Army-2024 – Kh-UAV guided missile for UAVs unveiled in Moscow
At the Army-2024 defence exhibition, JSC Instrument Design Bureau (KBP), part of the High-Precision Systems holding), presented the newly developed the Kh-UAV air-to-surface guided missile for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
The Kh-UAV air-to-surface guided missile is launched from unmanned vehicles equipped with a laser target illumination system. It is designed to destroy lightly armoured, single, small, stationary or low-speed moving ground targets, as well as low-tonnage surface naval targets in the coastal zone. It can be used day and night, in normal and partially difficult meteorological conditions.
KBP unveiled only some of the tactical and technical characteristics of the new missile. The Kh-UAV is equipped with a solid-fuel rocket engine, a semi-active laser homing seeker and a high-explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 6 kg. The explosive mass is 3.2 kg. The missile is placed in a transport and launch container, which is fitted on the UAV either on an under-wing or under-fuselage pylon. The mass of the missile in the container is 42 kg, 32 kg without the container. The Kh-UAV can be launched at a range of 2 to 8 km and from a maximum altitude of 4 km. The permissible target bearing at launch is ± 10 degrees.
The missile is equipped with four tail stabilizers and four nose rudders, which are deployed into flight position once the missile leaves the transport and launch container. Its configuration is similar to that of the “Krasnopol-M” 152 mm guided artillery projectile, also fitted with a semi-active laser homing head, which is effectively used by Russian troops to destroy small targets in the Ukrainian theatre of military operations.
According to images available from the company, the Kh-UAV is guided on the target by a laser illuminator fitted on the drone itself. One of the carriers of the new munition may be the “Orion” UAV developed by the Kronshtadt Group, which is equipped with a multifunctional optical-electronic system (MOES).
The “Orion” UAV has a payload of 250 kg and can carry no more than 100 under its wing pylons and no more than 125 kg under the single fuselage pylon. Two to four Kh-UAV air-guided missiles can be placed on the two under-wing pylons of the “Orion”.
It can be assumed that the development of the Kh-UAV guided missile is associated with two circumstances. Firstly, UAVs play an important role in the Ukrainian theatre of military operations. These platforms also include MALE (medium-altitude, long-endurance) class aircraft, a representative of which is the Russian “Orion” UAV. One of the development trends of these drones is the transformation of purely reconnaissance variants into multi-purpose reconnaissance and strike ones, from which various air-to-surface weapons can be used.
Secondly, as the Army exhibition showed in previous years, Russian MALE class UAVs, including the “Orion” UAV, had a limited range of air-to-surface weapons. It must be assumed that the Russian military-industrial complex was tasked with creating new small-sized guided munitions capable of expanding the combat capabilities of those unmanned vehicles. Obviously, the new Kh-UAV guided missile for the “Orion” UAV, presented at Army-2024, is one of the options for solving this problem.
Photo by N. Morris
