The Russian air force lobs as many as 3,000 glide bombs at Ukrainian troops and civilians every month. The satellite-guided bombs range as far as 40 miles, meaning Russian fighter-bombers—Sukhoi Su-30s, Su-34s and Su-35s—can release their bombs from beyond the reach of all but the best, and rarest, Ukrainian air defenses.
The 1,100- and 2,200-pound KAB glide bombs are a “miracle weapon” for the Russians, the Ukrainian Deep State analysis group noted. And the Ukrainians have “practically no countermeasures.”
Maybe Ukrainian forces can’t defend against Russian glide bombs. But they can hit back—with their own glide bombs.
To that end, the Ukrainian air force is transforming its 40 or 50 surviving Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters, and possibly also its dozens of remaining Sukhoi Su-27 fighters, into precision glide bombers—by arming them with American-made Small Diameter Bombs hanging on improvised pylons.
It’s an important development as the tiny Ukrainian air force—barely a hundred ex-Soviet jets in a handful of brigades—struggles to match the devastating glide-bombing campaign by the much larger Russian air force, which fields hundreds of Su-30s, Su-34s and Su-35s carrying four or even six KABs on each mission.
“This is fantastic news,” wrote Joni Askola, a Finnish analyst. The bad news is that Ukraine probably can’t acquire nearly enough SDBs or other munitions to keep its MiGs and Sukhois busy glide-bombing the Russians.
No one outside of the Pentagon and the Ukrainian air force knew the Ukrainians had the 290-pound SDBs—which range 69 miles under satellite guidance on pop-out wings—until photos appeared online late last month depicting a MiG-29 with six of the diminutive bombs under its wings.
The Ukrainian MiGs were already capable of carrying gliding munitions. Last year, American, French and Ukrainian technicians worked together to arm Ukrainian MiG-29s and Su-27s with the U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range glide bomb and the French-made Armement Air-Sol Modulaire glide bomb. The JDAM-ER and AASM both weigh around 500 pounds.
The SDB has the advantage of being smaller—and may also boast greater range than either the JDAM-ER and AASM, both of which range around 40 miles under the best conditions. A single MiG or Sukhoi armed with SDSs could strike six targets in a single sortie, and do it from farther away—thus reducing the risk from Russian air defenses.
Equally importantly, the SDB costs just $40,000 per bomb. That’s around the same cost as a JDAM-ER, but a fifth the cost of an AASM. As it’s U.S. policy to directly replace any munitions it transfers to Ukraine from its own stockpiles, and even U.S. budgets aren’t limitless, the low cost of the SDBs should translate into bigger consignments of bombs for Ukraine.
“Any additional supply is greatly appreciated,” Askola wrote.
It’s apparent, from the pace of Russian attacks, that Russian industry can produce around 3,000 glide-bomb kits every month. It takes just a few dozen Sukhois, each lobbing two or four KABs every other day for a month, to expend all 3,000 bombs.
The Ukrainian air force should have enough planes to match the pace of the Russians’ bombing campaign. And once the Ukrainians get their 85 ex-European Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters starting this summer, they should have more than enough.
What the Ukrainians obviously don’t have is enough bombs. France pledged 50 AASMs a month. Neither Washington nor Kyiv has disclosed how many JDAMs and SDBs the United States is sending to Ukraine, but the first contract the Pentagon signed with Boeing for JDAMs for Ukraine, in early 2023, was worth $41 million—enough for around a thousand bomb kits.
The next major contract, for JDAMs with improved seekers, came more than a year later.
It’s highly unlikely Ukraine’s allies are donating more than a few hundred glide bombs a months—potentially just a tenth of the bombs Ukraine would need to match Russia’s own aerial firepower.
Russia is out-bombing Ukraine not because it has more fighters, but because it produces many, many more bombs.
Read the full article here