Rome, 12 April 2024 – The nightmare of the Ukrainian forces are the so-called guided bombs. For over a year Moscow has been using them both at short range to undermine the enemy trenches successfully, and at long range (thanks to an additional kit that allows you to glide on targets), transforming them into deadly bomb missiles in raze Kharkiv to the ground, and massacre the Ukrainian civilian population. By now the strategy of the Russian Defense Minister, the General Sergei Shoiguis clear: disintegrate the defensive lines at the front with powerful bombs, and weaken Ukraine hitting infrastructure and civilians.
Guided glide bombs
On the contact line, Russian successes came precisely thanks to devastating bombs like the Fab-500 and Fab-1,500numbers indicating the tons of explosives falling on the heads of Ukrainian soldiers, now the Fab-3,000 arrives, just put into production. Bombs of Soviet origin, devastating in power, but limited in technology, to which a UMPK kit has been added for guidance and gliding flight, with ailerons and inertial and satellite navigation systems, capable of flying over enemy lines and hitting more distant targets, allowing Russian fighter-bombers not to get too close to the super technological anti-aircraft systems supplied by the US and EU to Ukraine such as the Patriots or the Samp/T.
The Umpb D-30SN kit
The UMPB D-30SN kit with Fab bombs
According to experts, the use of this kit has given a turning point to the war since March 2023, favoring the advance of Russian forces, especially in recent months. This gliding device, almost a missile, was defined by President Volodymyr Zelensky himself and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, as a “guided aerial bomb”. It not only wiped out Ukrainian military positions, but devastated civilian targets such as cities of Avdeevka and now of Kharkiv. All thanks to the UMPB kit (the Russian acronym for interspecific universal gliding ammunition) D-30SN, used for convert into guided ordnance, with gliding capability, old free-fall bombs. The UMPB D-30SN together with the famous Fab-500, Fab-1,500 and the Fab-3,000 they changed Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, at little cost to the Kremlin.
Casting versatility
Another strong point of the lethal duo UMPB D-30SN and Fab bombs lies in the versatility of use from different platforms, that is, they can be launched both from fighters and from multiple launch systems. The Umpk kit was first used with a fighter-bomber Sukhoi Su-34 and on Fab-500 bombs, with about forty kilometers of range, and given the success, Moscow has also begun to integrate it on Fab-1,500 bombs (70/80 kilometers) and in Rbk-500 cluster munitions (Russian 500kg cluster bomb carrying 15 “Motiv-3” SPBE-D anti-tank munitions). And soon it will be the turn of the FB-3000, three tons of explosives that will be able to fly and glide on Ukrainian targets.
A Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber
The Sukhoi Su-34M Fullback fighter-bomber
But the Russian war machine is now fully operational and the production of ammunition and weapons knows no stopping, like upgrades, so the Russian state aerospace agency Rostec supplied the Russian Air Forces with VKS a specific fighter-bomber to use these glide bombs to the fullest. Is called Sukhoi Su-34M Fullback and is an evolution of the Su-27 Flanker, it should guarantee better performance than the S4-34 in hitting enemy positions. The new Su-34M Fullback has been designed to better support ground forces, can carry glide bombs and is more precise in bombing. AND’ a supersonic twin-engine aircraft with two 13,500 kg Lyulka AL-31FM1 jets and the cabin titanium armored. It can attack different types of targets, even moving ones, covered by effective technology and countermeasures against electronic warfare in hostile territory.
