Russian-made BM30 Tornado multi-barrel rocket launcher [data picture]
Russian-made BM30 Tornado multi-barrel rocket launcher [data picture]
For a long time, due to the media and reality, people are only familiar with the MLRS rocket launchers in the United States, while the rockets in the Soviet Union and Russia only stay in a one-sided understanding of the Stalin Organ. In fact, Russia now has the most comprehensive rocket launcher in the world-BM-30 tornado.
origin
After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union and Germany launched a life-and-death fight on the vast land of Russia. The German air-ground coordinated blitzkrieg and the Soviet continuous assault mode with wide front, large depth and strong firepower were verified and developed in the reciprocating confrontation.
The demand of war naturally brings the need of equipment technology progress. The essence of blitzkrieg is to penetrate into the enemy’s depth as soon as possible, and to intimidate the enemy to the maximum extent and deconstruct the enemy’s defense system. If the defensive side is on guard or the defensive line is tight and hierarchical, it will be difficult to achieve the effect of blitzkrieg (such as Moscow in 1941 and Kursk in 1943).
On the Soviet side, the theory of deep assault must meet two conditions in the attack to be effective: rapid breakthrough and deep maneuver. However, for the Germans who are good at making up the gap in the defense line quickly, the former is often difficult to work at one time.
In the operational theory of the Soviet Red Army during World War II, it was emphasized that a large number of concentrated artillery and frontline attack aviation firepower. At that time, the number of radio equipment of the Soviet Red Army was insufficient and its performance was not good, so it could not be equipped to grass-roots units. Naturally, there were no artillery advance observers (or fire guides) from the Western Allied Forces or Nazi German Army in the Red Army. Therefore, when the fire breaks through, we must strictly abide by the timetable stipulated in advance, otherwise it will lead to heavy accidental injury.
The artillery guidance of the American army, which is widely equipped with radios, can provide flexible and mobile real-time support for the frontline infantry in a wide battlefield space. Even private soldiers hiding in foxholes can intercept by radio calling the artillery at the rear.
Although the artillery of the Soviet Red Army projects more firepower per unit time than that of the United States, the Germans are more afraid of American artillery, because the Americans can concentrate most of the firepower on them, with little waste.
After the war, the Soviet artillery summarized the application of artillery in the Great Patriotic War, and also analyzed the artillery tactics and techniques of the German and allied forces in detail. These reports were written into the teaching materials of Soviet command colleges at all levels. When the new generation of Red Army commanders learned about the capabilities of foreign artillery, they also placed high hopes on their own artillery, hoping that they could accurately pour ammunition fired from different positions onto the same target at the same time.
However, the fire control system of Soviet barrel artillery could not meet this requirement at that time, so the Soviet army focused its hopes on rockets that could cover the accuracy with high-density ammunition. At the end of 1970s, with the Soviet army’s operational guiding ideology changing from attacking under the condition of large-scale nuclear assault to conventional assault, a new generation of large-caliber rocket launcher system focusing on accuracy began to be developed and put into service, first of all, the BM-28 hurricane (Uragan) 220mm 16-barrel rocket launcher (design bureau code 9K57). The range of hurricane system is twice as long as that of BM-21 hail (Qrad) system, but it still uses uncontrolled rockets, which is quite scattered. Later, the world’s most advanced Smerch)300 mm 12-barrel rocket launcher system appeared.
System composition
The design model of the tornado rocket launcher is 9A52, and the design bureau of the whole system is 9K58, which was developed by the Splav State Research and Production Association in Tula, Russia, which is also the developer of BM-21 and BM-28 rocket launcher systems.
The 9K58 system was designed and finalized in 1983, and entered the service in 1987. At first, it was 14 tubes. When it was first publicly exhibited at the Asian Defense Exhibition held in Kuala Lumpur in February 1990, it became the current 12-tube style.
Known as M1983 by NATO, this gun is the largest caliber rocket launcher in the Soviet Union (including Russia). It is mainly equipped with the Soviet Army’s long-range rocket artillery brigade. Each brigade has three battalions and three companies under each battalion, and each company is equipped with three 9A32 launch vehicles and one 9T234-2 loading-transport vehicle. There are 27 launch vehicles in the whole brigade.
The Tornado Rocket Brigade is mainly responsible for the fire support in the military combat area, suppressing and annihilating the effective forces and destroying armored targets and artillery companies. At the same time, it can also be strengthened to the main offensive axis divisions to improve the assault fire density and attack the front airports, military division command posts and warehouses of the frontal enemy group army.
