Tactical Ballistic Missiles Thread:

Tochka-U

Terrorists Scuds weapons into Georgia you mean!

isn`t that Iskander M missile?

Sukhoi37_Terminator wrote:isn`t that Iskander M missile?

Tochka-U

They used like 15 of those against georgia, right?
Ouch, that hurts X_x

does anybody know where the missiles were fired from? from the video it looks like it was in the mountains on the south side of the Roki tunnel. But I wonder if they had the reach to be fired on the north side of the tunnel...

My understanding is that Tochka-U has a range of about 120km and can be fitted with an electro-optical guidance system that gives it a CEP of less than 10m.

An excellent all weather weapon to blunt Georgian aggression.

GarryB wrote:My understanding is that Tochka-U has a range of about 120km and can be fitted with an electro-optical guidance system that gives it a CEP of less than 10m.

An excellent all weather weapon to blunt Georgian aggression.

It only has a CEP of 30m using interial navigation. It was way before elctro-optical guidance was popular in Russia.

Even 30m is not bad when the warhead is anti armour cluster munitions to take out a group of military vehicles parked in a large square for example.

Due to its flight speed you get much less warning, and of course there is no risk to a pilot so it can be used in the worst weather in the most heavily defended areas.

A very nice weapon.

The Tochka-U and the Iskander-E can use the same EO homing head that officially is given a firing accuracy of 10-20m. I distinctly remember reading reports of tests showing 6m was the average miss distance due to low wind speeds near the target area.

Hi all,
I am looking for peoples views on the Frog-7, Tochka, and Iskander. As most people know the Frog-7 and Tochka are still in service with many countries, but what i want to know is what people on the forum think on the aspect of how useful these two systems are on todays battlefield. The frog-7 has problems with accuracy, and both systems havent had any serious upgrades in years.

On the aspect of the Iskander whats does people think on the forum of the use of this system being adopted by countries who dont have a nuclear deterrent, and using it as a non-nuclear deterrent. I personally think the iskander is a suitable deterrent against neighbouring countries. Any views or anything you want to build on would be great.

I am looking for peoples views on the Frog-7, Tochka, and Iskander. As most people know the Frog-7 and Tochka are still in service with many countries, but what i want to know is what people on the forum think on the aspect of how useful these two systems are on todays battlefield. The frog-7 has problems with accuracy, and both systems havent had any serious upgrades in years.

The primary effective use of Frog, and indeed Scud was to deliver a large payload of chemical or biological weapons, or indeed nuclear rounds quickly and efficiently to the enemies immediate rear.

Don't think of them as just HE delivery systems... they were intended to deliver chemical agents to enemy staging areas, storage areas, and even front line airfields where accuracy is not critical but everyone has to put on masks and NBC suits... the chemicals will be non persistent so by the time the soviet troops arrived they could fight without NBC kit... which will disrupt enemy preparation for the attack, but not hinder friendly forces.

HE rounds would be mixed in of course to add to the chaos.

The Iskander however has changed things because the order of magnitude increase in accuracy point targets can now be engaged with single missiles with a high confidence of a kill even using cluster munitions and conventional HE warheads.

In many ways FROG is replaced by a combination of Tochka and Smerch, while Scud has been replaced by Iskander but it is more fundamental than that because the enormous increase in accuracy means brute force NBC type payloads that were previously needed to make the systems effective are no longer critical.

Unless you know a guy that can get you lots and lots of FROGs... I would actually look at Smerch as an alternative, but very powerful rocket delivery system.

Tochka and Iskander would be strategic weapons for Scotland as they would be able to hit point targets near now "foreign" capitals...

God save the Queen!  

Frog-7 is an outdated weapon for a doctrine and a time that is non applicable to most users, but Tochka is still a beast.

They were really important in 8-8-8 war, delivering hits (among other targets) to Georgian troop concentrations and causing rapid dispersal of several Georgian reserve units.

thanks for the replies,

The majority of armies that have frog-7 dont have chemical weapons, and are armed with HE rockets, so the accuracy problem does become a problem, the rocket does pack a punch though. I am surprised someone hasnt came up with an upgrade to make accuracy better due to the number of systems still in service. I am sure some forces would want them upgraded.


Tochka is definately still very useful and a good deterrent, shame no upgrades either. I think Iskander would be an ideal deterrent for most countries seeking a non-nuclear deterrent, and for an independent Scotland this would be a great pleaser to many, as it would please the people who dont want nuclear weapons on Scottish soil anymore and it would also please those who still want to have a deterrant, and it would be much cheaper than nuclear weapons. Does anyone know how effective Iskander would be against moving ships/frigates etc? and just as a stab in the dark against submarines? could it be possible to damage subs which are close to the surface???? and how would ships air defence cope against it? would it stand a chance at engaging the iskander missle??????

