Drones
Ukrainian Defense Review/January-March 2020
Ukraine has bought Turkish Bayraktar TB2 UAVs together with Roketsan MAM-L’ laser-guided munitions
Ukraine’s UCAV Capability
T
he world has recently seen acceleration in development and combat deployment of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) for air-to-ground missions. The Major powers are most active in this realm, and Ukraine, too, seeks to keep pace with current technology trends going on in UCAV world. The country has developed and built a range of new-gen UCAV systems, both by itself and in collaboration with international partners. High-intensity hostilities ongoing in eastern Ukraine due to Russia’s military incursion revealed the need not only for gunfire spotting drones and spy drones, but also for armed UAVs for defeating armored or hardto-access targets on the ground. Prior to 2017-2018, the core of the Ukrainian military’s drone inventory consisted of spy drones of both foreign and domestic brands. But this situation is changing now as the Ukrainian army has added to its arsenal its first UCAS, purchased from Turkey, and domestic companies have began offering their proprietary solutions that are properly optimized for modern battlefield environments. Thus, Ukraine, in early 2018, purchased from Turkey one unit of the medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE)
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Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Bayraktar TB2. Each Tactical UAS is configured with six aerial vehicle platforms, two Ground Control Station (GCS) vehicles, three Ground Data Terminals (GDT), two Remote Video Terminals (RVT) and Ground Support Equipment. The Bayraktar TB2 contract additionally includes Roketsan MAM-L’ laser-guided munitions as well as localization of part of Bayraktar TB2 manufacturing processes in Ukraine. With its 560 kg MTOW and payload capacity of 55 kg, Bayraktar is capable of loitering for more than 24 hours, at altitudes up to 27,000 feet (8,200 m), transmitting live video footage over ranges up to 150 km. The laser-guided Roketsan MAM-L Smart Munition can defeat targets at ranges from 500 m to 8 km, with a miss distance not exceeding 1 m. TB2 marks the first armed UAV system to have been operationally deployed with Ukraine’s Armed Forces. It’s worth of note that PJSC "Chernihiv Radio Equipment Plant" (otherwise known as PJSC "CheZaRa"), NVO Practika, Kyiv, and WB Electronics, Poland, collaboratively developed and demonstrated an improvement to their unmanned aircraft
system Sokil (meaning "Falcon" in Ukrainian), which is designed to perform the dual role of tactical ISR and air-to-ground attack. Sokil consists of two UAVs associated with a shared ground control station.
Loitering munition drone ‘Hrim’
