We are 16 months into the full-fledged unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. As the wait for
Ukraine’s big offensive continues at the time of the writing of this script, so too does the
stalemate. In this tug-of-war over small gains and losses, it appears that the Russian military
is bringing a somewhat new weapon to the war. On the 24th of March, 2023, a squadron of ten Russian
SU-35Ss was speeding towards the Sumy province in Ukraine. However, this was no ordinary mission, as
the SU-35Ss were armed with a new bomb, or shall we say, an updated bomb. Loaded only on board
the SU-35Ss were Russia’s general-purpose air drop bombs, their go-to weapon, which had been upgraded
to act as a Russian version of the American JDAM bomb. This event has gone down as the first time
the Russians used JDAM-type bombs en-mass in the current war. So, let’s find out if the Russians
have a war-changing weapon and if it can stack up to the American JDAMs now exporting to Ukraine.
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Currently, a lot of the infantry fighting in Ukraine are in close quarters because there
is urban warfare raging in the cities, with trenches and underground dugouts in the open
countryside. The main reason for this is the ability to kill on the modern battlefield is
more deadly than ever before. It is now so very dangerous for unprotected targets like
infantry to be caught out in the open. So, it’s almost necessary for troops to be positioned
in cities where there is more cover or where they can make their own cover. Truth be told,
trenches have never really gone away as they have always been an important fortification
of the infantry soldier, but no one was expecting such large-scale trench warfare in the modern day.
One element that does seem to be repeating history is the fact that trench warfare is causing
stalemates: thus, both sides are only scoring little victories and defeats, using artillery
and airstrikes to whittle each other down. This means that any attacker will have an even
more difficult time achieving a breakthrough, as they now have to contend with a line of infantry
in hardcover, plus infantry that can call in artillery and airstrikes with immediate effect.
Moreover, even if an attacker does break through defensive lines, there will then be tanks waiting
for them. This means that both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers alike will want to call
in accurate airstrikes to help gain territory. Each side will almost be taking turns to attack
and defend. Russia is attempting to take more of Ukraine, whilst the Ukrainians will have to
attack to retake their country. Both sides have a need to continue attacking in order, so in an
attempt to break the stalemates and get back on the offensive, we assume the Russian military
higher-ups have requested smarter bombs to allow close air support for Russian ground troops.
The Russian “JDAM” in question is called the FAB-500. The first version of this “Fougasse
Air Bomb” was produced in the USSR in 1954. It has seen widespread use in the Soviet-Afghanistan War,
the Syrian Civil War and the current Russia-Ukraine War. The FAB-500 is designed to
bomb railway junctions, lightly armoured or “soft skin targets,” military-industrial facilities,
field fortifications and infantry. It is a 500 kg high-explosive unguided bomb,
meaning that once released from the aircraft, it falls freely to the target, much like the film
footage you see from old World War 2 bombers. This does mean the bomb is cheaper and easier to build,
but it does present the issue that the bomb has a chance of being off-target or missing completely.
If your own ground forces are in close proximity to the target, which is often the case in urban
terrain, this is not ideal! The fact is, it is designed for a variety of military targets,
yet there is plenty of footage online of FAB-500s laying crashed and unexploded in civilian houses,
proving that either the pilots have a bad aim or the bombs are inadequate.
This leads on to the idea that Russian ground units want more accurate bombing on Ukrainian
positions. The JDAM-type bomb is of an interesting design. The variant called the FAB-500 M62 was
first designed back in 1962 but appears to have never been used in quantities or even
in a large bombing raid. Therefore little is known about it. This could suggest that
the Russians have had problems getting it to work correctly and so prefer unguided bombing.
The FAB-500 M62 looks likely that it has now been fitted with a glide kit,
making it similar to the American JDAM. The glide kit looks like it is of a crude design,
so we can guess that the Russians have focused on mass production at low cost rather than quality.
Munitions are loaded and stored externally to the fighter bomber. When the Russian bomb is
released, two wings deploy horizontally in the mid-section and two smaller wings at the rear.
The bomb then glides to the target. Glide bombing, first pioneered in World War 2 by the Germans,
allows the attacking aircraft to deploy bombs a lot further from the target.
This allows more safety for the fighter bomber to stay away from Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire.
