The bulk of Russia’s future long range strike capacity looks like this and shaheds, not extremely expensive fighter-bombers launching glide bombs, Russia simply cannot afford its air force projecting the bulk of strike capability with high performance jets indefinitely, especially with a crashing economy, it is a fragile, static and inefficient delivery method compared to very long range howitizers.
I think there is a strategic risk here in overlooking very long range guided artillery as Russia’s inveitable medium term choice of a long range precision guided strike platform just because Russia gains little propaganda boon from hyping up niche artillery shells vs. flashy high performance military aircraft. A cost-benefit calculation leaves little rational grounds to argue it makes more sense to rely on fighter-bomber jets as Russia in my opinion and Ukraine should keep that squarely in mind.
The ranges on these shells is peculiarly low when considering the 152mm size, however if Russia can only squeeze that range out of this approach, great! Please do leave the field wide open to the 155mm launched LRMP why don’t you Russia, I would love to see how badly that future will kick your ass…
https://news.defcros.com/general-atomics-achieves-successful-testing/