Four new TOS-1A units created in a year
In December, Russia created a new heavy weapons regiment based in Nizhniy Novgorod. The regiment has both “TOS-1A Solntsepek flamethrowers and the Shmel-M infantry flamethrowers,” according the Interfax news agency.
The
Russian media often refers to the TOS-1A and Shmel-M as flamethrowers,
but the term is a bit of a misnomer in English. This hardware has little
in common with those rare, flame-spewing weapons.
Instead, these are thermobaric launchers which propel a fuel-air round.
The
round disperses a flammable cloud, which then ignites. The main targets
are bunkers, caves and buildings—pretty much any enclosed space. These
mixtures can burn, but they mainly kill through blast pressure and
sucking out the oxygen from confined areas.
In
2014, the Kremlin announced three other new thermobaric units—one based
in Volgograd Oblast and another in Ingushetia, according to the military news site VPK. The third unit formed in Sevastopol after the Russian invasion of Crimea.
In total, that makes four new “flamethrower” units created in a year.
The
Shmel-M is a shoulder-launched thermobaric weapon.
The TOS-1A is a
multiple-rocket launcher mounted on a T-72 tank chassis.
It can fire 24
220-millimeter rockets each packing a 100-kilogram warhead.
The rockets’
range is about six kilometers.
Russian TOS-1A in 2010. Wikimedia photo.
It’s a ludicrously destructive—although comparatively short-range—piece of artillery … and it just looks mean.
But
here’s another unusual fact. The regiments in Nizhniy Novgorod,
Volgograd, Crimea and Ingushetia are nuclear, chemical and biological
defense units. Besides rocket launchers, they have mobile laboratories
and specialized vehicles for sniffing out and sanitizing contaminated
areas.
This
makes sense, if you think about it. The TOS-1A first appeared in 1988
and saw action in Afghanistan. In the event of a major war with NATO,
the TOS-1s would smash prepared defenses, allowing Soviet tank columns
to blitz into the enemy’s rear.
The Soviets anticipated operating in a radiation-contaminated environment, hence pairing thermobaric weapons with NBC units.
“From
a Russian military perspective, flamethrowers are seen not as weapons
simply to be handed out to the rank-and-file for any ad-hoc use, but
instead as a mature weapon system that filled specific capability gaps
in the Russian Armed Forces force structure,” noted OE Watch, the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office’s monthly newsletter.
OE Watch interpreted Russia’s expansion of thermobaric units as a sign the Kremlin is preparing for urban warfare in the future.
“As
Russia experiments with new forms and methods of war, or ‘hybrid war’
as defined in the West, in Eastern Ukraine, urban warfare will likely
continue to be a high priority for development, and so will Russia’s
flame-wielding NBC defense troops.”
The
TOS-1A is also cleared for export. To help push back against Islamic
State, Russia flew several TOS-1A to Iraq last July. Videos later
circulated online showing Iraqi troops firing the Solntsepeks.
But
it’s unclear if these were just exercises or involved shelling Islamic
State. But the Iraqis certainly could, and there’s little the jihadi
group could do about it.
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