Don's Weekly, 23 June 2025: Part 4 (Equipment)
by Donald Hill
(…continued from Part 3…)
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Equipment
A closer look at the modular homes that were used to launch drones during Spiderweb.
After six months of construction, the UK opened a new factory to produce M777 towed howitzer. A UK design, the M777 production in that country was shut down in 2013 and continued in the US. Towed artillery is cheaper to make than self-propelled artillery and it is smaller and easier to hide on the battlefield dominated by drones.
North Korea builds its own computer numerical control machines which it then uses to build military equipment, among other things. It is building a new factory that will be at least twice the size of the existing machine production site. This will increase its capacity to build military equipment and they will likely export these machines to Russia, as well. North Korea provides a sanctuary for weapon production used by Russia.
The Czech government expects to deliver 1.8 million 155mm and 122mm rounds with funds from frozen Russian assets and 11 countries. They plan to continue the program in 2026 but that depends on allied funding and the October election results. Increasing defense spending from 2 to 3% of their GDP is also dependent on the elections. Russia currently uses twice as many artillery rounds as Ukraine does.
The new Russian reconnaissance V2U drone was recently shot down for the first time near Toretsk. It uses a Chinese microcomputer, a US central processor, a Russian router and a Ukrainian mobile operator SIM card. There is only one GPS module but because of jamming it relies on Ukrainian networks to navigate. There are other components from Japan, Ireland, Switzerland and the US.
Both Russian and Ukrainian drones now use civilian communication signals to navigate. Because of this, Russia shuts down cell towers in regions where Ukrainian drones are operating. This is an effective short-term tactic but a Ukrainian EW expert believes that mobile communication equipment are effective sensors that can detect drones and other aircraft by their signal characteristics. He believes that the network can be turned into a passive radar tool with spectrum analysis and source direction determination that could detect small targets in the silent mode. In addition, the network can control its modulation and interference that would disorient drones that use it for navigation. Regarding the video feeds from drones, he says they only send information back to Russia and while the drone operators are developing the capability to fly Shaheds remotely, they do not have that capability yet. Also, no one has autonomous AI, but they are using fragments of it to perform certain tasks.
Ukraine’s Lima EW system is more effective than Russian or Western alternatives to disrupting guided aerial bombs. But EW is constantly changing and it is possible that at some point in the future the Russians will find an alternative to the Lima system. France is hosting NATO efforts to counter guided bombs and the Ukrainian delegation said they might deploy these systems by the end of 2025. In areas where the Lima system is deployed, it can take as many as 16 bombs to hit a target. One of the technologies being researched is a drone that is capable of detecting and targeting a bomb in the air. The speed of the bombs when released can range from 550-1,900 kph and slows down from drag.
In combat, you have to detect a target and then have the capability to attack the target. In May 2023, Ukraine received the first of 13 tactical radars. In the summer of 2024, Ukraine had a drone capable of flying at high altitudes and ram enemy reconnaissance drones. The radars provide the exact location of the recon drones and the interceptor drones engage them. The problem was, there weren’t enough tactical radars and the Russians would sometimes find and destroy them. Ukraine started building tactical radars that were cheaper, easier to use, and less powerful so they could still detect reconnaissance drones but their weaker signal would make it harder for the Russians to detect them. They can’t produce them fast enough and the wait list increased from a six-month delay to a 13-month delay. New drone interceptor units still need to be trained on the use of the radars. There are very few training centers and when experienced interceptor units train new units then they aren’t hunting Russian drones.
An estimate that Russia built 60-70 T-90s in 2022, 140-180 in 2023, and 250-300 in 2024.
One Russian fiber optic drone has backup radio and video control if the cable breaks or runs out.
Poroshenko sent 57 cargo and 35 utility ATVs to the army that are valued at $715k.
The French AASM Hammer has a rocket engine and a gliding range of about 70 km. The new AASM Hammer XLR has a turbojet engine and a range of 150-200 km, depending on the release height.
Aerial and Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs
The GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) is a 110 kg precision-guided glide bomb that has been in service since 2006 and uses an inertial navigation system aided by GPS. Over 17,000 have been produced. They can only hit stationary targets. They have a 16 kg high explosive warhead that can be set for air burst for targets in the open and delayed detonation to penetrate targets of up to one meter of steel reinforced concrete buried under one meter of dirt. It has a 110 km range and costs $40,000 to make.
Its successor is the GBU-53B SDB II, which is the same bomb but uses inertial navigation and GPS to reach the general vicinity of the target. Course corrections can be provided over a UHF bandwidth from any sensor using the Link 16 data system. It then switches to target acquisition mode that combines millimeter-wave radar, infrared homing and semi-active laser homing. Combining these three sensors, it can classify and prioritize a range of targets in a semi-autonomous mode. It has a shaped-charge warhead with both blast and fragmentation effects. It has a 110 km range against stationary targets, a 74 km range against moving targets and cost $200,000 to make. This weapon has not been provided to Ukraine and was first used in Yemen where an intact bomb was recovered by the Houthis, who have relations with both Russia and China.
The M26 rocket fired cluster munitions out of the HIMARS and MLRS vehicles. Although the US did not sign the agreement to ban cluster munitions they decided to decommission thousands of M26 rockets. In 2006 they stopped paying for the destruction of the rocket engines and decided to combine the thousands of rocket engines with the thousands of GBU-39s and create the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) with Saab and Boeing teaming up on the project. It is launched from HIMARS and MLRS and could glide in non-ballistic paths around terrain that might otherwise mask the target.
With much fanfare and delay, the US bought an undisclosed number of GLSDB’s for Ukraine as a less expensive alternative to ATACMS (which cost over $1 million) and they started to arrive at the beginning of 2024. There were immediate problems with the rocket booster failing to separate correctly when the bomb went into glide mode and Russian jamming reduced its accuracy from one meter or less, to as far as 50 meters away. This was occuring for all weapons relying on GPS for accuracy and the further these 16 kg warheads exploded from the target, the less likely they were able to do any damage.
Ukraine was also using SDB’s in aerial attacks, and while SDB’s also relied on GPS-assists to their inertial navigation the jamming had a much reduced effect on them. The reason is because of Russian air defenses, Ukrainian aircraft have to fly at low altitudes and quickly climb to only 600 meters before releasing the bomb, giving it a maximum glide path of only 30 km instead of 110 km when dropped at higher altitudes. The degree of error when relying solely on inertial navigation is much smaller at 30 km than at 110 km and the aerial launched SDB can still hit a building at the much smaller ranges even if jammed.
Because of the early and widespread failures of the GLSDB its use was quickly discontinued. After a year, SAAB/Boeing reported that they resolved the rocket separation and jamming issues and successfully tested 19 of them. The US already shipped some of the GLSDBs to Europe and they will be redeployed into Ukraine soon. Since this was bought with funds approved during the Biden administration it is not new US aid for Ukraine, simply the resumption of delivery of previously committed aid.
The M26 rocket motors are no longer being produced. SAAB’s confidence in the future of the GLSDB is high enough to pay for new rockets engines for future GLSDB production.
In the post-Soviet defense industry consolidation there were only two companies that could produce solid rocket engines in the US, which is a crucial bottleneck for many US weapon systems. The funding is increasing enough to expand the number of companies that can produce those engines.
Thank you Don for all four pieces. Informative as usual.
nice article