Weapons of War and Suppression
Remote Mining with Multiple Launch Rocket Systems: Outrage in Ukraine
The Russians have been using rocket-launched area-denial munitions to sow mines in Ukraine farmland. The objective is not military, it is economic suppression by denying farmers access to their land
The US allegedly used area denial weapons too, in Afghanistan. But the target crop there was poppies for heroin, not wheat for food.
Last week I watched a video on Telegram of a Russian system in operation in Ukraine, an operation designed to prevent the growing of food.
It started with Stalin’s Organ
Or, some say, with Leonardo da Vinci, who apparently came up with the concept in the 15th Century.
The Katyusha multiple rocket launcher is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Multiple rocket launchers such as these deliver explosives to a target area more intensively than conventional artillery, but with lower accuracy and requiring a longer time to reload. They are fragile compared to artillery guns, but are cheap, easy to produce, and usable on any chassis. The Katyushas of World War II, the first self-propelled artillery mass-produced by the Soviet Union, were usually mounted on ordinary trucks. This mobility gave the Katyusha, and other self-propelled artillery, another advantage: being able to deliver a large blow all at once, and then move before being located and attacked with counter-battery fire. — Wikipedia
German troops called it Stalin’s Organ because of the sound it made when launching rockets.
This weapon evolved, the provenance is clear:
Uragan 9K57
Uragan is Russian for ‘hurricane’ and was the forerunner to the latest ghastly concept of area denial. The Uragan 9K57 is a Soviet (and Ukrainian) multi-barrel rocket launcher. It fires 220 mm rockets and first entered service in 1987. The system was designed to lay anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.
It’s part of the Soviet family of “aerial mining” weapons, which also includes the Katyusha and Grad multiple rocket launchers. These systems were designed to sow large areas with mines, making them impassable for enemy tanks and vehicles. Uragans are typically used in defensive roles, but can also be employed in an offensive capacity to support troops in the field.
Uragans are typically armed with 72 220 mm rockets, but can also be fitted with 36 400 mm rockets.These can be fired singly or in volleys of up to 16 rockets at a time. The system has a maximum range of 20 kilometers when firing 220 mm rockets, and 40 kilometers when firing 400 mm rockets. Reloading with fresh rockets takes as little as 30 seconds, making them highly effective weapons on the battlefield.
And now we have the latest in the family line: Zemledeliye.
ISDM Zemledeliye 8X8
This new remotely controlled minelayer system was first demonstrated in August 2021.
This new weapons system has apparently been deployed in Ukraine according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
The ISDM Zemledeliye is based on a KamAZ 6560 8×8 military truck chassis with a mine launching system mounted at the rear. The combat vehicle is fitted with a 50-barrel multiple launch rocket system consisting of two blocks (cartridges) with five rows of tube launchers and accompanied by a cartridge loader.
Each 122mm rocket has a range (programmable) of 5 to 15 km.
The remote-controlled mine-laying vehicle has stripped an operator’s function down to its bare essentials (important for a Russian conscript army).
In the automated mode, the vehicle calculates flight mission assignments and pre-sets explosives, including self-destruction times.
An electronic map is gridded and marked with mines, which are then transmitted to higher levels of the command chain so that they know where they’ve sown them. If Russian communications work.
The system is likened to a mine dispenser instead of an aircraft delivering air-dropped cluster bombs. Russian aircraft get shot down.
Remote mine laying has several benefits because it allows for more rapid mine laying in complex terrains. Cartidges can be re-loaded in under a minute. If Russian logistics work.
What does it mean?
In case you were wondering, the Russian word ‘zemledeliye’ translates into English as ‘agriculture’.
That really says it all doesn’t it?
Starvation strategy.
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…weapons of a starvation strategy
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