Can "Polonaises" and "Tornado-S" knock out MLRS HIMARS in Ukraine

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The war on the territory of Ukraine continues to include more and more new participants. If the entire collective West came out on the side of the Kyiv regime, supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, then Iran, judging by the whole wave of reports in the media, began to supply its attack drones for the needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Also, a Russian-Indian manufacturing company made a proposal to supply Brahmos anti-ship missiles for the Russian Navy. Now the press is circulating rumors about the possibility of our army purchasing the Belarusian-Chinese MLRS "Polonaise". Should I accept this help?

Between MLRS and OTRK


The real "star" of the armed conflict in Ukraine was the American HIMARS multiple launch rocket system. Depending on the modification, it can be either wheeled or tracked, carry six MLRS rockets with a range of up to 80 kilometers or one ATACMS tactical ballistic missile capable of flying up to 300 kilometers. In the latest version, HIMARS turns into an OTRK (operational-tactical missile system). A link with the American satellite system makes this MLRS/OTRK a truly dangerous weapon, which allows you to see everything that happens in Ukraine, select targets for destruction in real time and transmit their coordinates to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.



Unfortunately, we have to admit that our adversary quite effectively uses all the capabilities of HIMARS to destroy command posts and headquarters, warehouses with ammunition, fuel and lubricants, railway and road bridges necessary to supply the Russian group. The Armed Forces of Ukraine guard the American MLRS like the apple of their eye, creating many false targets for which the RF Armed Forces have to spend expensive cruise missiles. The question arises - how can we answer this challenge?

The answer is not as simple as we would like. Since Russia is not officially at war with the United States, the American satellite constellation is untouchable for us. Ukrainian air defense, alas, has not yet been suppressed, it is unsafe to freely fly our aircraft over the entire Nezalezhnaya, to put it mildly. Until recently, there were problems with reconnaissance and strike drones, of which there was a clear shortage at the front. There is reason to hope that the appearance of Iranian drones in service with the allied forces can change a lot for the better. There are also some issues with the cost of a shot. Hitting expensive Iskanders, Calibers or Onyxes on a variety of targets, most of which are deliberately false, is quite expensive.

The "weapon of victory" should be simpler, more massive and cheaper. And here the Polonaise MLRS, a product of the Belarusian-Chinese cooperation, suddenly appeared on the scene. Wishing not to depend on the Russian Iskanders, President Lukashenko once applied for a militarytechnical help to Beijing. As a result, an interesting “hybrid” appeared: a mobile launcher for eight 301-mm Chinese A200 missiles on the Belarusian MZKT-7930 chassis. The American edition of Military Watch Magazine considered that Minsk could sell these MLRS to Moscow for use in a special operation in Ukraine. How appropriate would that be?

Indeed, technically speaking, this is just what the doctor ordered. "Polonaise" occupies a successful niche between the Russian "Tornado" and "Tornado", on the one hand, and OTRK "Iskander-M", on the other. Chinese missiles of 301 mm caliber have a range of up to 200 km, and in the updated Polonaise-M - all 290 km. That is, it is a direct competitor to HIMARS with its long-range ATACMS missiles. At the same time, the cost of firing a Chinese missile can be several times cheaper than that of cruise missiles in service with the RF Armed Forces and the Russian Navy. If it were possible to “marry” the use of Iranian reconnaissance drones for target designation and the Belarusian “Polonaise”, big problems would arise already in the rear of the enemy. However, there are serious difficulties with the practical implementation of such a task.

At first, Belarus has corny little produced such MLRS. In the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, they are in service with some 6 pieces, another 10 were acquired by Azerbaijan.

Secondly, missiles for the Polonaises are produced by China, which emphatically distances itself from sponsoring Russia's participation in the conflict in Ukraine. If Iran, which is under sanctions with its drones, has almost nothing to lose, then China has.

However, if desired, large-scale production of MLRS can be resumed, and Beijing could transfer a license to Minsk for the production of ammunition for the Polonaise. It is even possible that Chinese missiles would simply be labeled “made in Belarus”, as with cheeses, apples, shrimp and other sanctioned products. There would be a desire.

