This article is published in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report part of Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN), and is complimentary through Sep 11, 2024. For information on becoming an AWIN Member to access more content like this, click here.
Kronstadt unveiled a revised design of its proposed Grom uncrewed aerial system at Army 2024.
Kronstadt brought the “Thunder” to the annual Russian arms exhibition outside Moscow last week, but with an unexpected twist.
The St. Petersburg-based maker of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) first brought a Grom (“Thunder”) concept model to the International Military-Technical Forum known as “Army” four years ago.
Back then, the Grom appeared to be Russia’s answer to the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, but larger and—with its canted V-tails, a forward-mounted dorsal inlet and full-body chines—possibly as stealthy or stealthier.
Although not nearly as ambitious as the stealthy Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik, Kronstadt still presented the Grom as a key component of Russia’s future air combat fleet, with the ability to seek out, suppress and destroy ground-based air defenses on behalf of crewed Su-35 and Su-57 fighters.
The Russian Air Force appeared interested, albeit with little urgency. Two years after Grom made its Army exhibition debut in 2020, Kronstadt executives claimed to receive a contract to produce a preliminary design of the aircraft.
A two-year silence then fell over the project, but Kronstadt finally revealed the results of the preliminary design work at the Army 2024 event: a dumbed-down structural configuration that appears to emphasize lower cost over higher capability.
Gone are the canted V-tails and full-body chines. The forward-mounted dorsal inlet is pushed slightly aft. The wings, meanwhile, appear to be moved slightly forward, and redesigned to a conventional cropped-delta shape from a thin lambda airfoil. And a single, radar-reflecting vertical tail now rises high over the engine exhaust nozzle.
The status of some previously advertised capabilities also now seems uncertain. In 2021, Kronstadt executives described the Grom itself as a drone mother ship. The Thunder would carry as many as 10 Molniyas (“Lightnings”), which would be launched to do the dirty, dangerous work downrange as the larger, costlier mother ship stayed further back.
No such advanced machine-to-machine autonomous capabilities appear in Kronstadt’s online brochures for the newly revealed version of Grom. Instead, the UAS continued to be displayed with a variety of air-to-ground and air-to-air weapons, including anti-radiation missiles.
Kronstadt, a privately owned group of companies, ranks among the largest UAS producers in Russia’s aerospace industry. The company unveiled the Orion medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS in 2015 at the MAKS air show outside Moscow. The Orion entered service in the Russian Air Force as the Inokhodets (“Pacer") UAS, with promotional videos showing it performing as a long-range artillery spotter. The current status of orders and production for the Inkhodets and the exportable Orion-E UAS are unclear.
Likewise, Russian government officials offered no update on the future of the Grom project during the Army exhibition.
Related Content
