Eurodrone: Airbus' new super-heavy attack drone for patrol and combat operations

 

Eurodrone

The superheavy Eurodrone shock was presented at an exhibition in Berlin.

In size and weight, it is seriously larger than the Su-25, and a number of layout solutions look unusual. The project differs sharply from the Russian S-70 Hunter heavy drone: this is probably due to the fact that European manufacturers, unlike domestic ones, do not plan to use the novelty in the enemy's air defense zone. . But the new combat drone will be involved in patrolling over urban areas of Germany.

At the ILA 2022 air show in Berlin, the European concern Airbus presented the general appearance of the projected Eurodrone heavy drone, and showed the weapons intended for use on it. Its role is played by Hellfire missiles and Paveway laser-guided bombs. This is a rather unusual decision, because the Eurodrone does not look like a low-visibility aircraft. Combined with its large size and weight (wingspan — 26 meters, length — 16 meters, weight — up to 11 tons), it should be expected that it will be vulnerable to air defense.

Hellfire missiles of the types deployed today have a range of no more than 11 kilometers, and Paveway bombs should be used from even shorter distances. It turns out that in order to defeat the Eurodrone enemy, it is necessary to approach it noticeably closer than the radius of destruction of the Thor (16 kilometers) or Pantsir-C1 (20 kilometers). The flight ceiling of the new machine is 13.7 kilometers, which is less than the altitude range of the Pantsir-S1 (16 kilometers), although slightly more than that of the Tor (12 kilometers).

Meanwhile, both of these complexes effectively hit even the much less radio-visible Bayraktar. It is not entirely clear exactly how Eurodrone will be able to hit its targets in such a situation.

A possible reason for the striking lack of modernity in the capabilities of the new drone is the date when its creation was conceived. Airbus signed a contract with European government agencies to create the device on February 24 this year, still being influenced by previous ideas about the tasks facing Western drone strikes. For wars like the Afghan or Iraqi wars, vulnerability to serious air defense was irrelevant, since the population of countries where Western armed forces were fighting had practically no such air defense.

But Eurodrone has a serious combat load of 2,300 kilograms. Theoretically, this allows over time to adapt not only the "short-armed" Hellfire, but also cruise missiles such as the Norwegian NSM with a range of up to 190 kilometers. In this case, even a device as large and radio-visible as the new drone will have a chance to be used in combat operations without immediate defeat by the enemy.