Ukrainian Su-24 Again In The Battle And Armed With A Laser-Guided Missile

The video of the Su-24M Fencer-D started to flow into broadly yesterday. Instantly apparent are the yellow, blue, and what seems to be darker yellow paint utilized on the rudder, large 3,000-liter exterior gasoline tanks, and the underside of the fuselage. Comparable high-visibility identification markings, that are presumably meant to forestall pleasant hearth incidents, particularly when flying at low stage, as right here, have gotten more and more widespread on Ukrainian Air Power plane.

One other very low-level move by a (reportedly Ukrainian) Su-24:

Most apparently, nevertheless, are the 2 air-to-ground missiles carried on the swiveling outer pylons on the transferring a part of the wing. The weapons are from the Kh-25 collection, a Soviet-era household of modular weapons out there with a wide range of completely different seeker heads. The missiles seem like the Kh-25ML, recognized within the West as AS-10 Karen, which makes use of a semi-active laser seeker.

Some commenters have advised the missiles are examples of the Kh-25MR, which makes use of a primitive radio command steerage package deal within the missile’s rear. Nevertheless, this appears far much less possible, given the Kh-25ML being rather more broadly out there and in addition much more sensible to make use of in fight.

The missiles definitely seem to not have the elongated radomes related to the Kh-25MP (AS-12 Kegler), which is an anti-radiation missile with a passive radar seeker to focus on the radars of enemy surface-to-air missile methods.

Simply over 12 ft lengthy, the Kh-25ML has a most vary of 6.2 miles, flies at a most velocity of over 1,900 mph and has a launch weight of 650 kilos, of which the high-explosive warhead includes nearly 200 kilos.

The Kh-25 collection missiles are, by now, pretty antiquated. The primary examples had been delivered in 1982 and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, solely small batches had been accomplished earlier than manufacturing wound up completely in 1997. Nevertheless, with a reported whole of round 25,000 Kh-25M missiles manufactured, important shares clearly stay, together with in Ukraine.

The Kh-25ML has additionally been seen periodically on Russian Su-24Ms, though not, up to now, in Ukraine. Russian Fencers have, nevertheless, been famous carrying these missiles through the Kremlin’s intervention within the Syrian Civil Conflict.

It might be the ubiquity of the Kh-25M collection that noticed it getting used within the mission seen within the video, since, within the current previous, at the least, Ukraine has had extra succesful precision-guided munitions out there to its Su-24 fleet. These embrace the laser-guided KAB-1500L bomb and laser-guided Kh-29L (AS-14 Kedge) missile, in addition to the TV-guided KAB-500Kr bomb and Kh-29T missile. Anti-radiation missiles, for the destruction of enemy air protection methods, have additionally been out there previously, together with the Kh-58 (AS-12 Kilter) and, reportedly, the Mach 3.5-capable Kh-31P (AS-17 Krypton).

On this occasion, it’s unclear why the Kh-25ML would have been chosen. It may replicate the depletion of different precision-guided munition shares, or it may very well be {that a} smaller weapon was most well-liked, based mostly on the goal kind. Maybe it was a transferring goal, which may have been engaged utilizing the laser steerage system. Regardless, the Su-24M’s inner Kayra-24 laser/TV daytime sight features a goal designator to ‘paint’ the goal for the missile’s laser seeker.

The Ukrainian Air Power additionally has current live-fire coaching expertise with the Kh-25ML, based mostly on this in-cockpit video reportedly from final October:

No less than 11 Su-24Ms have been confirmed as destroyed within the combating up to now, based mostly on open-source knowledge. That is an particularly alarming statistic contemplating that some respected Western sources reported a complete absolutely operational fleet of solely 12 of those plane earlier than the present battle.

It’s possible that this final quantity is an underestimation, though just one tactical aviation brigade flew Fencers, each Su-24Ms for strike, and Su-24MR reconnaissance variations, based mostly at Starokostyantyniv. Usually, a pre-war brigade had two squadrons with 10-12 plane every, though some brigades had solely a single squadron.

Regardless, the Su-24 fleet has lengthy been small in measurement, with reportedly solely six Su-24Ms and 5 Su-24MRs operationally prepared between 2006 and 2010. The scenario had improved considerably by 2014, the identical 12 months that the Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia and combating started within the jap Donbas area. In 2014, the operational fleet reportedly comprised 13 Su-24Ms and 7 Su-24MRs.

One other low-level Ukrainian Su-24 move, this time through the 2014 marketing campaign within the Donbas:

The Clear Sky 2018 train held at StarokostyantynivAir Base in Ukraine, which included the resident Su-24s:

Previous to the newest invasion, efforts had been underway to modernize the Su-24MR reconnaissance jets, specifically, whereas plans had been introduced to combine an air-launched variant of the Neptun anti-ship missile on the Su-24M, though this effort will not be understood to have made any lifelike progress.

In April this 12 months, with the struggle raging, Ukrainian Air Power MiG-29 pilot “Juice” lamented the overall lack of Su-24s however famous that they’d been “very busy.”

On the identical time, Su-24s have confirmed rather more costly and complicated to restore than the opposite jets, which possible additionally explains their comparatively low profile up to now.

Issues are compounded by an absence of spares, most of that are solely produced in Russia, in distinction to the MiG-29 and Su-27, for which elements have traditionally been in a position to be sourced domestically.

With Ukraine now more and more taking the battle to the Russian Armed Forces, with counteroffensives within the east and within the south, in addition to a spate of obvious assaults on targets inside Russia and in Russian-occupied Crimea, the Su-24M’s capabilities would possible now be extremely prized.

Precisely the place the missile-armed Su-24M was flying, and what sort of mission it was enterprise, are unknown, though unconfirmed reviews counsel it was someplace within the east of the nation, the place Ukrainian forces are pushing again in opposition to Russian good points made early within the battle, particularly round Kharkiv and Sloviansk.

Clearly, nevertheless, even with aged guided missile armament, the few energetic survivors of Ukraine’s Su-24 fleet nonetheless have a job to play within the ongoing air struggle.

Contact the creator: thomas@thedrive.com