Russian MRLS: Grad, Uragan, Smerch, Tornado-G/S

Also I can't find any information about upgraded Uragan, only about Grad and Smerch.

I understand the concept of pallet packs speeding up reloading but in a real conflict after firing the rockets the most iпmportant thing is to move immediately.

The time it takes to move to a new position means reloading when you arrive at a new position is not as urgent as some might think.

Personally I think the idea of being able to carry different calibres of rocket on one truck platform is the best feature of the pallet load concept. The fast reload capacity a very secondary factor.

Smerch rockets have stabilisation gyros on board to ensure a volley lands in a fairly tight group no matter what the range but AFAIK there are no ATACMs developed for the system. It would make more sense to use Tochka-U or Iskander for such missiones. There are sensor fused munition models for anti armour use but otherwise no homing models I know of.

Again... a lighter vehicle makes sense and a heavier vehicle able to carry more rockets makes sense but a middle weight vehicle does not make sense to me... especially if the light vehicle can carry one pallet of all three rocket calibres and the larger vehicle can carry two pallets of all three rocket calibres... what would be left for the middle vehicle to do?

regarding the 122mm calibre pallets:

Vann7 wrote:

200km range is pretty good. the only down is that it only carry 12 missiles.
Will have been nicer to see Super heavy trucks to carry ~36 missiles instead or better
50 missiles . It might require a more bigger truck but the fire power will be worth of it.

d_taddei2 wrote:Here a quick question why is it that the west never used a similar system to BM-21? They used systems similar to BM-27 & BM-30 but not the grad. It's almost similar situation with 2S1. Where the west mostly focused on 155mm SP artillery.

One think you notice is that the soviets/Russia always had loads of Bm-21 and 2S1 to provide commanders and troops on the ground ready fire support. When I was in the forces we had to depend on 81mm mortars. 105mm light gun, AS-90 and MLRS was on the battlefield but when you requested fire support it was normally rejected as some other priority came up which is fine but then troops on the ground suffer and it hampers progress or puts in danger defensive lines. I know British troops would love to have access to 2S1 or Bm-21 as fire support and this would still free up the heavier stuff like AS-90 and MLRS. I always thought that we were always lacking firepower amongst other things. The Soviets even have 120mm mortars and 82mm automatic mortar 2B9 vaselik which I think is brilliant system and more versatile that standard 82mm mortar .

The Soviets even have 120mm mortars and 82mm automatic mortar 2B9 vaselik which I think is brilliant system and more versatile that standard 82mm mortar .

Because they were confident of their fighter bombers, IMO. There are advantages and disadvantages, and it would be great to have both whenever they are needed, but that's the only thing I can think of.

Interlinked wrote:

d_taddei2 wrote:Here a quick question why is it that the west never used a similar system to BM-21? They used systems similar to BM-27 & BM-30 but not the grad. It's almost similar situation with 2S1. Where the west mostly focused on 155mm SP artillery.

One think you notice is that the soviets/Russia always had loads of Bm-21 and 2S1 to provide commanders and troops on the ground ready fire support. When I was in the forces we had to depend on 81mm mortars. 105mm light gun, AS-90 and MLRS was on the battlefield but when you requested fire support it was normally rejected as some other priority came up which is fine but then troops on the ground suffer and it hampers progress or puts in danger defensive lines. I know British troops would love to have access to 2S1 or Bm-21 as fire support and this would still free up the heavier stuff like AS-90 and MLRS. I always thought that we were always lacking firepower amongst other things. The Soviets even have 120mm mortars and 82mm automatic mortar 2B9 vaselik which I think is brilliant system and more versatile that standard 82mm mortar .

Because they were confident of their fighter bombers, IMO. There are advantages and disadvantages, and it would be great to have both whenever they are needed, but that's the only thing I can think of.

d_taddei2 wrote:

Hell trying to get aircraft support was even harder than trying to get artillery support. The biggest problem was lack of artillery etc. There just wasn't enough and even was prioritised meaning it was unlikely any help would come a lot of the time we just had to depend on 81mm which the mortar were very accurate with normally on the second round they would be on target and sometimes it took third round but the guys were very good. But lacked power. So the soviets / Russians had it better not only fire power but also having enough to support their troops. They have variety of artillery /missile options as well Mi-24 and Su-25 while we had 81mm mortar, 105mm light gun, AS -90,  MLRS, (that's only 4 options in small numbers ) and lynx armed with TOW  (apache was just arriving into service) and harriers, tornado, and jaguars. But like I said they were mostly used on pre-planned missions and none these were nothing like Mi-24 or Su-25 which were more suitable for the job.