The majority of armies that have frog-7 dont have chemical weapons, and are armed with HE rockets, so the accuracy problem does become a problem, the rocket does pack a punch though. I am surprised someone hasnt came up with an upgrade to make accuracy better due to the number of systems still in service. I am sure some forces would want them upgraded.

For most of the countries that use them the enemy is a city or region, the precise location of specific enemy units is rarely known... they are near this or that.

Firing a concentration of rockets where the enemy concentrates its forces is usually enough, but I suspect that some sort of inertial guidance package... these days using GLONASS could be applied to make them rather more valuable.

The main problem for the users is to determine the precise coordinates of the target in a timely fashion to make an attack useful.

The Tochka and Iskander are both in service in Russia and likely share guidance systems and warheads, so any upgrade of either could be applied to both I suspect.

Both are designed to hit fixed targets and might struggle with moving targets, though both can be fitted with a radar for terminal guidance which might allow a ship to be engaged.

The chance of either system being useful against subs is low to zero without using them as (blind) nuclear depth charges.

On the positive side the Iskander is hypersonic with a shaped flight profile that makes interception rather difficult but not impossible.

In terms of bang for buck they are excellent weapons, but whether Russia wants to hand over details to a NATO/EU country would be a good question... current Scottish governments might even be hostile to London, but change could be an election away.

The Frog-7 i think would benefit from some sort of upgrade pretty sure there would be a market for it, as Russia doesnt seem to be exporting the Iskander as yet, (even thought Iskander E is for export), and Frog-7 in numbers would cause horrendous damage to any built up area.

The iskander hitting a large ship like a aircraft carrier etc, it would be interesting what sort of damge that it would cause i suspect the ship to be of not much use after it? if its still a float lol. I think your right, i dont think Russia would be exporting to countries which may hand over info to NATO/EU, especially with the whole missle defence shield crisis, Russia sees the iskander as a good deterrent to it.

Imagine a simple cheap UAV/FROG system where the UAV is something like a pchelka that is cheap and simple and able to laser mark targets for the FROG with simple semi active laser homing guidance... launch the Pchelka and fly it to enemy territory and look for targets.

Give it decent optics and have it fly above ground fire and MANPADs and when you find your target coordinate a FROG attack with a single FROG-7... lase the target to guarantee a hit.

I am sure countries like Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan would all like such a simple powerful system.

For Afghanistan they could base the FROG launchers in Kabul where they are relatively safe and use the flight range of the rockets to engage targets in the region with accuracy that makes them very powerful and potent weapons at relatively low cost

GarryB wrote:Imagine a simple cheap UAV/FROG system where the UAV is something like a pchelka that is cheap and simple and able to laser mark targets for the FROG with simple semi active laser homing guidance... launch the Pchelka and fly it to enemy territory and look for targets.

Give it decent optics and have it fly above ground fire and MANPADs and when you find your target coordinate a FROG attack with a single FROG-7... lase the target to guarantee a hit.

I am sure countries like Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan would all like such a simple powerful system.

For Afghanistan they could base the FROG launchers in Kabul where they are relatively safe and use the flight range of the rockets to engage targets in the region with accuracy that makes them very powerful and potent weapons at relatively low cost

Sounds good, and relatively cheap, dont know why nobody hasn't done this yet, makes good use of all those frog-7's out there gathering dust. It would also be ideal to those countries Russia didnt want to sell iskander too, so they could still make money selling upgrades for FROG-7, it would also be good for countries on a tight budget. Russia could even look to sell some of its FROG-7 (with the upgrade) that its got sitting in warehouses etc.

Also think that the taliban would dread this weapon, in the hands of afghan forces. There training camps would be a think of the past lol

I think the main issue with laser homing for the FROG is getting personel into harms way to lase the target... most Soviet client states were not that sophisticated.

Having a UAV to lase the target from high altitude with a small aircraft that is hard to spot let alone bring down with small arms fire would make it a very effective system in the right hands.

A country like Afghanistan could disperse fixed ramp launchers in its bases in Kabul and other secure major cities and then fly UAVs out to enemy areas looking for targets. The FROGs can be turned on their ramps to aim at the targets and fired fairly rapidly at targets of opportunity... even moving targets could be engaged and with such a large warhead even fairly significant targets could be dealt with at a fairly low cost.

d-taddei2 wrote:The Frog-7 i think would benefit from some sort of upgrade pretty sure there would be a market for it, as Russia doesnt seem to be exporting the Iskander as yet, (even thought Iskander E is for export), and Frog-7 in numbers would cause horrendous damage to any built up area.

d-taddei2, FROG family were weapon systems covering, at the time, some of the  roles on the battlefield now committed to modern MLRS  and NOT to tactical ballistic systems   


In substance Soviet concept of operation , at least for the conventionally armed version of those unguided missiles, was engagement ,through area saturation attack, of NATO's FOB - forward operation bases - ,heavy fortifications and motorized/mechanized force's concentration in bottleneck points (such as river bridges or tunnels).

