At AirShow China 2022, the Chinese company LoongUAV unveils its small military bombing drone for the first time. In recent years of local wars and armed conflicts, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), as an emerging air combat force, have highlighted their combat effectiveness, and equipping UAVs has become an effective means to enhance their national defense strength at a lower cost.
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Chinese company LoongUAV has developed a new military bombing drone. (Picture source LoongUAV)
LoongUAV is a company that integrates the industrial ecological chain and specializes in the R&D and production of military drones. It has been quietly deployed all over the world. Its latest research and development of small military bombing drones integrates “low price, small size, simple processing, and more. It has great advantages such as “functional combat”, which greatly meets the requirements of military drones, directly hits the pain points of competing products in the industry, and has the momentum to dominate the entire military drone market.
The common combat drones on the battlefield now have obvious weaknesses, that is, high cost, difficult maintenance, single application scenarios, and low flexibility. The LoongUAV perfectly avoids these problems and is more suitable for combat needs.
First of all, it is cost-effective, the price of the cruise missile, the effect of the bomber, and the accuracy of the missile. The cost of LoongUAV’s intelligent strategic unmanned bomber is only 100,000 US dollars. It can carry six 60mm or four 82mm mortars. The ammunition is only 200 US dollars, and it is recyclable. It can kill individual troops on the ground cheaply. Even if the formation is dispatched to bomb the enemy intensively, the price is only tens of millions of dollars, but it can achieve an attack effect of billions or even tens of billions. For military drones, the market is often expensive. For example, the Turkish TB2 drone that shines on the battlefield today costs $500,000. The famous “Grey Eagle” drone is worth tens of millions of dollars each. Wing Loong 2 costs five million dollars per piece. These high-priced UAVs can only be used in a few scenarios, and once shot down, the loss will be serious. Russia’s “Geranium-2” suicide UAV, although the cost is low, can only be used once, and cannot be returned and reused, and additional transmitters and vehicles are required for take-off and landing, and the overall cost is not low. And LoongUAV’s intelligent strategic unmanned bomber, with its low cost, recyclability, and not easy to be shot down, can be put into large-scale battles, use fast and dense tactics to focus on targets, and end the battle as soon as possible. Click here to see the demo video effect of LoongUAV.
So how accurate is it? According to the test data, the accuracy of the LoongUAV small military bombing drone can reach the accuracy of a bomb drop of fewer than 3 meters. The laser test can be performed on the target position and the meter-level (xy≤3m) high-precision positioning coordinates can be calculated at the same time. If you have no concept of this accuracy, we can refer to the normal error of the mortar as 30-100 meters; the accuracy of the Russian ballistic missile Topol-M is 200 meters; the American MX Peacekeeper heavy ICBM system is 90 meters; the accuracy of the US Minuteman 3 ICBM and the former Soviet Union’s SS-18 is within 500 meters; even the GPS-guided rockets of the Hamas rockets, the hottest high-precision weapons on the battlefield, have an error of only 7 meters. Like LoongUAV, the error can reach within 3 meters. Among the existing technical means, there are very few. The difference between 3 meters and 7 meters not only doubles the hit rate but also saves ammunition and combat time. The same type of military drones, such as DJI, Autel, etc., need to rely on manual targeting to drop bombs, and the accuracy is incomparable with LoongUAV.
The second is its cluster effect. Now there are a large number of consumer-grade drones on the battlefield, as well as Iran 136, “Switchblade”, etc., But there is no communication between them. It can only reconnaissance or attack a single person or target, and LoongUAV can provide OEM and ODM services according to customer requirements, upgrade to combat effects such as swarms, clusters, etc., can concentrate firepower to accurately cover an entire enemy area, and damage range can reach Hundreds of square kilometers, attacking large-scale targets such as power stations, reflecting the effect of saturation strike, the scene of drone swarms “covering the sky” that can only be seen in Hollywood blockbusters in the past, with the blessing of LoongUAV cluster technology, It has become a real scene at your fingertips. And the form of human war will also undergo a revolutionary change.