Most glide bombs can be guided to the target with the use of GPS or lasers. The FAB-500 M62 seems
to have satellite navigation capability, but we cannot confirm if it has an internal navigation
system. The range of these guided munitions is up to 70 km. The blast radius is up to 140 metres
for soft-skin targets and up to a 60-metre for lightly armoured targets, Meaning that
lethality at further ranges is diminished if the targets are armoured. So if you ever see
footage of armoured vehicles taking multiple explosive shells or bombs, you now know why.
The FAB-500 M62 can be carried on hard points of wings or fuselage of the Su-17 Fitter,
MiG-21 Fishbed, MiG-23 Flogger, Mig-29 Flanker, Mig-25 Foxbat, Su-24 Fencer, Tu-16 Badger, Tu-95
Bear and Su-25 Frogfoot, which is the Russian counterpart to the A10 Warthog. It can also be
fitted to some foreign models and even the Mi-24 Hind helicopter, although this is highly uncommon.
The FAB-500 M62 comes in four variants, from 100 kg of explosive to 250kg, 500kg and finally,
1000kg. However, the 1000kg variant can only be carried by dedicated bombers, and so the 500kg is
the most common. They are aerodynamic to reduce drag and are deployed from altitudes starting
at 570 metres all the way up to 12,000 metres. The fuse located at the nose of the munition has
the ability to be set to delayed fuse or point detonation. Both have their uses. For instance,
armoured targets would require a delayed fuse giving time for the bomb to bury itself into
the target first, hopefully piercing armour such as a main battle tank, before exploding.
Point detonation is best used against unarmoured targets or targets that are easier to destroy,
for example, something like a railway location. The FAB-500 M62 is currently in use throughout
the Ukrainian front line. Multiple bombing raids are hitting their lines in an attempt to weaken
resistance. In fact, they are causing great concern, as the Ukrainian Air Force Spokesman,
Yurii Ihnat, admitted on the 4th of April that so far, Ukraine does not have the means to defend
against Russian jets deploying bombs outside of the bubble of the Ukrainian Air Defence.
It is important to mention that the Western allies continued to saturate Ukrainian air defence with
new hardware, and the talks of Ukrainians getting F-16s are intensifying at this point. We will
talk about this in our future videos. Interestingly, about the same time
Russia deployed their FAB-500 M62s, the United States exported JDAMs to Ukraine.
These won’t be able to counter the Russian FAB-500 threat, but gives Ukraine a similar weapon.
The JDAM, or Joint Direct Attack Munition, required some work before it could be used in
combat, as it was not designed to work with or be deployed from the Ukrainian Mikoyan Mig-29.
But this issue has now been fixed. The American JDAM was first brought into service in 1997 and
has been in service ever since, and during that time has pretty much been used in most conflicts
the United States has been involved with. Created by Boeing, the JDAM is highly respected
throughout the NATO countries. During the testing phase of development, over four hundred and fifty
JDAMs were dropped. The tests concluded an accuracy rate of 9.6 meters of landing in and
around the target, and also achieved a 95 percent reliability rating. These tests were even carried
out in operational conditions, such as dropping the bomb through clouds, storms, dust and snow.
All tests showed good results. The JDAM is extremely modular with many variants for different
tasks and ranges from 500 lbs to 1,000 lbs and all the way up to 2,000 lbs in weight/in size.
During development, a radical new idea was thought up for the aiming process,
using GPS to make the bomb land on target. This was deemed highly controversial back in the 1990s,
as GPS satellites were very few, and the idea itself was untested. So a programme was set
up at the ironically named OCD, or Operational Concept Demonstration, at Eglin Airforce Base. It
was a tall order as the programme was given one year to show results. The bomb was fitted with
an INS/GPS guidance kit. INS stands for Inertial Navigation System. It is a navigation device that
uses gyroscopes, accelerometers and a computer that constantly calculates the position, velocity
and orientation by using dead reckoning. Inertial navigation is used in more than just JDAMs, it’s
also used in the navigation of aircraft, missiles, ships, spacecraft and even some mobile phones.
