Ukraine Has at Least an Entire Squadron of Reusable Horynych Bomber Drones for Striking Hardened russian Targets | Defense Express (en.defence-ua.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

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This is also a counter to fighter-bombers and glidebombs once you knock out radars and air defense, though that may be a more one way use.

This is an echo of aircraft like the O-1 Bird Dog.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_O-1_Bird_Dog

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[-] The_v@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Clever use of an inexpensive small civilian aircraft. The list price for a brand new one is 20-25K euros. Add in probably 10-15K for the remotes. Gives Ukraine a reusable heavy precision bomber with a few hundred km range for less than 40K. Less than the cost of most one-way medium-long range attack drones.

http://www.skyranger.eu/prices.html

They are also very light and small. The wings can be folded back so they can be stored/transported easily. A regular passenger car can tow them on a small trailer. They can take off and land in less than 300m so they can be used about anywhere.

They are highly susceptible to gound fire, manpads, any type of AA, and some attack drones. However given their cost, a plane making 1-2 successful attacks before being shot down more than justifies their cost.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They are highly susceptible to gound fire, manpads, any type of AA, and some attack drones. However given their cost, a plane making 1-2 successful attacks before being shot down more than justifies their cost.

This is why Ukraine taking out radars, AA, AWACS aircraft, jammers and other sensors is so important, SEAD works because it lets you drop the price per strike package as enemy air defense capability falls through the floor. Note the opposite is happening with Ukraine's Air Defense, they are forcing russia to equip shaheds with jet engines to be effective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_enemy_air_defenses

[-] The_v@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

SEAD for these relatively large fragile slow moving planes is pretty difficult. The U.S lost over 400 in similar role to ground fire in Vietnam. Mostly downed by direct fire 0.50cal machine guns or small arms from what I can find.

That being said:

These are a very cheap answer to long range highly mobile heavy artillery or front-line dug in positions with very low risk to Ukraines operators.