In the meantime, the Russian Tornado-S MLRS is an alternative to the Polonaise and a competitor to HIMARS. This is a deep modernization of the BM-30 Smerch tactical missile system, which is a 300-mm multi-shot missile launcher mounted on a carrier in the form of a KamAZ-63501 military truck. Especially for her, a new 300-mm rocket with a range of up to 200 kilometers was developed. As target designation, the Tornado-S will use the GLONASS satellite constellation, as well as data received from drones and reconnaissance units.

In general, the fighting on the territory of Ukraine showed that the MLRS / OTRK niche with a high-precision munition flight range of up to 200-300 kilometers is extremely relevant. Both "Polonaises" and "Tornado-S" can find their application in it.
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19 comments
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  1. +1
    19 September 2022 17: 09
    Yes, the question is not in weapons, but in tactics! HIMARS is by no means a prodigy, all the more so a strange product in general. The advantages of the MLRS are precisely in its low cost and coverage area. Does it make sense to make an expensive parody of high-precision out of it? And the problems with HIMARS are from the fact that he is naughty and quickly dumps. Very difficult to catch. But the Tornado behaves the same way! Which also has high-precision ammunition .. Why then support another bourgeois legend?
    1. 0
      24 September 2022 18: 44
      It is attractive to use Brahmoses, Polonaise and "pure Chinese" a little for POLITICAL reasons, BUT only if they do not mind, and only a little - to test tactics with a bunch of "UAV - MLRS with precision ammunition" (until "accurate" Tornado BCs are made t in abundance).
      This would involuntarily motivate them to more support (for them, there is also a considerable political and economic bonus - weapons advertising, testing in combat conditions).
      But in general, this is hardly realistic, even Iran supplies UAVs in the form of kits, but they are used in general under a different name. India and China have a lot to lose.
      One hope for the DPRK.
  2. +2
    19 September 2022 19: 20
    connection with the American satellite system, which allows you to see everything that happens in Ukraine, select targets for destruction in real time and transmit their coordinates to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

    To hit a target with even a cheap projectile, even with an expensive missile, you need real-time coordinates of the target. If we can’t hit, then the question arises: do we have a satellite guidance system?
    Or can we hit all targets only at random or with short-term detection or with long-term decoding of images when the Target has long been in another place ?!
  3. 0
    19 September 2022 20: 19
    To transfer a license is to fall under sanctions. You may not notice copying. And, behind the scenes, help with the development of production. For example, the dismissal of their employees from these factories, and employment at a factory in Belarus, or in Russia. Privately. PMCs exist. And officially, without soiling the country in complicity. Why not take as an example? Soviet instructors with Chinese surnames were often at the front with Chiang Kai-shek.
  4. 0
    19 September 2022 20: 30
    Quote: Wanderer Polente
    "connection with the American satellite system, which allows you to see everything that happens in Ukraine, select targets for destruction in real time and transmit their coordinates to the Armed Forces of Ukraine" ...
    To hit a target with even a cheap projectile, even with an expensive missile, you need real-time coordinates of the target. If we can’t hit, then the question arises: do we have a satellite guidance system?
    Or can we hit all targets only at random or with short-term detection or with long-term decoding of images when the Target has long been in another place ?!

