On December 20, 2022, Ukraine’s air defense forces of the Operational Command "South" shot down two russia’s drones, in particular, one Orion unmanned combat aerial vehicle over Kherson oblast, as the Operational Command "South" press service reported.
In this situation, Ukraine’s anti-aircraft gunners managed to shoot down a rare russian drone. The last time the enemy Orion appeared in the reports of the Operational Command "South" at the end of September 2022. At that time this UAV was also shot down over Kherson oblast.
The first case of downing the russian Orion reconnaissance and strike UAV during the entire war was at the beginning of April this year. Until this moment, Oryx gave conservative estimates, that recorded at least 2 drones of this type to be destroyed as of now. In the summer 2022, russia’s propagandists announced the intensification of the Orion UAVs production, but there is still no sufficient data to deny or refute such statements.
Before russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin hoped to obtain for its Orion a success on the export market no worse than that of the Turkish Bayraktar TB2. But russians faced the main problem: inability to establish mass production of this drone. According to open source data, by the end of 2021, the russian army had only one complex consisting of three Orion UAVs.
The Orion is 8 meters long and a wingspan of 16 meters. The maximum take-off weight is 1000 kg, the maximum declared combat load is up to 180 kg.
The radius of action is up to 250 km, the declared duration of the flight is up to 24 hours, provided that the payload does not exceed 60 kg (that is, either two bombs of 20 kg each or one bomb weighing 50 kg). The cruising speed is declared in the range of 120-200 km/h.
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