The American edition talks about Russian heavy flamethrower systems. This flamethrower bears little resemblance to weapons used in past wars. The enemy is hit by both temperature and high pressure. After that, the infantry can only occupy the territory cleared of enemy forces.
Michael Peck
Battalions of heavy flamethrowers are coming to the Russian army. Destroying enemy troops in cities, bunkers and tunnels, they will inflict powerful physical and psychological damage on him.
It would be wrong to call these systems flamethrowers. They are too far from the systems of the Second World War, which used a satchel and a tube for spraying a combustible mixture, which were armed with flamethrowers in infantry units. Russia will use the new TOS-1A Solntsepek multiple rocket launcher systems based on the T-72 tank, which launch unguided rockets in thermobaric gear. In these rockets, the fuel mixes with the air, forming a cloud that creates enormous temperature and pressure when detonated. According to available information, Russia used older TOS-1 Pinocchio systems in Syria.
"Heavy Solntsepek flame throwers will clear the way for Armata tanks and motorized infantry," the Russian newspaper Izvestia wrote. - Battalions will be formed from them in each military district, which will receive these powerful systems. Their main task is to knock the enemy out of the fortifications."
Russian military expert Viktor Murakhovsky boasted to the Ivestia newspaper that the new thermobaric weapon would be extremely destructive, and after its use, the infantry would only have to occupy territory where there would be no enemy left. "The "sunburners" provide continuous damage over a large area," said a military expert. "They are good at breaking through super-protected fortified areas. Conventional barrel-mounted or rocket-propelled artillery will require much more time and ammunition to perform a similar task. Moreover, the result will not be guaranteed in the end. And heavy flamethrowers with the help of high-volume explosion ammunition will destroy such defenses in one salvo. Then tanks and motorized infantry should go into battle, which, in fact, there will be no one to resist."
The US military abandoned flamethrowers and napalm bombs, which were used during World War II, in Korea and Vietnam. However, there is information that in Afghanistan they use the M202A1 FLASH light rocket launcher, similar to a bazooka. But in Russia, flamethrower weapons are an integral part of its arsenal.
"In the current structure of the Russian ground forces, there are detachments and platoons with portable flame throwers in the RCB protection companies from the maneuver brigades. Flamethrower units of company personnel can only be found in the flamethrower battalions of the regiments of the Combined Arms Defense Brigade, tank armies and army corps, according to the Center for Foreign Military Studies of the US Army. - A typical Russian flamethrower battalion consists of two companies of portable flamethrowers, which are fired from the shoulder, and one company of heavy flamethrowers. The portable flamethrower company has 71 personnel and nine BMO-T "Terminator" flamethrower combat vehicles (BMO-T was created on the basis of a modified T-72 tank and is designed to carry 20-30 single-use rocket flamethrowers RPO-A "Bumblebee".) A heavy flamethrower company usually has 35 personnel, three TOS-1A Solntsepek heavy flamethrowers, each with twenty 220 mm thermobaric rockets mounted on the T-72 chassis, as well as six TZM-T transport-loading vehicles, also based on the T-72.
There is one problem with the use of thermobaric weapons - international law. Officially and specifically, such weapons are not prohibited, but Human Rights Watch claims that they are not aimed, and they can kill not only soldiers, but also civilians in the affected area. The explosive air-fuel mixture causes terrible damage, crushing a person or his internal organs.
The Izvestia newspaper notes one interesting point. "For a long time, the Russian military could not develop a concept for the use of these weapons, although they were exported for several years." It is also interesting that incendiary and flame-throwing weapons are organizationally part of the units and units of radiation, chemical and biological protection, which are also responsible for protecting troops from weapons of mass destruction.
The Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda claims that thermobaric weapons indicate Russia's readiness to use them in offensive combat operations, for example, when attacking fortified areas. The Western approach is different because it involves the use of high-precision weapons in the course of maneuverable combat operations. "The Americans believed that wars would be contactless. Light mobile infantry will conduct deep raids under the cover of aviation, the newspaper writes. - They believed that offensive operations were a thing of the past. As a result, Murakhovsky says, they spent a year capturing Iraqi Mosul, and the assault on Raqqa lasted four months. In the course of these hostilities, these cities were completely destroyed by aviation."
It is not yet clear whether it is much more humane and effective to destroy cities along with their inhabitants using an explosive fuel-air mixture. "To save the city, we had to burn it down" - this statement seems dubious at best.