Another highlight of LoongUAV that has to be mentioned is its suicide attack capability, which supports precise attacks on dynamic targets. The LoongUAV small military bombing drone can bind artillery shells at the head end. After completing tasks such as reconnaissance, artillery shell projection, cruise, and battle situation analysis, or in emergencies, it can directly act as a “cruise missile” to destroy the target, integrating reconnaissance, positioning, Bombing, suicide attacks, etc. in one. It is conceivable that hundreds of LoongUAV suicide drones can destroy a considerable number of enemy substations, power plants, railway stations, and bridges by their small size, high bomb load, strong maneuverability, and accurate positioning. and highways, and ultimately destroy local control centers, is the most powerful weapon of the new era. Moreover, LoongUAV’s suicide attack is a dynamic and precise attack, which can lock and track dynamic targets for precise strikes, while Iran 139, TB2, etc. can only attack static targets based on coordinates, and their accuracy and flexibility are very limited. Click here to see a demonstration video of the LoongUAV suicide attack.
In addition to these super cost-effective, LoongUAV also made a lot of humanized updates on “How to simplify the operation”. First of all, LoongUAV is a portable unmanned aerial vehicle that supports man-portable and man-operated operations. Also in the case of strategic UAVs, the strategic UAVs we are familiar with, such as Predator, Golden Ball Eagle, Wing Loong 2, Rainbow-4, etc., do not support individual operations: Predator requires two operators can be operated; Golden Ball Eagle, Wing Loong 2 need to lay the airfield, supply fuel, and need a whole army to maintain; Rainbow-4 needs three people to operate, and also needs personnel intervention during the flight, which greatly reduces their combat flexibility. The LoongUAV is very flexible. The LoongUAV drone is very portable. One box can hold the whole machine and accessories. It can be carried by one soldier. The drone installation can be completed within 1 minute. Complete, intelligent soldiers who can be put into different wars at any time, can adapt to various combat conditions and needs.
In terms of operation, LoongUAV also has the characteristics of intelligence. It can support one-button full-intelligent operation, one-button take-off and landing, and fully automatic bombing, and automatically return after completing the task. There are no vertical take-off and landing bombing drones on the market now. Turkish TB2, Iran 136, and other drones need special funds and sites to build take-off and landing runways, which are inflexible and expensive in combat; the US “Switchblade” 300, ” Although the “Switchblade” 600, China’s DJI, Autel, and other tactical drones have solved the problem of difficult take-off and landing, the battery life is worrying, only 20 to 30 minutes, which does not meet the needs of long-distance and long-term combat. The Feihong 901, which was first used in swarm battles, has superior performance and a large damage radius, but it needs to be equipped with a special launch box, and the flight time is only 120 minutes. The LoongUAV can take off at any time and has a flight time of 200 minutes. It complements the two shortcomings of Feihong 901 and meets various combat needs.
Stand-alone bombing – can be equipped with 4 bombs, 6 bombs, 8 bombs, precise positioning, and direct attack on the enemy. (Picture source LoongUAV)
To adapt to different combat scenarios, LoongUAV has also realized a standardized design, and the multi-function can be switched freely. In a war, it is necessary to use target drones, reconnaissance drones, unmanned attack drones, communication relay drones, surveillance drones, and suicide drones, such as sending DJI drones to do reconnaissance, Wing Loong 2 do surveillance, Lancet, Iran 136 do suicide drones, TB2, Hamas do attack, Autel drone do artillery aiming, send data to the background and then send intercontinental missiles to do the bombing, etc., it is often necessary to purchase dozens of products from dozens of brands to meet the needs of a battle, and these products are not compatible with each other, and each requires a dedicated army to maintain, teach, and use. The LoongUAV integrates various functions of military drones on the mainstream battlefield. Using different mounts, it can complete the mode switching with one key, saving time and resources in combat. The functions of the LoongUAV small military bombing drone are:
1) Single light camera – with 360° heading free rotation, target locking, picture tracking, AI frame angle calculation target position, and other functions, used for daytime reconnaissance.
