There are probably hundreds of books out there about the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs”, some of them pretty good, most of them very bad, and a few very good ones (especially this one). For a rather dull and mainstream discussion, you can check the Wikipedia article on the RMA. Today I don’t really want to talk this or similar buzzwords (like “hybrid warfare” for example). Frankly, in my experience, these buzzwords serve two purposes:

1. to sell (books, articles, interviews, etc.)


2. to hide a person’s lack of understanding of tactics, operational art and strategy.

This being said, there are new things happening in the realm of warfare, new technologies are being developed, tested and deployed, some extremely successfully.

In his now famous speech, Putin revealed some of these new weapons systems, although he did not say much about how they would be engaged (which is quite logical, since he was making a political speech, not a military-technical report). For those would be interested in this topic, you can check here, here, here, here, here and here.

The recent Houthi drone and missile strike on the Saudi oil installations has shown to the world something which the Russians have known for several years: that even rather primitive drones can be a real threat. Sophisticated drones are a major threat to every military out there, though Russia has developed truly effective (including cost-effective, which is absolutely crucial, more about that later) anti-drone capabilities.

First, lets look at the very low-cost end of the spectrum: drones

Let’s begin with the primitive drones. These are devices which, according to one Russian military expert, roughly need a 486 CPU, about 1MB of RAM, 1GB of harddisk space and some (now extremely cheap) sensors to capture the signals from the US GPS, the Russian GLONASS or both (called “GNSS”). In fact, the “good terrorists” in Syria, financed, assisted and trained by the “Axis of Kindness” (USA/KSA/Israel) have been attacking the Russian base in Khmeimim with swarms of such drones for years. According to the commander of the air defenses of Khmeimin, over 120(!) drones were shot down or disabled by Russian air defenses in just the last two years. Obviously, the Russians know something that some “Axis of Kindness” does not.

The biggest problem: missile systems should not be used against drones

Some self-described “specialists” have wondered why Patriot missiles did not shoot down the Houthi drones. This is asking the wrong question because missiles are completely ineffective in engaging attacking drone swarms. And, for once, this is not about the poor performance of Patriot SAMs. Even Russian S-400s are the wrong systems to use on individual drones or drone swarms. Why? Because of the following characteristics of drones:

1. they are typically small, with a very special low profile, extremely light and made up of materials which minimally reflect radar signals;


2. they are very slow, which does not make it easier to shoot them down, but much harder, especially since most radars are designed to track and engage very fast targets (aircraft, ballistic missiles, etc.);


3. they can fly extremely low, which allows them to hide; even lower than cruise missiles flying NOE;


4. they are extremely cheap, thus wasting multi-million dollar missiles on drones costing maybe 10-20 dollars (or even say, 30,000 dollars for the very high end) makes no sense whatsoever;


5. they can come in swarms with huge numbers; much larger than the number of missiles a battery can fire.

From the above, it is obvious how drones should be engaged: either with AA cannons or by EW systems.

It just so happens that the Russians have both, hence their success in Khmeimim.

One ideal anti-drone weapon would be the formidable Pantsir which combines multi-channel detection and tracking (optoelectronics, radar, IR, visual, third-party datalinks, etc.) and a powerful cannon. And, even better, the Pantsir also has powerful medium range missiles which can engage targets supporting the drone attack.

The other no less formidable anti-drone system would be the various Russian EW systems deployed in Syria.

Why are they so effective?

Let’s look at the major weaknesses of drones

First, drones are either remotely controlled, or have onboard navigation systems. Obviously, just like any signal, the remote signal can be jammed and since jammers are typically closer to the intended target than the remote control station, it is easier for it to produce a much stronger signal since the strength of a signal diminishes according to the so-called “inverse square law“. Thus in terms of raw emission power, even a powerful signal transmitted far away is likely to lose to a smaller, weaker, signal if that one is closer to the drone (i.e. near the intended target along the likely axis of attack). Oh sure, in theory one could use all sorts of fancy techniques to try to avoid that (for example frequency-hopping, etc.) but these very quickly dramatically raise the weight and cost of the drone. You also need to consider that the stronger the signal from the drone, the bigger and heavier the onboard power cells need to be, and the heavier the drone is.

Second, some drones rely on either satellite signals (GPS/GLONASS) or inertial guidance. Problem #1: satellite signals can be spoofed. Problem #2 inertial guidance is either not that accurate or, again, heavier and more costly.

Some very expensive and advanced cruise missiles use TERCOM, terrain contour matching, but that is too expensive for light and cheap drones (such advanced cruise missiles and their launchers is what the S-3/400s were designed to engage, and that at least makes sense financially). There are even more fancy and extremely expensive cruise missile guidance technologies out there, but these are simply not applicable to weapons like drones with their biggest advantage being simple technology and low costs.

