The Rise and Fall of Georgia’s UAVs
Denis Fedutinov
Georgia and Abkhazia have produced a startling amount of news this spring. Indeed, before the Abkhazians shot down the Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle, few had any idea that the Georgian army was equipped with the Israeli made Hermes 450 UAV.
The Incident
The first UAV was shot down on March 18 over Abkhaz territory, and the pieces were shown to journalists and the UN observer mission in Georgia. The second Georgian UAV was shot down on April 20 over the Gali district of Abkhazia. Georgian authorities claimed that the UAV was shot down by a Russian plane, and showed a video fragment transmitted by the destroyed UAV itself as proof.
In the wake of this incident, the Georgians increased the number of UAV flights over Abkhazia, and reports of yet another incident involving Georgian UAVs were issued almost daily.
However, the information circulated by both the Georgian and the Abkhazian sides are replete with inconsistencies and are clearly motivated by political considerations. The Abkhazians claim that they have defeated seven UAVs, while the Georgians attest to only two losses.
The Hermes 450, built by Elbit Systems, one of the main defense suppliers to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, is a medium sized UAV. It has a relatively long flying time and can carry a fairly substantial payload, including stabilized optical-electronic observation equipment and a synthetic aperture radar, making it an ideal vehicle for reconnaissance flights.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili claims that his armed forces possess 40 UAVs. This would seem like an excessive number, and the cost of that many Hermes 450 units would probably be beyond Georgia’s reach, even if Elbit supplied them at dumping prices.
As for the video provided by Georgia, there are several reasons why their authenticity is in doubt. First, UAVs are made to observe objects on the earth, not in the air. Their cameras are housed in a semisphere on the underside of the vehicle, which makes it extremely difficult to focus on another flying object. The chances that this sort of camera could have caught another flying object at the very moment when it fired a missile are simply nonexistent.
Second, as a rule, high-definition photos and video are stored on board the UAV, while only low-quality pictures are sent in real time, due to the restricted bandwidth of the transmission system. The video shown by the Georgians was ostensibly captured in real time, since the UAV was destroyed, and the low quality of the video does not allow for the identification of the type of plane, let alone the country to which it belongs. Arguments to the effect that «the aircraft has a twin rudder and is therefore Russian» simply do not stand up to examination.
Consequences
The UAV incident could have several consequences.
Russian-Georgian relations are already at a low state, so the political consequences of the incidents are not as serious as they might otherwise have been.
Military-technical relations between Russia and Israel, on the other hand, may feel the impact. The Caucasus is clearly in Russia’s sphere of national interests, and Russia is very sensitive about weapons transfers to the region, especially in the current context of heightened tensions. Elbit Systems has probably spoiled its prospects on the Russian market for several years to come.
Of course, while Elbit has been pushing its military and dual-use products across the CIS, paying little attention to the possible consequences of some deals for its relations with Moscow, the Israeli state company IAI has followed a different policy, distancing itself from such deals and placing its stake on the development of cooperation with Russia.
Finally, the incident has damaged the image of UAVs as one of the best-known products of Israeli high-tech industry. After all, who would wish to purchase equipment that is so easily defeated?
One of the chief advantages of UAVs is that they are thought to present a difficult target for air-defense systems. They are much smaller than piloted aircraft, built mainly from composite materials, and leave only a very small trail of heat in their wake.
One explanation for why the Georgian UAV was so easily defeated relates to the relatively noisy engine on the Hermes 450. In order to reduce the acoustic profile of the vehicle, the Georgians could either fly it at higher altitudes, reducing the quality of observation, or employ some contrivance to reduce the noise of the engine. Of course, the use of a «silencer» inevitably leads to increased production of heat, making the UAV an easier target for air-defense systems. It is possible that this sort of modification to the Hermes 450 is what led to its destruction.
In connection with Georgian assertions that the second UAV was not shot down but lost due to some technical problems, several questions arise. First, the supplier asserts that the vehicle is reliable, and this statement is backed up by data derived from over 65 000 flying hours for this model. In this case, it is possible that the Georgian UAVs are not new, but rather sold from the operational stock of the Israeli Air Force. It is hard to say in what condition such vehicles would have been sold. Moreover, it is not known to what extent the Georgians may have modified the system to suit their needs. Finally, it is unclear to what extent the UAV operator or maintenance crew were trained to use the system. In principle, UAV operation requires highly trained specialists.
If Georgia really did lose seven UAVs in such a short period, as claimed by the Abkhazians, then the Georgians would have had to be incredibly stubborn to have sent one vehicle after another to its demise along the same flight path and using the same tactics. Either the Abkhazians inflated their achievements, or the Georgians were incredibly inept in their operation of the UAVs.
Conclusion
The Hermes 450 is used extensively in Israel and in other countries. This UAV has been delivered to the USA for patrols along the US-Mexico border, and to the armed forces of Singapore, which has invested heavily in this technology. One of the latest project for which the Hermes 450 has been used is the UK Watchkeeper program, to replace the Phoenix UAV by 2010. The UK and other Elbit Systems customers will undoubtedly have been following the UAV incidents in Georgia-Abkhazia with redoubled interest.
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Source:
http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/2-2008/item2/article3/
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24-08-2008, 18:23
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