When in 1983 the US adopted the MLRS MLRS, which in its characteristics was comparable to the Soviet system "Uragan", used in 1975, the NATO countries decided that they caught up with the Soviet Union for multiple launch systems. However, they were expecting a surprise. Four years later, in 1987, the "Smerch" installation was put into service with the Soviet Army's artillery regiments.
History of creation
In the task to develop a new reactive system, in addition to the traditional tasks of destroying equipment, weapons, manpower, airfields and staffs, the destruction of tactical missiles was also placed before it. To do this, it was necessary to increase the accuracy and range of fire. For the development of such a system, the Tula State Research and Production Enterprise "Splav", at which many missile installations of Russia were designed, took the design. General Designer was Alexander Nikitovich Ganichev, and after his death - Denezhkin Gennady.
Design and features
At the very beginning of the work, designers faced one significant problem. All missile installations in Russia and the world, starting with the legendary Katyusha, with increasing range of fire lost their main advantage - the volley defeat of the target did not work, the large dispersion of missiles affected. To eliminate this drawback, for the first time in the world, a correction of the flight of the mentioned ammunition in the angles of pitch and yaw was applied. As a result of using a unique control system, accuracy was achieved in two, and accuracy was three times higher than that of similar foreign volley-fire installations. In addition, the shell uses a more advanced solid propellant engine. All these innovations make it possible to consider that the "Smerch" installation is a weapon of a fundamentally new level, which has no analogues in terms of range and striking firepower, the destruction of armored vehicles and the live forces of a probable enemy.
Ammunition kit
RCD "Smerch" - installation of salvo fire. It has 12 starting guide tubes, respectively, in the ammunition set includes 12 rockets of different types. Let's consider some of them. The 9M55K shell has a head part with fragmentation elements. Designed to defeat unarmored equipment and manpower in the open. The 9M55K1 shell contains self-targeting combat elements. Designed to destroy the top of armored vehicles and tanks. The 9M55K3 and K4 missiles are used for anti-personnel and anti-tank mine clearance, respectively. The head part of the 9M55K5 is equipped with 646 combat elements with a cumulative fragmentation effect. They punched 120 mm of homogeneous armor and are most effective against motorized infantry moving in infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers. The 9M55F missile contains a detachable high-explosive fragmentation warhead. Destroys the living force, communication nodes, headquarters, military-industrial facilities. The most destructive projectile to the "Smerch" is 9M55S, equipped with a thermobaric warhead (the so-called volumetric blast bomb, or vacuum bomb). The materials of state tests, where the effectiveness of its use was determined, are classified.
At the present time, based on the above ammunition, new missiles have been developed with an extended range of 90 kilometers. It should be noted one more non-standard warhead. This is a missile with an unmanned aerial vehicle, which is designed to monitor the enemy and conduct reconnaissance for half an hour, and also has a high degree of invulnerability due to small size.
The composition of the MLRS complex
The volley installation "Smerch" consists of a combat vehicle 9A52, built on the basis of a four-axle chassis of high-pass MAZ-543. It is equipped with a package of 12 tube-shaped guides, radio communication facilities, and fire control equipment. To load the launcher, a transport-loading machine is used, which has an index 9T234, also on the chassis MAZ-543. The export version of MLRS provides, at the request of the customer, the replacement of the car "Tatra-816". This is due to the fact that in some countries, for example in India, there is a well-developed service of this firm. To ensure effective combat use of the unit, the following are used: the AOO (Automatic Fire Control) 9S729M1 "Slepok-1" complex on the KamAZ-43114 chassis ("Tatra-T815"); Car for topographic survey (index 1Т12-2М, GAZ-66); Meteorological radiolocation complex 1B44 "Smile" ("Ural-43203").
Countries with RCDOs
By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "Smerch" installation was in service with three regiments of rocket artillery. The 336th Regiment remained in Byelorussia after 1991, 337 in Russia, and 371 in Ukraine. In addition to the above states, the installations serve in Azerbaijan, Algeria, Venezuela, Georgia, India, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Peru and Turkmenistan. Some of the military vehicles to these countries were delivered directly by Rosoboronexport, and some were sold from Soviet reserves to Ukraine and Belarus. China produces SCD "Smerch" under license on its chassis.
Perspective developments
In modern Russia, new missile systems are being developed. A photo of one of them is presented to your attention. This is the Kama installation on a new KamAZ-6350 chassis with 6 guides instead of 12, which was first demonstrated at the MAKS-2007 aerospace show. Also, the development of the new generation of the Tornado is being continued, which will soon be put on combat duty both in the Russian army and in the armed forces of other states.