Replacing Su-24 aircraft with drones: what's required to launch Storm Shadow missiles from UAVs?
Complex Situation with SCALP/Storm Shadow
Long-range missiles are quite heavy; for instance, the SCALP/Storm Shadow weighs around 1300 kg, which means not every aircraft can carry them. Soviet Su-27 fighters and Su-24 bombers are suitable for this role in Ukraine. The recently acquired American F-16 fighters are incompatible with the Storm Shadow, but multi-role Dassault Mirage 2000-5 fighters, which France promises to deliver in the first half of 2025, can carry them. The number of Mirages to be transferred to Ukraine has not been disclosed, but the manufacturer currently has around 300 such aircraft in its inventory.
What do we have at the moment? After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited about 200 Su-24 bombers. According to Forbes, as of October 2024, there were 12 such aircraft in the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade of the Air Forces. This is not a large number, especially considering that since the onset of the full-scale invasion, Russia has destroyed 18 Su-24s. It remains uncertain how much longer these aging aircraft, produced in the 1970s, will remain operational.
For a long time, Ukraine has been effectively compensating for the shortage of planes and missiles with drone systems. Drones are conducting reconnaissance and targeting critically important facilities for the Russians at both close and long ranges, even on Russian territory. Why haven't drones been utilized to launch Storm Shadow or similar missiles, like manned aviation, and is it feasible in the future?
1 Drones for Missile Launching: Why Is It So Complicated?
"A disposable drone equipped with missiles is unlikely to make more than three to four flights in a reusable configuration, because it will either crash or be shot down. Even if four drones are launched that can deliver the payload accurately, it will be significantly cheaper than the cost of one imported missile of the same class with a warhead of the same weight. Therefore, it's fundamentally pointless," says the specialist.
2 Vitaly reminded that similar systems were used at the beginning of the full-scale war when it was more maneuverable. Turkish Bayraktar TB-2 drones carried these guided missiles and successfully launched them when the Russian Armed Forces were actively advancing into the rear of Ukraine and lacked good air defenses. However, they started to be used significantly less due to the risk of loss, as the enemy had deployed many air defense systems in the occupied territories. Now, Ukraine needs to strike at the rear of the Russian army, where there is a very high density of air defense and electronic warfare (EW) systems.
To launch guided missiles from a long distance, like Russian aircraft do, a different class of systems with very expensive communication and navigation equipment is required. Cheap UAVs, which can only fly one way and at most have a system to protect against EW systems that jam navigation, are not suitable for such tasks.
According to Vitaly Bryzgalov, a fighter aircraft is needed that can self-guide and hit targets or be remotely controlled. High-performance systems, such as radars, which can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, must be installed on them. Such drones need to transmit video to the ground, so optical, infrared, or thermal cameras will be required.
Information must reach the military without significant delay, which means satellite communication. Ukraine does not have its own satellite constellation, so it will have to negotiate with some organizations and use third-party systems.
"These are already very high-class drones. Objectively, such projects do not emerge even in four or five years. They are very costly and long-term developments. Essentially, these are fighters without pilots. This involves large teams of engineers and entire institutions," says the developer.
If we set aside the invaluable life of a pilot, according to Vitaly Bryzgalov's calculations, a drone and an aircraft with similar characteristics will have approximately the same cost. A UAV can be made somewhat cheaper, but it will be less effective. A human pilot not only sees information on the instruments but also "feels" the aircraft.
"I believe that there won't be much difference in hitting ground targets, but in aerial combat, a remote pilot on the ground, a UAV operator, loses to a piloted aircraft," the engineer stated.
Missile-Carrying Drones That Already Exist
Perhaps the closest existing option to such fighters is the Akinci from Turkish Baykar (the manufacturer of Bayraktar), which has already been adopted by the Turkish army. This drone will be able to launch SOM-J cruise missiles with a range of 275 km (half the range of Storm Shadow), designed to hit well-protected targets on land and at sea. Most likely, Akinci will face the same problems with Russian air defense as Bayraktar TB-2 if it approaches too closely.
3 Meanwhile, Baykar is testing the third prototype of its newest drone, Bayraktar Kizilelma (PT-3), which successfully completed takeoff and landing trials in October. It has a wide range of weapons, including air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, as well as several different types of bombs. Kızılelma can already be classified as a drone fighter, with a payload capacity of up to 1.5 tons, making it fully capable of carrying Storm Shadow or its equivalent. It is planned to enter serial production by the end of 2024.
The USA boasts military drones like the MQ-9 Reaper, produced by General Atomics, which have been operational since 2022. They can carry munitions weighing a total of 450 kg (with a maximum of 270 kg on a single mount). They are armed with air-to-air missiles AGM-114 Hellfire II (up to 11 km) and AIM-9 Sidewinder (up to 35.4 km).
4 The MQ-9 Reaper clearly falls short of being classified as a fighter due to its size and functionality, and it has proven vulnerable against the Russian Armed Forces. In March 2024, a Russian Su-27 shot down an MQ-9 Reaper over the Black Sea, damaging its propeller and releasing fuel. As a result, the drone fell into the water, and the Russians were able to recover some of its fragments from the seabed.
On March 18, 2024, another MQ-9 Reaper made an emergency landing in Poland. It is assumed that it was "jammed" by Russian electronic warfare systems "Krasukha-2O" and "Krasukha-4".
The XQ-58 Valkyrie from Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has come significantly closer to being a fighter. This UAV is currently being tested for the US Air Force's Low Cost Attack Demonstration program. In July, it flew for three hours under the control of artificial intelligence.
According to Colonel Tucker Hamilton, head of AI testing and operations in the Air Force, engineers are working to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning agents that will perform modern "air-to-air" and "air-to-ground" functions so that they can be integrated into the CCA program. The CCA program, named for cooperative combat aircraft, aims to develop combat drones that can autonomously operate alongside F-22 and F-35 fighters piloted by humans.
5 Since 2020, the following specifications for the XQ-58A model have been listed on the Kratos website:
- cruise speed — 0.72 Mach;
- maximum altitude — 13,716 m above sea level;
- maximum flight range — 4828 km;
- maximum takeoff weight of the drone is 1829 kg.
The armament has not been disclosed by the manufacturers yet; however, in one of the visualizations, the XQ-58 was depicted with a pair of medium-range air-to-air missiles AIM-120 (AMRAAM) under its wings. These weigh about 162 kg and can fly 120-180 km, depending on the modification.
Thus, drones capable of attacking Russian aircraft with long-range missiles over the Caspian Sea or deep into Russian territory represent a promising military technology that remains just a dream for now. Developments on such projects are already underway, but they will require at least a few more years.