Russia’s ferocious glide-bomb campaign

FOR THEFAB GPS GLONASS past year, Russia has been stepping up its use of glide bombs. In recent months both the size of the bombs and the rate at which they are launched have increased sharply. So far they have mainly been used against Ukrainian troops on the front line. They demonstrated their effectiveness in February by bringing to an end Ukraine’s stubborn defence of Avdiivka, a coking town in the east. But they are now also being used to add a new dimension to Russia’s strategic air campaign, supplementing its limited supply of air-launched cruise missiles.The glide bombs start life as mostly Soviet-era general-purpose bombs, of which there are huge quantities in Russia’s inventory. Last year, the Russians started adding simple, cheap conversion kits to them: wings that pop out when the bomb is released, and a satellite guidance system based on Russia’s equivalent, . A slightly more sophisticated and accurate version, which has the wings integrated in the body of the weapon, laser guidance and an anti-jamming antenna, appeared last month. Two of these struck Kharkiv on March 27th.