Tag Archives: RSZO

Contract for Tornado-S MLRS

Posted on September 29, 2019 | 5 comments

Tornado-S

According to Kommersant, Perm-based ZAO Special Design Bureau (SKB) received a contract worth 6-7 billion rubles ($93-$108 million) to produce 20 combat systems for the Russian MOD. The paper’s sources say the contract is for Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and transport-reload vehicles. The equipment is to be delivered in 2020.

The 12-tube, 300-mm Tornado-S (9K515) MLRS is a “deeply modernized” version of the Smerch. It reportedly features GLONASS satellite navigation, automated fire control, and 9M542 PGMs. Unlike earlier systems, Tornado-S gives specific flight profile data to each rocket. Its effective range is 120 km.

Tornado-S first entered the inventory in late 2016. Smerch was accepted for service in 1989.

The new 9K515 weapons system includes the 9A54 launch vehicle and 9T255 transport-reload vehicle.

Tornado-S and TZM

The 20 systems in the contract likely include 16 launch vehicles (two battalions of eight) and four transport-reload vehicles (two per launch battalion).

The Russian MOD is using new Tornado-S MLRS to build a heavy rocket launcher brigade at the district level in each of its four MDs. In Soviet times, each MD (front) disposed of its own rocket launcher brigade, typically four battalions of 18 40-tube, 122-mm BM-21 Grad systems.

Those “brigades” look like this now:

  • Western MD…Tver…79th Brigade…three battalions of Tornado-S…12 launchers.
  • Southern MD…Znamensk…439th Brigade…??? battalions of Tornado-S…??? launchers.
  • Central MD…Shchuchye…232nd Brigade…two battalions of 220-mm Uragan…16 launchers.
  • Eastern MD…Novosysoyevka…338th Brigade…2-3 battalions of Uragan…16-18 launchers.

But these are more like rocket battalions than the brigades of old days.

The first Tornado-S deployments began in 2017 in the Western MD and continued in the Southern MD in early 2019.

It seems likely the Tornado-S systems due in 2020 will go to the Central or Eastern MD before the Western or Southern get more.

Kommersant detailed the poor financial status of ZAO SKB. Its parent, long-time sole producer of Russian MLRS Motovilikhinskiye Plants is bankrupt. SKB was split away to keep creditors at bay. The rest of Motovilikha is supposed to retool to make civilian products. The growing problem of insolvency in Russia’s OPK is worthy of a look.

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Posted in Defense Industry, Force Modernization, Ground Troops

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Ground Troops and the GOZ

Posted on March 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Buk-M2 (SA-17 / Grizzly)

Discussions of service wish-lists for State Armaments Program (GPV) 2011-2020 have tended to overlook the Ground Troops.  It seems they don’t enjoy the same priority as other services.

But in late February and early March, there was a flurry of press detailing what the land forces intend to procure, at least in the short term. 

Arms-expo.ru, Lenta.ru, and other media outlets put out brief items on Ground Troops’ acquisition.  They indicated the Ground Troops will emphasize air defense, command and control, fire support, and BTRs and support vehicles.

But the best run-down of all came from Ground Troops CINC General-Colonel Aleksandr Postnikov himself in Krasnaya zvezda.

Postnikov told the Defense Ministry daily that the main feature of GOZ-2011 is the transition from the repair and modernization of existing systems to the purchase of new, modern ones to reequip Ground Troops formations and units completely.

First and foremost, according to the CINC, the Ground Troops will buy modern digital communications equipment and tactical-level automated command and control systems (ASU), like Polyana-D4M1 for air defense brigades.  He said Ground Troops’ Air Defense will also receive modernized S-300V4 systems, Buk-M2 and Buk-M3, short-range Tor-M2U(M) SAMs, and manportable Igla-S and Verba SAMs.

Postnikov says they will continue equipping missile and artillery brigades with the Iskander-M, new MLRS, self-propelled Khosta and Nona-SVK guns, Khrisantema-S antitank missiles and Sprut-SD antitank guns.

The Ground Troops CINC says he foresees purchases of a new modification of the BTR-82A, BREM-K armored recovery vehicles built on a BTR-80 base and BREM-L on a BMP-3 base, Iveco, Tigr, and Volk armored vehicles, and new KamAZ trucks from the Mustang series.

NBC defense (RKhBZ) troops will get the heavy flamethrower system TOS-1A, RPO PDM-A thermobaric missiles with increased range and power, and VKR airborne radiological reconnaissance systems.  Engineering units will get the newest water purification system on a KamAZ chassis (SKO-10/5).

In the longer term, Postnikov sees rearmament as one of his main tasks, and he repeated President Medvedev’s statement that the Ground Troops should have 30 percent modern equipment by 2015, and 70 percent by 2020.  He laid special stress on getting YeSU TZ into the troops.  Postnikov’s Glavkomat has a Concept for the Development of the Ground Troops Armament System to 2025 emphasizing standardization, multi-functionality, modular construction, and electronic compatibility across several general areas:  armor and military vehicles, tube artillery and MLRS, SSMs, antitank systems, air defense, reconnaissance-information support, UAVs, communications, automated command and control, and soldier and close combat systems.

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