A Mil Mi-28 assault helicopter.
Russian protection ministry photograph
The primary trace most of the people received that Ukrainian forces would possibly use drones to focus on Russian helicopters in mid-air got here simply this week.
A video that circulated on-line on Wednesday depicts a Ukrainian first-person-view drone—presumably laden with explosives—making an attempt to run right into a Russian air pressure Kamov Ka-52 assault helicopter in mid-air, and narrowly lacking.
However it appears Russian air pressure commanders knew they could have a drone downside—and even had a plan to resolve it. Late final month, in line with a number of Ukrainian media shops and Russian social-media channels, the air pressure determined to arrange a brand new unit with older Mil Mi-28 assault helicopters, and deploy it particularly for capturing down drones.
“New items on Mi-28N helicopters are being deployed in a number of areas of the nation directly,” Telegram channel Navy Informer famous. “Their crews are present process particular coaching on intercepting drones at completely different instances of the day and in several climate circumstances.”
It is smart, in precept. A 200-mile-per-hour helicopter would possibly fly quick sufficient to catch as much as and outmaneuver a 40-mile-per-hour drone, however not so quick that it could’t goal the drone. Many assault helicopters have glorious day-night optics and stabilized autocannons that might, in principle, work in opposition to a flimsy drone.
The Russian air pressure appears to be prioritizing rotary-wing patrols in opposition to long-range drones focusing on Russian cities. However the service additionally may assign the two-person, 12-ton Mi-28s to escort the two-person, 12-ton Kamov Ka-52s which might be the air pressure’s front-line gunships.
Mi-28s and Ka-52s already generally fly in combined formations, as Ka-52s have countermeasures in opposition to laser- and infrared-guided munitions resembling Ukraine’s Stinger man-portable missiles, whereas Mi-28Ns have countermeasures in opposition to radar-guided missiles.
A detailed anti-drone escort could be most useful as a Ka-52 is hovering—for tens of seconds at a time—with a purpose to information its laser-beam-riding Vikhr anti-tank missiles.
Ukrainian air-defenders have made brief work of hovering Ka-52s, capturing down greater than 40 of them—that’s a 3rd of the fleet—within the 19 months of Russia’s wider battle on Ukraine. That the Ukrainians additionally now are aiming their one-way FPV drones on the Kamovs solely compounds the hazard to Russian crews.
Don’t depend on the Mi-28s to avoid wasting the Ka-52s from Ukrainian drones. We have already got seen at the least one video of a Mil crew chasing a drone—and failing to shoot it down.
One downside is the Mi-28’s 2A42 30-millimeter autocannon. On paper, it’s a fearsome weapon, firing at a price of as much as 900 rounds per minute. In follow, it isn’t well-integrated on the Mi-28—sitting thus far ahead beneath the helicopter’s nostril, and so removed from the rotorcraft’s heart of gravity, that it reportedly causes a lot of vibration whereas firing. All that shaking makes it inaccurate.
And whereas the Mi-28 can carry infrared-guided air-to-air missiles, don’t anticipate Russian crews to fireplace loads of missiles at drones. A two-pound DJI Mavic 3 FPV drone doesn’t generate loads of warmth for a missile to house in on.
