Orlan-10 / Orlan-30

Record

Conflict relevance

This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.

Operators

Battlefield role

Artillery spotting, battle-damage assessment and target-hunting for the reconnaissance-strike loop that pairs it with Lancet and guided artillery; the Orlan-30 adds laser designation for precision rounds.

Strengths

Cheap enough to lose in quantity without operational cost; catapult launch and parachute recovery need no infrastructure; long endurance at altitudes awkward for short-range air defence; the airframe base for electronic-warfare payload variants.

Limitations

Unarmed and slow; wreck analyses have repeatedly documented dependence on sanctioned Western commercial components, making its supply chain a standing sanctions-enforcement target; jammable links.

Campaign relevance

Derived: a participant organisation in these campaigns carries a typed equipment association with this system. That is not the same as documented use of the system in the campaign itself.

• The Ukrainian counteroffensives, 2022–2023 September 2022 – November 2023

  via Ground Forces (Documented, high confidence)

• The eastern attritional campaign Since April 2022

  via Ground Forces (Documented, high confidence)

Visual identification

Small grey monoplane of roughly three-metre span with a front-mounted piston propeller, straight unswept wing and V-tail; launched from a folding catapult rail, recovered by parachute.

Documented conflict use

In documented use since the Donbas war and ubiquitous throughout the full-scale invasion; downed airframes are among the most commonly documented Russian equipment losses, and their recovered components underpin much of the public sanctions-evasion reporting.

Branch & service operators

• Ground Forces Documented