After having destroyed or repelled enemy forces from a Sector, about 20 launchers would have advanced , from a previously recessed/masked position, to engage merely a single target ! ( ......so to get a reliable chance to hit with about three missiles a target like one of those previously mentioned).
Naturally that CONOP don't qualify it ,by any meaning of the word, as a "cheap" system , neither any FROG has been ,in reality, ever employed how conceived by Soviet planners by foreign buyers of the system, for simple numerical reasons  

Just for comparison a salvo fire from a  single 9К58 «Смерч» launcher (in a single battalion there are 18 launchers) is capable to produce several times more area destruction than 20 FROG-7 but at : greater range, much greater variety of warhead's selection, much reduced time for fire and egression from area and immensely reduced time between salvo.    


In spite of what up said we well know the horrible destruction that even a single hit by a similar weapon can cause to its intended targets like when , the 7 April of 2003 ,a single FROG-7 almost completely destroyed US Army's  2nd Brigade TOC of the 3rd Infantry Division ( to be considered a true "lucky shot" if we take into account Iraqi's "forced" practice , for the reduced number of missiles at disposition, to shot single missiles against single targets).






http://educatedsoldier.blogspot.it/2007/08/destruction-of-2nd-brigade-3rd-id-toc.html

I wasnt saying the systems were the same i was merely putting them in the same thread rather than doing seperate threads.

But i agree with what you are saying, @ garry, i think UAV would be a brilliant idea, and that your right in saying most armies that have these systems dont have the special forces capabable to use laser designators up close.

@mindstorm pretty impressive pictures, i still think an upgrade to frog-7 needs to be done, regardless of its intended use, with so many systems still in use or in storage i am sure they would welcome it, and we will see its use on the battlefield again but this time with more success or even just being used

If you had a bunch of FROG systems lying around then investing in such an upgrade, if it can give the desired results, might be a viable option

Similarly to how if you had a bunch of SCUDs lying around; then upgrading them to the SCUD-D standard would be an option; giving it an accuracy not far off from many modern tactical ballistic missile systems; while at the same time being cheaper, without necessitating the introduction of any new vehicles, changing supply chains or retraining of personnel.

But - if you, and Scotland doesn't; then it would be far wiser to invest into Tochka-U or Smerch batteries. The cost would be greater; but employing the FROG systems would bring their own troubles; such as the R&D for the proposed upgrade (I never heard of any existing proposals), and the difficulty in acquiring parts, reliable ammunition and other support for such an old vehicle and weapons system.

Like I said - it might make sense only for a country that already operates them - like Syria or Afghanistan; which have personnel trained in their use, spares, existing missile stockpiles, maintanance centres for these vehicles, etc...

And even then it would be an el-cheapo solution. Tochka-U and Smerch systems would cost more but will give you less headaches and would be vastly more combat effective, have a greater range and numerous other advantages as Mindstorm pointed out.

If you really want to save all the money you can; well, you can always go for the Iranian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajr-5
This will basically give you the same thing as with the upgraded FROGs

It is funny how the addition of a recon system (UAV) and a terminal guidance system (the new system attached to the nose fuze of a 152mm shell that includes control surfaces to manouver the shell and also a GLONASS guidance system to direct the shell within 10m of the target in any weather would do) and the weapon system goes from long range tactical barrage artillery rocket, to precision strike surgical tool for dealing with point targets.

Of course a few things to keep in mind that the old FROG had a 550kg payload which would be more useful with guidance even against hard targets like groups of tanks or heavy bunkers, but its 70km range makes it a battlefield tactical weapon that is not really comparable to Iskander-E or even Tochka-U.

If you can find a stockpile of well stored and protected FROGs I suspect FP is right... it would likely be easier to mount them on modern vehicles and give them a full upgrade which likely will mean they might be slightly cheaper than Smerch or Tochka or Iskander but still rather less capable.

d_taddei2 wrote:thanks for the replies,

The majority of armies that have frog-7 dont have chemical weapons, and are armed with HE rockets, so the accuracy problem does become a problem, the rocket does pack a punch though. I am surprised someone hasnt came up with an upgrade to make accuracy better due to the number of systems still in service. I am sure some forces would want them upgraded.


