Russia's glide bombs are almost impossible for Ukraine to stop

What we’re looking at here is footage from the Russian Ministry of Defence, which you can tell from the coat of arms at the top right of the screen. What it’s showing us is an SU-34 fighter bomber preparing for take off at an airfield in an undiscovered part of Russia and slung under its wings of the weapons it will use for this mission 4 deadly little devices known as glide bombs. The bomber is headed for Ukraine to attack command center somewhere in southern Donetsk. These weapons are the latest to be deployed in Russia’s war on Ukraine. They can weigh up to 1 1/2 tons, fly up to 40 miles, and explode with such force that they can level buildings, blow up bunkers, and leave survivors with brain injuries. If we come in for a closer look, we can see these actually aren’t brand new weapons at all. They’re old weapons with a new piece of kit attached. The old bit is the bomb itself, in this case an FAB. 500 M 62. FAB is an acronym translating to High Explosive Aviation Bond. The 500 indicates the weight, in this case 500 kilograms, but they come in both smaller and bigger sizes. The smallest weigh 250 KGS and the largest ones currently in use weigh 1500 or 1.5 tons, but Russia is working on even bigger ones up to 3 tons and 62 indicates the year it was made, in this case 1962 when the Soviet Union was still in charge. Originally this was a dumb bomb, which doesn’t mean that it came last its class in school. It means it isn’t guided like a smart bomb and was designed to be dropped from a bomber straight downwards onto a target below. But not anymore, Which is where the new part comes in. Because strapped to this bomb like a backpack is what Russia calls a Universal Planning and Correction Module, or UMPK for short. It contains AGPS tracker, which allows the Russians to program it to hit targets that the bomber pilot cannot see, fins on the tail to steer it and stabilise it, and two pop out wings which allow it to glide for miles before smashing into the target and exploding. Right now the bombs are strapped to hard points under the jet’s wings with the UMPK facing downwards. But if you watch this moment, the pilots release the bombs and they roll over so the kit is facing upwards. The wings then pop out and the GPS takes over, meaning the bombs will glide to their target, in this case a Ukrainian command post, before slamming into it. That means the Russian pilots don’t have to cross into Ukrainian airspace during the bombing run where they might get shot down, but you can see them firing flares here just to make sure. Because these bombs are packed with huge amounts of explosives, the damage they ’cause when they hit can be extreme. They’re not as accurate as guided missiles or artillery, so they’re no use against mobile targets, but they can easily demolish multi Storey buildings and reinforce bunkers bombs just like these we used heavily in the final days of the fight for Avdivka, which Russia eventually captured. Glide bombs may be a new feature in Russia’s war in Ukraine, but they’ve got a legacy that stretches all the way back to the Second World War. The very first glide bombs to be used were developed by the Nazis. The Fritz X was a 1400 kilogram armor piercing bomb that was converted into a guided bomb by fitting a radio control unit to the tail and fins on the side. It was designed to destroy ships which was so heavily defended the bombers couldn’t get near them, but was slow and large enough for the glide bombs to target. The USS Savannah was badly damaged by Fritz bombs during the Allied attack on Salerno in Italy in 1943, along with Britain’s HMS Warspite. An Italian warship, Roma, which was in the process of surrendering to the Allies at the time, was blown to bits. Though the weapon did not prove decisive for the Nazis, the idea caught on and by the end of the war America and Japan had their own versions. While Britain and the Soviets were trying to develop them, the role of attacking ships would eventually be taken over by missiles, but glide bombs found another use in attacking heavily defended ground targets. One of the most common in use today is the J Dam, which stands for Joint Direct Attack Munition because it was jointly developed by the US Air Force and Navy. It looks a little bit like the Russian UNPK, but more sophisticated and consists of a tail section which replaces the bombs, old fins at the back and contains the GPS guidance system. There’s also a straight kit which sits around the body of the bomb and helps stabilize it in the air. It has been used in dozens of wars, including the Afghan war, Iraq War, Libya, Syria and by the IDF against Hamas in Gaza. All these conflicts have one thing in common. They involve countries with large air forces attacking terror groups with few anti air defences but which were hidden among civilians. Bombing was