In fact it is rather stupid to try to hit a jeep costing $15,000 and mounting a heavy-caliber machinegun with a guided missile costing $500,000. This is absurd. And no economy will withstand the employment of missiles at that price en masse. But Frolov emphasizes that a gliding munition with GPS guidance is the ideal munition for low and even high intensity conflicts.
And the second direction is creation of the precision-guided munitions themselves, but you have to understand that this is expensive. A conventional 500-kilogram aerial bomb costs less than 300,000 rubles (¡Ö $5211 based upon the March 2018 exchange rate.) but a smart bomb of that caliber with a laser homing head costs around 8,500,000 rubles. (¡Ö $147,635 based upon the March 2018 exchange rate.) Therefore you have to have both of them in the arsenal and employ them depending on the specific mission and the enemy force.
"The unguided FAB-500 is set to be replaced with the ¡°Drel¡± homing flying bomb.
This is a cluster bomb with 15 elements containing copper striking projectiles that fly in different directions at a speed of 3 km/s, ripping apart any heavily armored enemy vehicle."
Also, in the future the defense industry plans to equip the bombs with a high-energy engine, which will radically increase ¡°Drel¡¯s¡± range.
"Special sub-munitions allow this new cluster bomb to take out bunkers and field fortifications. The sub-munitions are released at an altitude of 250 meters"
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Sebastian Phillips
part 3
internal weapons bay size of an SU-57 is 4.6 meters in length and 1 meter width. A single drel is 45cms and 3 meters in length. I do not know the spacing requirement needed but it seems that 4 drels can be fit internally on an SU-57. So in other words there are 60 aerial targets engaging their SAM targets through glonass guidance. Although not that long range as an SDB and SPEAR missiles the question is when will this high energy engine be completed. It is also stupidly cheap as well but if the high energy engine for the range boost does not cost that much this thing would far succeed the internal bomb rack be it SPEAR or SDB variants for the F-35.
plan of acquiring 76 su-57s so 4,560 submunitions can home on to ground targets. like SAMs and the cost would be $147,635 times 304 drel bombs so that would be 45 million dollars. So how big of a SAM defense network would be destroyed? Sounds like its worth the cost.
>SAM network Does any nation besides Russia even rely on ground based defense to begin with? Seems like SEAD wouldn’t be particularly useful for dealing with the countries that Russia could potentially get into a fight with.
Tyler Butler
>CBU-97 is just a cluster bomb instead of a glide bomb. Aircrafts carrying these would be targeted before hitting their targets.
Wyatt Butler
It’s never a bad idea to have SEAD capability. That being said, Russia is playing catch-up. Also, there is no way this would be cheaper than just sticking a GPS guidance + glide kit on a basic bitch iron bomb
Lincoln Hill
>Drel bomb More like Dreidel bomb.
Perfect for all of our wars for Israel.
Evan Murphy
If the high energy engine pushes the cluster glide bomb passed 30 kms around 100kms the SU-57 can maintain an internal carry stealth profile lobbying these.
Pretty sure F-35 fanboys would nut themselves going from a rack internal carry limit of 8 SDBs to know having 60 fucking things tracking, engaging and destroying their own targets.
Logan Fisher
So it's basically a Small Diameter Bomb II, but Russian
Tyler Barnes
>plan of acquiring 76 su-57s so 4,560 submunitions can home on to ground targets.
Burgers, chinks and eurofags take note from this. This is one of the reasons why you should never laugh at a countries shoestring defense spending budget. Most high end multi-billion dollar defense equipment at most are able to only track 100 targets and this shit can overwhelm such 45 systems without losing a single aircraft with the cost of just 45 million dollars.
Ethan Jackson
Good thing the US, EU, and China don't rely on ground-based air defense, then. As it turns out, giving your SAM platform the ability to fly is ideal if you can afford it.
The BLU-108 is an air-delivered submunition, containing four further smart "Skeet" warheads. The system is manufactured by Textron Systems Weapon & Sensor Systems. The BLU-108 is released from some kind of munitions dispenser, and becomes parachute-retarded to slow its descent. It then fires the four rapidly rotating skeets, which use multi-mode optical sensors to identify a variety of targets ranging from tanks and missile launchers to railway locomotives and landed aircraft. When the skeet passes over what it considers a high priority target (this priority can be changed prior to employment), it fires a 0.9 kg (2 lb) explosively formed penetrator providing armor-piercing and incendiary effects, as well as a fragmentation ring meant to damage any soft targets, primarily enemy persons, in the immediate vicinity of the target.
2lb explosives effective?
Jason Foster
The EFP itself is 2lb, not the charge.
Nicholas Baker
>2lb explosives effective? Yes, its a EFP, against top armor.
>don't go after targets just explode in an area It has an area of effect of 15 acres.
Colton Reyes
>Drel can fly up to 30 kilometers so basicly f35 will be close enough to be detected by a fucking fry pan not sure how this is a weapon the f35 should have but ok
Blake Butler
uses parachutes not 3km/s projectiles for targets the 2lbs is the warheards
There really is nothing special about it. If Drel and JSOW are shot out of the air(which is highly likely by modern air defenses) those submunitions are as good as useless.
the 6 submunitions for jsow is parachuted at a 280 foot altitude according to source above. and the projectiles are fired at an altitude of 100ft covering a distance from 600-1800ft However the drel submunitions are released at a 250 meter altitude and each 15 submunition focuses on 1 projectile each so maybe the projectiles will cover more distance.
They are saying the drel is virtually invisible to radars, EO warners and seekers as well as ECM countermeasures but same claims can be made by jsow
The US developed a "LongShot" glide kit for 1000lb bombs including the CBU-86/87/97 series dispensers in the late 1990s. It ran in parallel to the WCMD tail guidance program that is now in use on all CBUs as CBU-103/104/105. Up until ~2006 the plan was to combine the two two programs and give the weapons a >35Mile stand-off range as WCMD-ER, but the USAF lost interest in glide kits for large bombs
[spoiler]I suspect it might take a decade, but war experience will eventually make satellite guidance jammers generally available, widely used and very effective. Limited time opportunity window only.
David Sullivan
Hold my beer, while I recover my >New Rußian Wunderwaffe pasta
Parker Murphy
>SEAD weapon >can fly up to 30 kilometers Anyone else seeing a large problem there?
Andrew Cooper
I think it's for getting rid of small tracked AA and AAA systems, like a Tunguska or Chaparral. A good option for when a HAARM or even a Maverick would be total overkill.
