Request: Could you identify this hardware?

Hi, I came across this photo very recently (thanks Andy-ua) and found it rather interesting:



I find it interesting because I have not seen a lot of mortar carriers based on the MTLB even though I had assumed they were in service.
You can see the tube in this picture and it seems to be a 120mm weapon looking at the length of the tube with the muzzle device that prevents double loading, and by the size of the base plate attached to the front of the vehicle presumably for firing the mortar dismounted.

I was wondering how widespread such vehicles are. Have they replaced towed models that were presumably towed by MTLBs previously.
Anyone know the designation?
Is it a 2Sxx where xx is a number self propelled artillery designation or is it something else?

?????

Are we looking at the same photo NC?

The clearly visible gun above the front crew position is a 12.7 NSVT.
To its left (in the photo) is a flat screen with a sun shade above it and behind the screen and sunshade is a single thick barrel sticking up with a mechanism on the muzzle to prevent double loading.
The barrel sticking up behind the screen is either an 82mm or more likely a 120mm mortar.

The cone shaped thing under the nose of the vehicle is a mortar base plate which is used with the mortar when it is dismounted from the vehicle, though I suspect the mortar can be fired from the vehicle and is most of the time.

I am guessing the screen is for firing data for the mortar unit.

Thanks for the replies.

I am surprised the Russians don't have custom made vehicles like this, I remember mention of a BMP mortar carrier, but the only vehicles I know of in Russian service are vehicles like NONA etc that generally have turrets rather than dismountable mortars.

BTW thanks Andy for those photo sets, I particularly liked the Kazakh Mig-27s dropping ordinance... and I believe glimpses of the MTLB with SHTURM/ATAKA missiles.

I clicked on the thanks button for Medo, and the + button for psg but I will have to wait till tomorrow to reward you Andy...

Exactly.

The unit itself years ago was likely an MTLB that was simply used as a tractor to tow the mortar around the battlefield behind it and it had the mortar crew and ammo inside the MTLB so the MTLB would tow the mortar to the area it was going to fire from and then move back out of the way while the mortar team engaged their target. When the team was ready to move again the MTLB would come back and they would hook the mortar to the vehicle and load the crew and remaining ammo back into the MTLB and drive to a new position. If the MTLB stayed with the mortar team it would be able to move away faster but it would also be easier to locate by the enemy.

At some point the money was clearly available to modify the MTLB to allow the mortar to fire from within the vehicle, but it is pretty much the same unit with the same crew etc.

Sometimes it might be more useful to dismount the mortar and fire from an unexpected direction or from a different angle... remember mortars are ideal for mountainous steep country and there are lots of places where even a vehicle with great cross country performance like an MTLB can't manoeuvre so dismounting the mortar and carrying it up the side of a hill to a better firing position makes sense. Locating the baseplate under the nose of the vehicle is a simple way of improving the frontal protection of the vehicle from small arms fire and at the same time offering a place to store the base plate if it is needed and also putting some weight on the front... because the rear mounted mortar tube will add weight to the back.

I have seen mortars like the 82mm Vasilek automatic mortar lashed to the rear of BTRs and MTLBs and other vehicles in war zones, but I have not seen a mortar setup like this where the mortar is inside the troop area of an APC.

It seems that the Russians went from towing mortars to putting them in customised turrets with the exception of their very biggest. The 2S9 Nona is a BMD chassis with a 120mm mortar in a turret, the 2S23 Nona-SVK is BTR-80 with a 120mm mortar in a turret, the 2S31Vena is a BMP-3 based system with a 120mm mortar in a large turret, the 2S34 Hosta is a 2S1 122mm howitzer with the main gun replaced with a 120mm gun mortar in a turret.
The exception of course is the 2S4 which has a mortar too big for a conventional turret.

The 120mm mortar has good range and has a much more effective shell than an 82mm mortar while at the same time it is not too big to be difficult to operate/support.

RBK-250 (250 kg cluster bomb) with ZAB-2.5M 2.5kg incendiary cluster munitions (holds 51 submunitions)

RBK-500 with what appear to be concrete piercing submunitions... (12)

and in the lower part of the second photo...

RBK-500 with AO-2.5RTM with fragmentation submunitions... (108)

ZB-500ShM Incendiary container.

ODAB-500PM Fuel Air Explosive bomb.

The last picture is tricky... it looks like a MER (multiple ejector rack) offset to one side... normally it would have several positions for 250kg or 100kg bombs, but to be honest looking at the age of the aircraft (ie wingtip ATGMs) it might be disinformation... have seen a similar helo with R-60MKs.

Yes, that is what I thought... MER or multiple (bomb) ejector rack, but it is more often used on large aircraft like a Tu-22M3 where one pylon rated for up to 7 tons payload would be wasted carrying one bomb even if it was quite a big one.

The thing is that MERs don't have rings on them... and it appears to be angled to one side.

Could possibly be an early Strela/igla launcher...