therefore a low risk, high reward strategy, but the bombs needed to be accurate enough to avoid the civilians. Missiles would have worked, but they cost multiple millions of dollars each and a targeting equipment worth a fraction of that, which is where the glide bombs come in. They proved adept at destroying buildings, bunkers and bases, and did so at a fraction of the cost of using guided missiles. In late 2022, the J Dam was also given to Ukraine. The Ukrainians got a version called the J Dam ER, or extended range, which features pop out wings that triple the distance it can fly. It was used for the first time in early 2023 during the Battle of Back Moot. Just like in the Middle East, the bomb proved adept at destroying hardened targets like bunkers and buildings the Russians were hiding in, and it could do so with enough accuracy to avoid hitting people still in the city or nearby Ukrainian troops. The tactic was not decisive, and Ukraine eventually lost back mood, but it was effective enough that Russia began copying it. Who’s His generals are now using their own glide bombs to demolish Ukrainian defenses and help their troops advance, all while trying to avoid the bloodbath that Bachmu became. The bombs helped decide the battle of Avdivka in favour of the Russians. The question now is, can Ukraine find a way to stop them or will they lead to yet more Russian advances? That’s all the information I got from watching this tape, but I wanted to know more so I brought the footage to an expert. Looks like 4 500 so 500 kilogram bombs with UPMK wing kits. So glide bomb kits attached to a Sukhoi 34M. So this is a Russian fighter bomber. Closest equivalent will probably be the the Western F15 E Strike Eagles. This is the kind of one of the two standard platforms that the Russians use regularly for dropping glide bombs and also launching other stand off air to ground munitions towards Ukrainian lines. Interestingly the the going at A seem to be going relatively horizontal angle, so starting quite high suggests they’re quite a long way from the lines, so very high altitude. The four bombs released there in a salvo deploying a wing kit looks like a UAV feed for the impact. Russians have essentially struggled to find a particularly impactful way to use their the majority of their fighter fleets since the start of the war. Because they’ve not been able to gain their superiority over Ukraine. Because they’ve not been able to find, suppress and destroy those those Ukrainian ground based air defense systems so that the Sam systems, there’s limits to how many targets you can hit. If they’re for example relying on air launched cruise missiles, those are very, very expensive, they can only hit fixed targets. Russia has been using lots and lots of air launched cruise missiles from its bomber fleet anyway, so the fighters had a limited impact there in terms of closer range missiles with TV or or laser guidance. That requires the launch aircraft to get close and therefore has led to losses in the for example, the Sequoia 34 fleet from Ukrainian Sam’s. What the glide bombs have given them is a way to use a a a stock of munitions of which they have huge quantities. So the the Fab series of 500 kilogram and 1500 kilograms very heavy demolition bombs essentially they they have you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of these weapons dating back to pre, pre Vietnam. And so they’re they’re essentially free. They don’t cost much. By attaching these UPMK wing kits to them and then launching from a high altitude and speed with a fighter or a fighter bomber, they can essentially bombard fixed locations, particularly in areas where the Ukrainians are dug in in a salient. So for example, as we saw in Avdiivka before the withdrawal. So whether Russians, the mission planning is pretty easy. They know exactly where they’re targeting, so they can essentially just pump out sorties with these wing kits equipped glide bombs at a low cost with a very heavyweight of explosive for each impact compared to an artillery shell. Launching these bombs back from the front line seems like a huge advantage. But what I wanted to know is what happens when the glide kit fails over Russian territory. The fuses on the the the the FAB adaptations will be pretty rudimentary. So at the point where the bomb is released it will be live. And so if the if the glide kit fails or it doesn’t reach its target and fall short, yeah there will be a large hole somewhere possibly in Russian occupied territory. And we have consistently seen Russian air launched munitions failures resulting in weapons dropping on Russian soil as well as Russian occupied territory. So for example they’ve been a number of KH1O1 series air launched cruise missiles being dropped from Russian bombers, fired from Russian bombers over Russia itself which have failed and have fallen in Russian territory and been photographed and released on telegram and things. That’s one of the reasons why, particularly early on in the war, Russian bombers were often flying a very long way to launch over the Caspian Sea and flying these longer routes for the missiles, presumably so that if the motor didn’t fire on the on the cruise missile then it was going to fall into the sea rather than fall on land. It’s possible to overstate these difficulties, partly because the Russians don’t really care if a few bombs fall in the wrong place. Even if they were to kill a few Russian soldiers or or Ukrainian civilians in Russia occupied territory, that’s not going to result in any inquiries in the Russian system. They don’t really mind. