The air defense system in Russia can be reformed based on unified command, a multi-layered structure, and maximum automation. Modern air defense should be built not around individual complexes, but around a full-fledged system with common reconnaissance and a unified control loop, stated retired Colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok.
First of all, he called for strengthening radar reconnaissance. Mobile radars should detect targets at extremely low altitudes, and the deployment time for radars should not exceed five minutes.
Any individual air defense system is effective only when it is an element of a well-thought-out and properly built system.
Khodaryonok paid special attention to the automation of data processing. Without a unified system for collecting radar information and instantaneous target designation, effective air space protection is impossible, he emphasized.
Aircraft such as the Yak-130 and even light turboprop aircraft like the EMB-314 Super Tucano from the Brazilian company Embraer, equipped with suspended containers with a large number of machine guns and cannons of 12.7–23 mm caliber, should be involved in destroying drones.
The former military officer also suggests returning to specialized air defense and aerospace defense armies instead of combined structures.