    It is not known that the satellite circles the Earth for one and a half to two hours. depending on the height of the orbit. And in the repetition, it appears only after a turn. Not all satellites have orbits, flying over the region of interest in Ukraine. To observe like this, from orbit, and in real time, moreover. CONSTANTLY, you need to have hundreds of thousands of them in orbit. Or launch them in smaller numbers, but into an orbit SPECIALLY chosen for Donetsk, Lugansk, Dnieper, and so on. Further. The Coriolis forces push the satellite aside and the same satellite does not fly over the same point as last time. This means that you need to manage them, as in a relay race. I realized that I asked not a smart question? We need drones that can hang around the clock where they need to. A lot of. Amers have a cloud of starlinks. We do not have.
  5. 0
    19 September 2022 21: 43
    In my opinion, the whole problem is to "marry" intelligence from satellites or from drones with missile systems in real time, that is, the processing delay is no more than 2-5 seconds. With the accuracy of hitting an already designated target, I think we have no problems.
    1. 0
      2 October 2022 11: 56
      This is absolutely true.
  6. +1
    19 September 2022 21: 45
    As of September 11, 2022, SpaceX launched 62 Starlink satellites, + Japan + Europe + USA, into orbit during 9 Falcon 3291 launches. This entire space system works for Ukraine. And the Russian Federation has two orders of magnitude fewer satellites. It’s bad with space in the Russian Federation now, this is not the USSR for you.
    1. -4
      20 September 2022 11: 19
      Why didn't the USSR, which was doing well, launch 3 satellites?
  7. -5
    19 September 2022 22: 06
    If the missile is guided, then this is no longer a MLRS. Each missile has an individual target and guidance.
    And a guided missile cannot be cheap, by definition.
    For unguided missiles, we have a chic lineup of Grad, Hurricane, Smerch. Upgraded options - the Tornado family. Including guided missiles.
    There's another great option, Bal. Works both by sea and by land. With the Kh35U missile, the range is 260 km. 8 guides. Warhead - 145 kg. GOS. Tested in Syria.
    It is necessary further and more reliably - Bastion, there are Onyx rockets, supersonic. Onyx M - up to 800 km.
    Why not use? In NWO, a lot of things are not used. Western experts are surprised.
    But probably because the SVO sets goals, among other things, to reveal all the characteristics of Western weapons (including the resource), without highlighting its own to the maximum. It's not like the time has come. Ukraine will not end.
    1. +1
      20 September 2022 12: 35
      And what is "everything" - then?
      The most important thing is connected with Ukraine: the destruction of the revived fascism, unfinished in the 45th, the assimilation of territories in the Russian Federation, the re-education of the population, etc. etc.
      The rest of the world (except for individual Europeans) froze in anticipation of who will take. Some countries are being cautious, imitating solidarity with Russia, but in a veiled way, so that after the victory of Russia (doubts?) they immediately shout Hooray! And such as Poland, the Baltic states, etc. - kamikaze. However, "if you were born a baobab, then ..." (V. Vysotsky).
  8. 0
    20 September 2022 11: 30
    Unfortunately, we have to admit that our adversary quite effectively uses all the capabilities of HIMARS to destroy command posts and headquarters, warehouses with ammunition, fuel and lubricants, railway and road bridges necessary to supply the Russian group.

    Where are the firewood from? something like that is not in the news. On the contrary, the media wrote that nonsense HIMARS. It has also been posted here before.