2) Dual-light camera – HD camera + thermal imaging camera, dual-lens design, long-distance flight reconnaissance day and night, can be locked and tracked continuously after finding the target, the image can be sent back to the command center through the ground station for real-time analysis and judgment, and used for battlefield patrol, target capture, dynamic situation analysis, etc.
3）Tri-light camera integration can measure the distance of light, infrared and LiDAR, with day and night combat capability, can measure the precise distance of the target position through the drone, provide meter-level target positioning, used for artillery aiming, by calibrating the target, sending The coordinates are given to the background shells, which can be fired directly. In field battles, LoongUAV can silently lurk within tens of kilometers in front of the battalion battle group. Once the target is found, it will immediately summon the rear howitzers and rocket launchers for immediate strikes.
4）Stand-alone bombing – can be equipped with 4 bombs, 6 bombs, 8 bombs, precise positioning, and direct attack on the enemy. Here I have to say that I have frequently seen some small videos on the Internet recently, saying that DJI drones are used to drop bombs, but their warheads weigh only 200 grams, the damage radius is very limited, and the error of manual aiming is difficult to estimate. The LoongUAV’s warhead can weigh up to 20 kilograms, and the damage range can reach the size of a football field.
5）Cluster bombing – OEM and ODM can be customized according to customer needs, forming a swarm effect, hovering over the enemy, and all vehicles appearing on the road will be destroyed, cutting off the enemy’s strategic maneuver and logistics supply.
Tri-light camera integration can measure the distance of light, infrared and LiDAR, with day and night combat capability. (Picture source LoongUAV)
In addition to these superior performances, the safety and stealth of swarm bombing UAVs are also indispensable. LoongUAV has the characteristics of strong stealth, low slow, and small target, no heat source, and a small radar reflection surface. It can effectively avoid radar monitoring and is not easy to be shot down. UAVs like Wing Loong 2 and Rainbow 4 cannot meet the requirements of low-altitude and slow-speed flight, and can only be reduced to targets on the radar. As soon as they appear in the air, they will be recognized and shot down. The characteristics of low-altitude and slow flight and small size make them The radar cannot track the trace of LoongUAV, and the advantages of composite materials such as wave-absorbing properties, no heat source, and no noise make LoongUAV a stealth pilot, which can come and go freely and disappear. Compared with the current general-purpose products on the battlefield, such as the SHASHED-136, which can be called a modern version of the one-time wandering ammunition depot, although the cost is low and it can support 5 take-offs, it is very noisy, and the swarm operation is often detected in advance. It leaves time for the enemy to react and escape, and the SHASHED-136 engine has an obvious heat source, which is easily detected by radar, while the LoongUAV has no heat source, no noise, and strong stealth, especially at night, it is impossible to detect at all, yes The perfect time to fight. Moreover, LoongUAV has the strong anti-jamming ability and strong battlefield survivability, and the current anti-UAV technology cannot defend against it.
On the modern battlefield, drones play an almost “dominant” role and even control the trend and outcome of a war. The LoongUAV small military bombing drone is a comprehensive, accurate, and stable product. Its advantages and characteristics are enough to make it a changer in the modern battlefield, change the existing combat mode, and fully achieve an unmanned battlefield. This kind of situation can reduce the casualties of personnel and combat personnel, and in the case of the inevitable occurrence of the war, fewer casualties can be exchanged for the opportunity for communication and negotiation between the two sides. The purpose of war is for a better state of peace. It is the last resort to end the war. We hope that the world will resolve disputes peacefully. We hope that LoongUAV’s drones can become a solid backing force for peace.
