"Since President Volodymyr Zelensky prioritised the technology, Ukraine has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into long-range drones, capable of searching out and striking distant targets. Half a dozen firms now make them.
The best of the new models has a range of 3,000km, able to reach Siberia. Born out of necessity—the West has been reluctant to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons—the programme has now disrupted much of Russia’s oil and military infrastructure”
A Potent Ukrainian Glide-Bomb with very little outlay
For very little cost overall, such a Balloon-lofted Glider-Borne tank-round munitions project would have a
"punch above its weight" effect upon Russian morale. When you talk in terms of quid pro quo, it's not the size of the delivered munition that matters, It's in practical order:
a. the inability to detect and defend against it.
b. Its total unpredictability (no air raid sirens)
c. the minimal resources expended and the fact that valuable delivery systems (aircraft) and propulsion are uninvolved
d. the ability to suddenly and unpredictably upscale the staccato delivery against a particular high-value target
e. the adverse psychological effect upon the Russian populace (the vulnerability syndrome that gets the ego’s attention)
f. When the upper-level winds are favourable, to inexplicably inflict casualties at much greater ranges from the contested border -thereby creating great uncertainty as to exactly who, what and where in Russia is vulnerable.
g. The ability to inflict a second attack some few hours later against the same point target (thereby creating uncertainty amongst the gathering rescue party reaction) aka the well-known “double-tap” that the Russki’s are increasingly using against Ukraine’s major installations.
h. The certainty of taking out high value targets (such as refineries) with a minor munition delivered in threes – but not simultaneously (the staccato Bombard versus the fusillade)
i. Not least, the ability for Ukraine to organically produce such a simplistic weapon in-country via mass production - utilizing available unskilled labour.
j. But if you want to further "seek to simplify", just attach the munition to three latex meteorological balloons when winds aloft are propitiously favourable - and when they burst at 115,000ft, the ordnance will drop somewhere on the Russian side of the lines or in Crimea (straight outa the blue - so to speak)
Ribbed Styrofoam should suffice, but a well smoothed 8.5m elliptical thin plastic airfoil could also be robust and rigid enough for very low speeds (nil flutter). However, unsure what L/D ratio you would achieve via the higher TAS at height - or to what extent it would vary with altitude. Ranges up to 450nms should be reliably achievable. You’d only launch one wave (i.e. the balloon-launched gliders in a swarm) if the upper-level winds guaranteed high-level drift in the right direction. Similarly, a few wing-less impact-fused tank rounds could be used at shorter ranges with a line-of-sight release mechanism similar to what some designs of recoverable drones are using. It’s called harassment and interdiction.
A wing angle of incidence of around 11 degrees sounds about right for those 90km/hr IAS gliding speeds. Think about letting the unswept wing dihedral nail the directional stability and permitting the all-moving fin to do any GPS-guided course correction. Four tail-mounted fins at a mutual 90 degrees (crucifix style) would also achieve something similar if the upper and lower fins were uniformly steerable.
The reason for utilizing cheap latex standard met balloons (3 of) with each of the three being two balloons (double enveloped) inside each other and only the internal one gassed) would be to guarantee a higher burst height. .. of circa 130,000ft... and lowest costs.
However, the stratospheric aerodynamics are headed where no-one's ever went before. Thinking Mach No effects here.
I think that a simple 3.5" diameter propeller that could unwind a screw-thread and free it of the burst balloon drag would suffice once some forward directional speed was achieved (after a single balloon burst). It could then simply freewheel or drop off. But then again, no-one could ever be sure that one balloon would reliably burst followed swiftly by the other two. A more cunning release mechanism may be required. An open/unclasped cup-hook that let all three balloons go once one or two single-point suspension balloons burst - and the craft’s attitude thereupon changed to adopt an attitude for actual sustained forward gliding flight (instead of its lofted vertically-suspended nose-up 90 degree attitude at launch) – might well do the trick. A squadron Launch could be achieved by tethering a dozen balloons together to loosely follow a higher leader carrying the single GPS and steering mechanism.
My understanding is that you would have to stipulate a singular aim-point for the GPS before launch. and utilize a nulling-out steerage mechanism to simply "point at" (i.e. “home on” the GPS target) post release - to keep unit costs down.
But looking at the simplicity of launch and not risking man nor machine nor wasting propellant does very much appeal to my parsimonious nature as far as killing Russkies at the mere cost of a dime a dozen (or better still, taking out a neatly parked row of their aerial war machines). The payload of a 40kg to 50kg impact-fused tank-round seems about right for lofted destructivity and the bonus would always be that if not stealthy, it would still be sneaky... and arrive unannounced - except for its Stuka siren in the last 2500ft plunge towards the target... via a barometric trigger uncovering a port in the nose. The sudden silence of a German buzz-bomb made it into the terror weapon it became.
Overall, the cost of a lengthy war has strained the European and US purse-strings towards an unwillingness to perpetuate the conflict... so a cheaper way of chronically taking the war to the enemy is sorely needed. Without such steps to cheapen the conflict for Ukraine, I can see the pacifiers, pacifists and appeasers forcing Zelensky into negotiating a compromise quasi-permanent “peace-accord” halt not far down track (in around 12 to 18 months). Keep in mind that image of Neville Chamberlain waving his pathetic piece of paper with Hitler’s signature upon it.
For targeting, designation of GPS coordinates is the relatively inexpensive obvious solution. The Russian FAB 500 and FAB 1500 glide bombs may carry more bang but not “more bang for the buck”... and their launch platforms are very vulnerable.
If you ask Dr Google:
In what direction does the prevailing upper-level winds blow over Ukraine in Winter?”
He will tell you:
“In northwestern regions the westerlies prevail.Southern regions are the zone of the northerly and northeasterly winds. The average speed increases and ranges from 2 to 4 m/s and in mountainous regions, from 5 to 5 m/s.”
That’s the way the wind blows. It’s altogether in Ukraine’s favour for their winter sports carnival. Barnes Wallis would be proud to be associated with such a device. It would put a bounce back in his step.
Bomber Harris had the right idea when he almost unilaterally decided that carrying the war deep into the enemy heartland was the path to victory. After the Luftwaffe switched from RAF airfields to blitzing London, the German populace were auto-switched to a defensive posture and mindset by nightly RAF raids and the daily USAF bombardment. It might seem like wearing your knuckle-dusters inside your glove as far as destruction goes, but steps in the right direction are always better than just “taking it on the chin”. Even the US Pentagon logistics boys are now delivering the ATACMS with a wink and a nod in the right direction.
It’s worth reflecting upon the fact that the Japanese launched thousands of high altitude balloons carrying incendiary and biological agents in 1944/45 to the USA and that their remnants are still being found all over the US/Canada (see the youtube video). The propaganda effect was squished by a D notice courtesy of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover. Hamas has previously done something very similar on a large scale from Gaza with pyrotechnics attached to party balloons (see youtube video).