Tochka is definately still very useful and a good deterrent, shame no upgrades either. I think Iskander would be an ideal deterrent for most countries seeking a non-nuclear deterrent, and for an independent Scotland this would be a great pleaser to many, as it would please the people who dont want nuclear weapons on Scottish soil anymore and it would also please those who still want to have a deterrant, and it would be much cheaper than nuclear weapons. Does anyone know how effective Iskander would be against moving ships/frigates etc? and just as a stab in the dark against submarines? could it be possible to damage subs which are close to the surface???? and how would ships air defence cope against it? would it stand a chance at engaging the iskander missle??????

I don't think Frog-7 are useless ,Sadam killed/wounded many americans using them . Something to remember is that your satellite navigation network can have a significant impact in the accuracy of your tactical weapons ,specially if they can be guided by satelite.Just a decade ago ,Russia was missing significant precision because it had only a few working Glonas satellites. Now they have dramatically enhanced their Satellites coverage to the same level of American GPS.. that is ~5 meter precision. You need like 20-30 satellites around the earth to achieve that . So all those "obsoletes" frogs-7 will benefit greatly with the new modernized Russian glonass network. either with very light upgrades to the guiding system .  At the moment Iskanders precision is withing 5-7 meters.. at 300km-500km range  I see no reason why Scuds-d or Frogs-7 should not have  20-30 meter precision or much less, with little or no modification. That said the precision of Scuds back in the 90s. not necessarily is the same today with new navigation.The war head of scuds probably could be fitted with 1 ton of tnt.. thats not small thing. With that payload will totally destroy any soft target or light armor from 50 meters-100meters. In the IRAQ wars.. Patriots defenses failed to stop most Scuds missiles fired at Israel. Either because failed to intercept of because the impact was not strong enough  to stop such heavy weight rocket. Probably it was like trying to stop a truck with a bullet.

About ballistic missiles used against Aircraft carriers.. Iskanders for sure will manage to hit them.with their 5m precision and with good intelligence and update of nato warships . but the impact will not sink the warship ,even if destroy of the entire surface. might disable it ,but not sink it.. for that you need 2-3 cruise anti-ship missile instead.

So back to the frogs-7 and Scuds.. Syria have them ,they got it from North korea and apparently according to some information
have read  they modified their guidance and increased its precision significantly and modified its range.Ballistic missiles in combination
with Rockets fired in the many hundreds can pose a major challenge to any defense system.

here is Syrian army testing them..
https://youtu.be/S_XQQIQQ-g0

By 2020 ,Once Russia finish the modernization of it Glonass Network ,they expect to increase their precision of its tactical missiles
to half a meter..

http://www.insidegnss.com/node/3353

with the right upgrades and guidance those Scuds/frogs missiles on the shelves of third world nations,could significantly be enhanced
their accuracy if used with combination with the modernized Glonass network..

hi thanks for the input, and video very good. If the Frog-7's get any upgrade like what you have mentioned thats alot of poor countries who are going to become a pretty decent threat to their neighbours, with just one simple cheap upgrade. would be good to this happen, it does make perfect sense though. Its cheap(compared to buying new systems), easy, quick, upgrade and the results are good, and i am sure many countries who have Frog-7 in their inventory with get the upgrade. Also Russia could still make money selling the upgrade without risking selling the Iskander to a country which might leak info to foreign intelligence services.

Another system which i think has to have some praise is the BM-21, its simple, cheap, mobile, and effective, (not pin point targets though) and with the cost and upkeep being cheap i think everyone should have them, there ideal to be attached to battalions of infantry. When i was in the Army there was never enough MLRS's so targets have be prioritised greatly which meant many infantry battalions never received MLRS support, now with the BM-21 being so cheap and mounted on a truck, there would be no reason not to have enough, every battalion could have 3 attached to them

Indeed and with the new models fitted with rockets with a near 40km range the old 122mm Grad is a rather long range weapon... in Afghanistan you could base them in secure areas and use them to bombard an 80km diameter circle area without even moving them.

Put a tarp over them and they look like standard trucks unlike the MLRS.

The new models seem to be even better with a range of calibre rocket options with different range performances.

Ironically if the enemy has a lot of armoured vehicles then the Grad firing anti armour submunitions can actually deliver more munitions over a shorter range than Smerch.

The 122mm Grad rockets have 2 munitions in each rockets making a total of 80 munitions delivered per vehicle per salvo, while the Smerch rocket carries three munitions resulting in 36 munitions landing up to 90km away per vehicle per salvo.

Current model munitions use combined IR and MMW radar sensors.