    And the rest is also not news. HIMARS - for accurate single fire, a lot of articles have been written a long time ago.
    MLRS - for a "lunar landscape" with a spread (previously it was promoted as a global advantage), although there are also high-precision ones ...
    That is, there are simply goals of different types. And how they are applied is a matter for the leadership of the army ... and prices, which are usually silent about ...
  9. 0
    27 September 2022 10: 53
    our air defenses shoot down these "chimeras" very easily! The whole problem with these "chimeras" is that they are indeed accurate, and our air defense is not deployed along the entire line of contact with the Ukronat troops! Much bigger problems, oddly enough, are created for us by the usual 155mm artillery, which shells peaceful settlements liberated from the Ukronazi henchmen of the West! No, so far, there are no means of combating shells, although in theory it is not difficult to shoot down a metal blank filled with explosives, if not for the size of the blank! Returning to the chimera, it surprises me that Sergey Marzhetsky's data about "... quite effectively uses all the capabilities of HIMARS to destroy command posts and headquarters, warehouses with ammunition, fuel and fuels and lubricants, railway and road bridges necessary to supply the Russian group." One example: Daryevka - Antonovsky bridge was beaten and beaten with chimeras on the Soviet-built bridge, hell knows how many packages of chimeras and ... THE BRIDGE IS STANDING!
  10. 0
    2 October 2022 15: 39
    can
    need overexposure
    destroy enemy satellites
  11. The comment was deleted.
  12. 0
    13 October 2022 19: 53
    Polonaise-m is no different from rszo Tornado-s. Also packed in square guides. The whole value and effectiveness of our MLRS is that it is an area weapon. For example, a tornado with a distance of 120 km can destroy several tens of hectares. Shots over longer distances up to 200 km can be somehow stabilized with gas rudders, anyway this is not a continuous defeat, with gaps. This means that efficiency decreases, the price increases many times, this is already closer to tactical missiles. The farther the distance, the smaller the warhead due to the seeker, fuel, and other electronic filling. Russia has long had missiles for tornadoes and tornadoes with a range of over 200 tons. . They have already been tested in Syria and Ukraine. But their effectiveness is not so great compared to Iskander. Also brk Bastion, brk Balom, who were taught to destroy ground targets. With a whole family of aviation missiles from hypersonic to cruise missiles. For example, Hymars has only one rocket in the cassette up to 300 km. it is 630mm in diameter. That's for terror, for the destruction of bridges, houses, more suitable. But there is no great military effect from them.
  13. 0
    16 November 2022 22: 40
    All the imaginary "merits" of Highmore are in his vile attacks on civilian targets. And the media is spreading it in all corners, making him an advertisement. Yes, an accurate weapon, but nothing can change. As Surovikin said, even nuclear weapons will not help Ukraine, but will only aggravate the situation. And this system is not able to change the course of the special operation in the direction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, even though all NATO is fighting against Russia. Mistakes are made, maneuvers to more advantageous positions. one or another tactic of conducting battles is chosen and corrected, but in general, if you look at the results even with the "unaided eye", you can clearly see that even with an advantage in manpower (so far) the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffer huge, inadequate, and incomparable losses in manpower strength and technique. And if Surovikin is given permission for more powerful strikes against the enemy and civilian targets, which he requested in order not to waste the lives of soldiers, then the results will be disastrous for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine as a whole. And it will be right, otherwise it has already come to the point that they live an ordinary life in the Western world, and even Russian children wish death. Let them feel a little.
    Many imagine only theoretically all these systems, but write huge articles with analytics. Highmore can only theoretically be called a MLRS. MLRS is an area weapon in the first place, and this is its main merit. And as soon as the first Tornado-s complexes with guided munitions up to 120 km were sent to the NVO, everyone immediately squealed. And in the arsenal of the Tornado there are also ammunition with a range of up to 200 km. So far, their use in the NWO is not reported. And Highmore with such a range does not have six shells in the installation, but only one shell with a diameter of 600mm, and the power is different compared to the Tornado. As for Polonaise, there is no need to build any incomprehensible assumptions. This is one to one our MLRS Smerch / Tornado. It all depends on the ammo. Much depends on the guidance system tied to Glonass. Most likely, the Polonaise is also connected to the Russian system, but this is not today's conversation.
  14. 0
    17 November 2022 06: 26
    I don’t know who writes about the inefficiency of the Hymers, it’s complete nonsense, I myself saw the destruction left by them, they hit exactly in the deep rear of the LDNR and you don’t have to write that they hit residential buildings and buildings, and that they say there is no military effectiveness, all the destruction that I saw a kindergarten , college, hotel, the Russian military was located everywhere, in short, where I was in the deep rear of the LPR, four Khaimars raids, three on the military, one on the weapons depot, everything is right on target and the destruction is serious, very effective weapons and Russia should be no worse anyway
  15. 0
    15 January 2023 00: 04
    In the arsenal of the new MLRS Tornado-s, another long-range missile-projectile has appeared, which fully corresponds to the class of operational-tactical high-precision missiles. It aims at the target, the coordinates of which will be added to the memory of the projectile before launch, using the GLONASS signal. Flight correction is made by gas-dynamic rudders.
    As Nikolai Makarovets, general designer of NPO Splav, told Izvestiya in February last year, the maximum deviation from the target does not exceed one meter. And the range is several hundred kilometers.
    In this case, both single firing and salvo firing with a different number of shells in a salvo are possible.
    Significant changes were made to the procedure for preparing for firing.
    In the Smerch, the transport-loading vehicle sequentially equips each guide with 800-kilogram rockets. This takes 20 minutes or more. In the "Tornado-S" on the combat vehicle with a crane in one step, the entire package is installed at once, consisting of guides equipped with shells. It is clear that for this it was necessary to seriously modernize the transport-loading machine.
  16. 0
    16 January 2023 16: 58
    Actually, HIMARS MLRS with missiles with a range of up to 300 km or more, only one in the installation. with a diameter of more than 600 mm and a length of 3.9 m. The RSZO Polonaise has four missiles. And the RSZO Tornado, with them, as in the usual version, has 12 guides. In addition, according to reports from the NPO Splav in the public domain, another long-range missile-projectile has appeared in the arsenal of the new Tornado-s MLRS, which fully corresponds to the class of operational-tactical high-precision missiles. It aims at the target, the coordinates of which will be added to the memory of the projectile before launch, using the GLONASS signal. Flight correction is made by gas-dynamic rudders.