A prelude to a wider assault on
ukraine, the roughly one hundred thousand
russian troops within striking distance
of ukraine certainly are well equipped. They've staged along the border with
more than a thousand tanks, hundreds of
artillery pieces and rocket launchers
and a host of specialist vehicles.
Radio Jammers, artillery tracking radar, smoke generators, arguably the most
frightening for Ukraine's beleaguered
defenders, hunkering in their trenches
are the russian army's TOS-1 rocket
launchers. If the russians roll west the TOS-1s
could shoot first, targeting the
ukrainian's earthworks with their 220
millimeter thermobaric rockets.
Thermobaric munitions are uniquely
destructive. They burst over their
targets spreading a fuel vapor before
exploding and igniting the fuel and
creating a pressure wave that's twice as
powerful as that from a conventional
artillery shell.
A fuel air explosive can
have the effect of a tactical nuclear
weapon without residual radiation, Lester Growl and Timothy Smith explained in a
2000 article in marine corps gazette.
Since a fuel air mixture flows easily
into any cavities neither natural
terrain features nor non-hermetically
sealed field fortifications, emplacements
covered slit trenches, bunkers, protect
against the effects of fuel air
explosives.
If a fuel air charge is fired inside a
building or bunker, the cloud is
contained and this amplifies the
destruction of the load-bearing
components of the structure.
Worried about your enemies trenches and
bunkers? Blast them with a few fuel air
rockets. fuel air can be an effective
weapon against exposed enemy personnel, combat equipment, fortified areas and
individual fighting positions, Grawl and Smith noted.
This isn't just theory, the Russians
deployed TOS-1s in combat in
afghanistan's defiant panshir valley in
the 1980s and reportedly again in
chechnya in 2000, both times to
devastating effect.
More recently the russian syrian and
iraqi armies used TOS-1s against rebels
and militants. Azerbaijan apparently deployed TOS-1s in
its brief, bloody campaign against
armenia in 2020.
As far back as 2015 russia sent at least
one TOS-1 to boost pro-russian
separatists in eastern ukraine. In september that year observers for the
organization for security and
cooperation in europe noted a TOS-1
among tanks at a training area in a
separatist controlled area near luhansk. it's pretty obvious that the TOS-1 in
eastern ukraine in 2015 had a russian
crew.
It's highly unlikely that separatists
forces alone possess the training and
logistics to support and operate a
weapon as specialized as the TOS one. Six years later TOS-1s again were in
position to support russian and
separatist forces in eastern ukraine.
In april 2021 social media users in
russia spotted a TOS-1 among other
vehicles on a train heading toward the Russia-Ukraine border. It might be cold comfort to ukrainian
infantry staring across no man's land at
the distinctive, blocky shape of an
approaching TOS-1, but the vehicle
actually is pretty vulnerable.
The launcher's 220 millimeter rocket has
modest range for an artillery system, just 3 miles or so depending on the
version. That's just slightly farther than the
max range of ukraine's infantry-launched
anti-tank missiles, including the highly
lethal american-made javelin .
Infantry packing anti-tank missiles, scurrying across a network of trenches
and bunkers are central to ukraine's
defense plans. Rooting out these missile ears is one of
the TOS-1's main missions, but first it has to get close, potentially exposing it to the same
missiles it's trying to suppress.