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to effectively defend against these glide bombs on the front lines because the Russians can launch from far enough back. While Ukraine has had some successes in essentially ambushing these high level glide bomb attacking flights with putting Patriot launchers very close to the front lines and the radar relatively close to the front lines in order to essentially come on at the right moment and rapidly engage those those those Russian aircraft as they come in at high level quite far back where they think they’re safe. Ukraine has also lost 2 Patriot launchers which you know to a UAV which found them and directed a ballistic missile in. Essentially it is very risky with extremely scarce assets that are desperately needed to defend Ukrainian cities, power infrastructure, factories. So it’s not a sustainable answer across the front. It’s a way to impose some losses on the Russians sometimes and keep them relatively far back. But it’s not the answer. The only other real answers are to go after the aircraft on the ground, so to conduct attacks on Ukrainian air base on Russian air bases. Sorry, with you know UAV special forces much more easily said than done other way of approaching this. And I think this is where probably western efforts should focus if they’re looking specifically countering glide bombs because it will also help counter a lot of other things, ease more operational level, even tactical level electronic warfare equipment to essentially jam and degrade the GPS Inglanas signals which the bombs rely on for their for their guidance. It won’t stop the bombs, but you can significantly degrade their level of accuracy to the point where they’re not particularly effective. But did the glide bombs decide the battle of Avdivka in favour of the Russians? I don’t think that the glide bombs were decisive in in the Ukrainian decision to withdraw from Avdivka. I mean the the biggest problem that they’ve had is simply shortage of ammunition for artillery and barrels. And that fundamentally comes down to the freezing of US large scale aid and the failure of European countries to invest in sufficient production capacity for ammunition in 2022. But essentially the shortage of artillery ammunition led to far more of the Russian infantry assaults. And mostly it was mostly vehicles taking infantry to kind of step off points relatively close to Ukrainian lines, and then infantry making those assaults. If you have lots of artillery ammunition, as Ukraine had through most of last year, then you can break up those assaults, inflict huge amounts of casualties, but also crucially suppress and kind of force them to spread out. What was happening for most of the beginning of this year, January, February, and through a lot of March, is that a lot more of those Russian infantry were having to be repelled, essentially hand to hand with grenades and small arms. That’s a massively more costly way of defending terror, defending defense lines. In terms of Ukrainian casualties, the decision to withdraw from Avdiifko when it was made was entirely the right one because it was becoming disproportionately costly to hold. And the big question Are glide bombs going to win the war for Russia? That will essentially still come down to two things. One, can Ukraine continue to mobilize and train enough people to replace losses? Currently the line is very thinly held because losses have been high and training and and mobilization has not kept pace over the last six months, but also artillery, ammunition. It. It’s amazing with all of the kind of innovative technology, innovative approaches to everything from UAVs, training, employment of light bombs, air power standoff munitions, air defense, all of these things are important. But ultimately, the war seems to be being decided at the moment, one way or the other, by howitzer shells and barrels to fire them. That’s where this tape stops. But we’ll be back soon to play you through another episode of War on tape. Hey everyone, thanks for watching. If you want more videos like this in your feed, don’t forget to hit the like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.