The truth is that even a non-tech guy like me could build a drone ordering all the parts from online stores such as Amazon, AliBaba, Banggood and tons of others and build pretty effective drones to, say, drop a hand grenade or some other explosive on an enemy position. Somebody with an engineering background could easily build the kind of drones the “good terrorists” have used against the Russians in Syria. A country, even a poor one and devastated by a genocidal war, like Yemen, could very easily build the kind of drones used by the Houthis, especially with Iranian and Hezbollah help (the latter two have already successfully taken remote control of US and Israeli drones respectively).

Finally, I can promise you that right now, in countries like the DPRK, China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, etc, there are teams of engineers working on the development of very low cost drones just like there are teams of military analysts developing new tactics of engagement.

This is, I submit, the first not-so-noticed (yet) kinda-revolution in military affairs.

Second, lets look at the very high end: 5th+ generation aircraft and 5-6th generation UAVs

While some in India have declared (for political reasons and to please the USA) that the Su-57 was not “really” a 5th generation aircraft (on the pretext that the first ones were deployed with 4th gen engines and because the Su-57 did not have the same kind of all-aspect RCS which the F-22 has), in Russia and China the debate is now whether the Su-57 is really only a 5th generation aircraft or really a 5th + or even 6th generation one. Why?

For one thing, rumors coming out of the Sukhoi KB and the Russian military is that the pilot in the Su-57 is really an “option”, meaning that the Su-57 was designed from the start to operate without any pilot at all. My personal belief is that the Su-57 has an extremely modular design which currently does require a human pilot and that the first batch of S-57s will probably not fly all alone, but that the capability to remove the human pilot to be replaced by a number of advanced systems has been built-in, and that the Russians will deploy pilot-less Su-57’s in the future.

In the meantime, the Russians have for the first time shown this:

What you are seeing here is the following:

A Su-57 flies together with the new long range Russian strike drone: the Heavy Strike UAV S-70 Hunter and here is what the Russian MoD has recently revealed about this drone:

• Range: 6,000km (3,700 miles)


• Ceiling: 18,000m (60,000 feet)


• Max speed: 1,400km/h (1,000mph)


• Max load: 6,000kg (12,000lbs)

Furthermore, Russian experts are now saying that this UAV can fly alone, or in a swarm, or in a joint flight with a manned Su-57. I also believe that in the future, one Su-57 will probably control several such heavy strike drones.

What can a Su-57 do when flying together with the S-70?

Well, for one thing since the S-70 has a lower RCS than the Su-57 (this according to Russian sources) the Su-57 uses the S-70 as a long range hostile air defense penetrator tasked with collecting signals intelligence and relaying those back to the Su-57. But that is not all. The Su-57 can also use the S-70 to attack ground targets (including SEAD) and even execute air-to-air attacks. Here the formidable speed and huge 6 tons max load of the S-70 offer truly formidable capabilities, including the deployment of heavy Russian air-to-air, air-to-ground and air-to-ship capabilities.

The usual gang of trolls will probably object that the Russian computer/chip industry is so far behind the supposedly much superior western solid-state electronics that this is all nonsense; there was a human sitting inside the S-70; this thing don’t fly; the Su-57 is a 4th gen aircraft much inferior to the amazingly superb F-22/F-35; and all the rest of it. Especially for them, I want to remind everybody that Russia was the first country to deploy airborne phased array radars on her MiG-31s which, to boot, were capable of exchanging targeting data by encrypted datalinks with FOUR (!) other aircraft maintaining EM silence (while using their optoelectronics and relaying that data back). Furthermore, these MiG-31s could also exchange data with airborne (AWACS) and ground-based (SAMs) radars. And that was in the early 1980s, almost 40 years ago!

The truth is that the Soviet armed forces deployed plenty of network-centric systems long before the West, especially in the Soviet Air Force and Navy (while the Soviet Ground-Forces pioneered the use of so-called RSC “reconnaissance-strike complexes” which were the nightmare of NATO during the Cold War). Nowadays, all we need to do is parse the NATO whining about Russian Anti Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities to see that the Russians are still pioneering advanced military-technical capabilities which the West can only dream of.

Now let’s revisit some of the recent criticisms of the Su-57

So what about the fact that the Su-57 does not have all-around very low RCS? What if the Su-57 was never intended to spearhead the penetration of advanced and integrated air defense systems? What if from day 1 the Sukhoi designers were warned by their colleagues at Almaz-Antey, Novator, KRET or even the good folks at the OSNAZ (SIGINT) and the 6th Directorate of the GRU that “stealth” is vastly over-rated? What if it was clear to the Russians from day 1 that a low frontal-RCS did not compromise other capabilities as much as a quasi-total reliance on all-aspect low-RCS never to be detected in the first place?

The crucial thing to keep in mind is that new technological capabilities also generate new tactics. By the way, western analysts understand that, hence the new network-centric capabilities of the F-35. This is especially true since the F-35 will be a pathetic dogfighter whereas the Su-57 might well be the most capable one out there: did you know that the Su-57 has several radars besides the main one, that they cover different bands and that they give the Su-57 a 360 degree vision of the battlefield, even without using the signals from the S-70, AWACS or ground based SAM radars?). And in terms of maneuverability, I will just show this and rest my case:

Lastly, the case of the invisible missile container