In 1989, the more modern 9K58-2 system (known as Tornado -M in foreign arms sales) entered the front line and gradually replaced the old model, shouldering the burden of fire assault on enemy armored units, command centers and aircraft-dropped troops boarding sites within 20-70 kilometers of their own frontiers (the Soviet Union has always been very afraid of the US military’s helicopter leapfrog tactics, and emphasized the timely search and rescue of its troops and assembly sites in the tactical decrees of various arms) and air defense positions.
The 9K58-2 system was changed to a regiment-battalion system, and the whole regiment was assigned to 12 9A32-2 launch vehicles, 3 9T234-2 loading vehicles and 1 command vehicle. The cockpit of 9T234-2 loader is divided into two parts, which are located on both sides of the engine compartment, with the radiator of water tank in the middle. There are 12 rockets to be fired in the rear compartment of the cab, and a hydraulically driven loading crane is installed on the right side of the rear of the car body, with a rotating range of 50 degrees left and 90 degrees right, with a maximum lifting mass of 850 kg. When loading, the loading vehicle is docked with the rear of the launch vehicle, and the loading frame is hung at the rear of the directional launch tube of the launch vehicle for loading. Three operators can load 12 rockets into the launch vehicle within 20 minutes.
Soviet artillery has always attached great importance to the artillery command system. In order to give full play to the great potential of Tornado M system, the Alloy Design Bureau assigned a newly developed Vivari command and control vehicle to it by Kontur production joint venture, and equipped this system to all brigades with basic equipment.
The automatic shooting command system of the feeding cage attached to the tornado rocket launcher brigade (regiment) has been greatly improved on the basis of the previous old model, and has the ability to collect and analyze the target information, concentrate and plan the firepower of the whole brigade, and interact with various intelligence sources, which is basically similar to the Take Fire control and distribution system of the US Army M-270 system. The system is installed in 1K123 shooting command and control vehicle. The command vehicle adopts the chassis of Kamaz)-4310 off-road truck. In order to get rid of special power stations such as oil engines and transformer cars, a generator trailer is towed behind the command vehicle, which can generate electricity by itself, which is a great progress compared with the previous artillery command system. In order to ensure the commander’s comfort, the car is also equipped with air conditioning, filtering ventilation equipment and heating equipment, which can be used for continuous combat for 36 hours.
The command vehicle is equipped with two E-713 computers, comprehensive tactical situation display equipment, C3I terminal and secret communication encryption machine, which can distribute target trajectory data for each launch vehicle. Among them, the E-713 computer is the latest technology in Russia in the 1990s, and it is a special computer for curing programs, with high calculation speed and much smaller volume than the previous generation E-167 special ballistic computer.
Its combat software functions include: receiving, processing, storing, displaying and sending instructions; Report the position and preparation of combat troops upwards, convey attack instructions downwards, specify targets in the form of charts, and give suggestions on fire distribution; Formulate fire plans for concentrated attacks and attacks on enemy columns, and calculate coordinate azimuth; At the same time, the shooting data are calculated for six cyclone rockets, and meteorological reports are provided according to meteorological data. However, the RAM memory used to execute these programs is only 96K, and the ROM memory is 288K, which shows the profound mathematical skills of Russian software engineers.
In order to ensure strong command in frequent maneuvers, the command vehicle adopts two high-frequency radios and two very high-frequency radios, which can ensure reliable radio communication within a distance of 50 kilometers when moving and 350 kilometers when parking. The communication between the command vehicle and the launch vehicle is completed by R-173M VHF radio station, and the communication between the command workshop and the direction is carried out by P-171M10Y HF radio station, and the data exchange between lines is realized through radio relay stations and wired communication lines. If disturbed, the system can connect the standby communication channel within one second and switch to frequency hopping mode, which has strong confidentiality and anti-interference ability.
In addition, it is equipped with a satellite communication vehicle, which can communicate with superiors through communication satellites. In combat, the rocket launcher of the whole brigade (regiment) establishes a communication-data transmission network with the command vehicle as the central station, with 1-2 relay vehicles for forwarding and backup in the middle. The main command task is completed at the central station, but the relay vehicles can also intervene. When the central station is unable to command, the combat software automatically hands over the command to the relay vehicles.
This design actually makes the command structure of the tornado system into a flat mesh structure, rather than the tree-like vertical command mode of the Soviet Union. The command network can forward the information from C3I systems such as satellites and command centers in real time, or send the target data found by reconnaissance vehicles attached to grass-roots fire units to superiors for discrimination. Through this system, the superior commander can directly interact with a single launch vehicle, and different battalions can also transmit information to each other.
In fact, this arrangement has got rid of the tree-like command-communication-information exchange mode from top to bottom in the Soviet Red Army era, and is close to the US military’s Link data link network system. Therefore, it is unfounded for western countries to belittle the command mode of the Russian army blindly.
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