Russia has started attacking Ukraine with "Shahed"-type drones equipped with an air-to-air missile, as well as "Shaheds" with a control mode that allows the operator to guide the drone in a semi-automatic online mode at distances up to 150 km. In a comment to UNN, Anatoliy Khrapchynsky, deputy general director of a company producing electronic warfare equipment and an aviation expert, said that modernized "Shaheds" are no longer a blind "kamikaze" guided by coordinates, but a platform that can be brought to a target in real time, its route adjusted, positions bypassed, and the explosive part effectively guided directly to a mobile group at the moment of its operation.
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Recently, military specialist in electronic warfare systems and communications Serhiy "Flash" Beskrestnov reported that an R-60 air-to-air missile was found in a Russian "Shahed" for the first time.
Later, he reported that a "Shahed" with online control attacked a mobile fire group's vehicle in Chernihiv Oblast. Fortunately, everyone survived.
In a comment to UNN, Anatoliy Khrapchynsky said that "the appearance of the R-60 air-to-air missile on 'Shaheds' and the video of the attack on the mobile fire group in Chernihiv region is a clear logic."
The enemy is looking for a single strategy to cover their attack UAVs, or protect them from aviation groups, so they are experimenting with the R-60, or making them guided for precise strikes against equipment and mobile fire groups. Added to this is the new "Shahed-107" - a variant capable of operating against ground targets, and against radar or electronic warfare systems. That is, we see a single evolutionary line of the enemy, increasing the drone's survivability, its ability to defend itself, to strike more accurately and break our air defense and electronic warfare. And that is why we need to scale up our own countermeasures as quickly as possible - from networked electronic warfare and interceptors to sensor fields and short-range mobile systems, before this Russian concept becomes a full-fledged combat standard
He notes that the Russians managed to attack the mobile fire group due to the fact that they have been using modernized "Shaheds" for some time with a control mode that allows the operator to guide the drone in a semi-automatic online mode at distances up to 150 km.
That is, it is no longer a blind "kamikaze" by coordinates, but a platform that can be brought to the target in real time, its route adjusted, positions bypassed, and the explosive part effectively guided directly to a mobile group at the moment of its operation. This shows that the enemy is moving from mass ballistic "launches" to guided hunting, and it is precisely for such a scenario that we critically need to update the tactics of mobile fire groups and their protection
The expert emphasized that in reality, the "Shaheds" that Russia used in 2022 and those we see now are completely different products.
Currently, the drone has gained the ability to operate in any weather, uses various warheads and submunitions, has communication channels that allow building a distributed control system, changes or adjustments to the flight mission to the western regions. We add optical-electronic cameras for observation and self-defense and get not just an attack UAV, but a platform that is constantly becoming more complex and adapting to our countermeasures. Forming a new modern weapon
According to him, these updates significantly complicate interception, but it is important to understand that most of the enemy's actions remain predictable, which means they can be analyzed.
Therefore, our task is to include strategic vision, carefully monitor even the smallest changes in the design and tactics of "Shahed" and proactively form a wider range of countermeasures
He also emphasized that the appearance of "Shaheds" with an air-to-air missile adds another level of risk.
Here we already need to talk about early warning systems, MAWS and thermal traps, without which it is dangerous for an aircraft to operate in a potential interception zone. That is why it becomes obvious why the use of small civilian aircraft as a countermeasure is the wrong decision: such aircraft have neither threat sensors, nor thermal traps, nor a protection complex, and therefore become an easy target even for crude Russian experiments
At the same time, in his Telegram channel, the expert emphasizes that the wreckage of the "Shahed" still shows the APU-60 pylon (aviation launch device - ed.). According to him, the problem is that the APU-60 works only in one mode: the missile must freely slide down, move away by several tens of centimeters, and only after that does the engine turn on. If the launch device is installed above the drone's body, as in this case, no launch will occur at all.
The missile cannot fall down because the "Shahed" body is under it, it cannot "slide forward" because the APU-60 does not have a catapult mechanism. In such a configuration, the R-60 is simply blocked and will never leave the pylon. But the main thing is not even that. The AKU-60, which had a catapult launch and theoretically could have provided a safe ejection of the R-60 from the carrier, but it (AKU-60) never went into production and was almost never used. Additionally, the "Shahed" is generally a light composite glider: even if they forced the R-60 to turn on the engine, the jet of the solid-propellant rocket engine would simply burn out the drone's body, destroying the carrier and the missile itself at the same moment
Additionally, he notes that the stated range of the R-60 is not 10 km:
- 3–4 km - for a reactive maneuvering target in the rear hemisphere;
- up to 5 km - for a non-maneuvering or slow target (propeller aircraft);
- 1–2 km - in the frontal hemisphere (the homing head almost does not "see" the thermal spot).