Military and Commercial Technology: Western tanks are in danger. The Russian Army’s Ka 52M gunship is equipped with new missiles, which have a long range and great power.

Friday 27 August 2021

Western tanks are in danger. The Russian Army’s Ka 52M gunship is equipped with new missiles, which have a long range and great power.

Roman Galkov

2021-08-23 17:16

Author: Yuri has no revenge today, reprinting without permission is forbidden

Main battle tanks and helicopter gunships are mortal enemies on the land battlefield. In order to deal with more and more advanced Western tanks, Russia continues to improve and upgrade its own-made armed helicopters. Among them, the Ka-52M "Alligator" has high hopes, and the matching "Product 305" air-to-surface missile has just public.

On August 22, the "Army-2021" defense exhibition opened in Kubinka, Russia. Russia displayed a batch of the most advanced weapons. Among them, a kind of missile that does not seem to be a "mighty" has attracted attention from the outside world. This is the "Product 305 Light Multipurpose Missile" (LMUR) developed by Moscow's "Mechanical Engineering Design Bureau" (KBM). This kind of missile is the long-rumored helicopter-borne "long-range air-to-surface missile" with a range of 100 kilometers.

Picture: Ka-52M and "Product 305" (next to the rear landing gear)

However, the first public appearance of "Product 305" was not so loud. According to the "Product 305E" (export-oriented) public information exhibition board released by the KBM Design Bureau, this missile adopts radio data link and infrared thermal imaging terminal guidance and has the ability to "ignore after launch". The missile weighs 105 kg and is highly explosive. The mass of the film warhead is 25 kilograms, the missile has a range of 14.5 kilometers, and a flight speed of 250 meters per second.

Picture: Using infrared thermal imaging guidance, ignore it after shooting

Compared with the most advanced Russian-made air-to-surface anti-tank missile 9K121 "Tornado"/"Tornado M" that was previously equipped with Ka-52 and Mi-28 gunships, the "Product 305" missile is almost twice as heavy, and the latter is about 45. The tandem fragmentation warhead weighing about 12 kilograms and weighing about 12 kilograms is guided by laser beam steering and has a range of about 10 kilometers. 50% long range and double power, but the missile flight speed is subsonic.

Picture: "Product 305" true content

Gunships and tanks are spears and shields on the land battlefield. Western main battle tanks represented by the American M1A2SEPv3, the British "Challenger 2", and the German Leopard 2A7 have increasingly stronger protection capabilities.

In particular, the "Trophy" Active Defense System (ADS) developed by Israel Raphael Company has begun to spread. The range and power of the "Tornado" missiles no longer have advantages. The laser beam steering is also vulnerable to smoke interference, and it is urgently needed to be able to operate at low altitudes on the battlefield. Air-to-surface anti-tank missiles launched outside the radar, "Product 305" came into being. In fact, this is also a trend. In July this year, the "Apache" of the United States also tested Israel's "spike" NLOS (non-line-of-sight sighting). ) The fiber-guided anti-tank missile has a range of more than 25 kilometers, which is better than the "Product 305".

Picture: M1A2SEPv3 equipped with "trophies" active defense system

From the current point of view, the card-52M can only mount 4 "Product 305", compared with the previous standard 12 "Tornado", the firepower sustaining ability has dropped a lot, but the long range, high power, and ignored after shooting New air-to-surface missiles will indeed become a major selling point of this new Russian armed helicopter. As the biggest upgrade since the birth of "Alligator", Ka-52M completed its first flight in August last year. This time it will be shown together with "Product 305" at the "Army-2021" exhibition. It mainly strengthens its own detection. Perception and avionics system.

Picture: Ka-52M prototype

According to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, the biggest improvement of the Ka-52M is the use of the active phased array fire control radar on the nose for the first time, replacing the old mechanically scanned "bowbow" millimeter wave radar. In addition, it has received an upgraded photoelectric system. , It is possible to replace the original GOES-451 multi-channel image stabilization aiming system, and it is possible to replace it with the newly installed OES-52 on the card-52K.

Picture: Ka-52M performing at the Army-2021 exhibition

It will also use an improved ergonomic cockpit, which is better compatible with night vision systems (it should be the pilot’s night vision helmet). In addition, a major problem with the Ka-52 is the 2A42 30mm cannon on the side of the fuselage. "Lack of quasi-center", a better numerical control system will be used to increase the accuracy of the aircraft guns, and a new general data link will be added on the aircraft to carry out the Russian version of the "network-centric warfare".

Picture: Ka-52's cannon has congenital deficiencies

In the future, Russia is expected to purchase as many as 114 cards-52M. The only question is that the modern Wuzhi basically costs tens of millions of dollars apiece. Will the Russians still have enough money?

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