With this new gadget, about a year later, the OCD project was able to test out their new prototype
bomb. It was dropped from an F-16 at 88,000 feet. It was a success. So within half a dozen years
later, the JDAM was outfitted to the US Airforce and US Naval Aircraft. The JDAMs first appearance
on a battlefield was during the Kosovo War, during Operation Allied Force. This was an aerial bombing
campaign by NATO that lasted from the 24th of March to the 10th of June in 1999. The B-2 Spirit
Stealth Bomber, which was also making its first appearance, was loaded with the new JDAMs and
would fly thirty-hour, non-stop missions, dropping six hundred and fifty-one JDAMs.
This colossal feat would reportedly have a ninety-six percent reliability and destroy
eighty-seven percent of their targets. This explosive entrance secured the JDAM’s reputation
as a bomb to be feared. It also saw upgrades making it more deadly than its original build.
Modern JDAMs can glide up to forty-five miles which is a huge standoff range, allowing the
attacking aircraft to be well out of range of AA fire. It is accurate to within 5 metres of CEP,
or Circular Error Probability. It can be dropped from 14,000 metres and has wings that deploy,
guiding it to the intended target. It is also a fire-and-forget weapon, meaning once released,
the pilot can turn and burn out of there whilst the bomb glides to the target.
The bomb’s free flight is 100 seconds. The kill radius, even at an average variant size,
is 33.5 metres. Not as big as, say, a 155mm artillery shell, which still shows that amongst
cutting-edge airstrikes, artillery still has a big place on the modern battlefield.
It is currently used by other NATO and allied countries like Germany, South Korea,
and Australia, to name but a few. And to other countries, it is the model of a guided bomb.
But Russia first designed their FAB-500M62 back in the 1960s, so it can’t be a copy. However,
the glide kit they are mounted with looks very similar to the JDAMs. So maybe one
could argue it is an updated sort of copy. The latest variant, which has been exported
to Ukraine to support their war effort, is the JDAM-ER, where ER stands for Extended Range.
They are part of the 1.9 billion dollar aid package from the United States,
and experts have said it will bring a new accuracy to the Ukrainian Airforce that
they haven’t had previously. The JDAM-ERs have a customised pylon and digital data bus, making
them compatible with Ukrainian jets and bombers. All that being said, how do these two bombs stack
up against each other? Let’s go over some basic facts. The FAB-500 is of cheaper quality and
hasn’t had anywhere near as much success as the JDAM. But because the FAB-500 is cheaper to make,
their total number is estimated to be superior to the JDAM’s already quite high numbers.
Important to mention the Americans have had to convert their JDAMs to work on Ukrainian jets, so
if America is to keep supplying Ukraine with them, these conversions are going to affect logistics,
as this would take extra time. Additionally, more time needs to be given up to train Ukrainian
pilots on how to operate the JDAMs. This, in turn, means fewer pilots in action, which the
Ukrainian Airforce just can’t afford to spare. The JDAM costs more, but it is far more reliable
and is exactly what Ukraine needs right now as they plan their big offensive.
Ideally, before an attack, you want to strike deep behind enemy lines to hit the artery units of an
army. Targets such as HQs, fuel and ammunition dumps, logistical and supply lines, bridges and
roads to slow reinforcements, or other such areas where enemy units would gather. In this instance,
the JDAM has been labelled more deadly than the HIMARs, America’s light multiple rocket launcher,
which was already sorely sought after by Ukraine. Russia, however, has already gained territory
and with their new bomb, the modified FAB 500, it just might be enough to tip the scales yet
further in their direction, maybe even enough to fend off a Ukrainian offensive. On the other hand,
there’s also the JDAMs guidance system. Even if the missile losses its GPS connection or is
jammed, JDAM is still accurate enough to land close enough to the target to take it out.
In addition, the JDAM does have what’s called bomb tossing ability, this is executed by low-level
flying, then the aircraft pulls upward, releasing the bomb, giving the bomb additional flight time
by starting its ballistic path with an upward vector. In simple terms, the jet does a loop
releasing the bomb on the high point, causing a tossing effect and allowing the aircraft to avoid
directly flying over the target. This gives more safety to the attacking jet in case the target
is heavily defended and avoids the danger of getting hit by the blast from the jet’s own bomb.
Both sides now have added gliding bombs to their arsenal just in time when the war is
about to enter another phase. Could these bombs be the deciding factor for one side? Or has it
just escalated and evened the score again? We can only wait and see. More videos on the conflict in
Ukraine are on the way, so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed the bell button.
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