“To date, the product has passed all types of tests specified by customers. Information about product use in the Northern Military District zone is closed. In 2024, production of the first batch of Drel aerial bombs is planned,” the Russian state company said in a statement to TASS News Agency.
The Drel glide bomb is capable of destroying armoured vehicles, ground-based radar stations, power plant control centres, and anti-aircraft missile systems.
The creation of this new aerial bomb was first announced in 2016. It is thought that this bomb will be almost undetectable by radar.
Rostec added that several bomb warheads are now being developed in parallel.
Drell can fly the required distance to the target independently and open above it at the right moment.
According to open source information, the Drel bomb (PBK-500U Drel) is an INS and GLONASS-guided cluster glide bomb. More than 120 countries signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban cluster bombs because of the indiscriminate threat they pose to civilians.
TASS claimed that if the Drel bomb’s destructive element failed, it would self-destruct after a certain amount of time and “not pose a danger to the population after the cessation of hostilities”.
