BM-30 Smerch Multiple Rocket Launcher

The BM-30 Smerch (Tornado) or 9K58 is a Russian multiple rocket launcher. The
system is designed to defeat manpower, armored and soft-skinned materiel in
concentration areas, artillery batteries, command posts and ammunition depots. It was
created in 1986 and entered service in the Soviet Army in 1989.[1]

Components:

• rockets (in containers);

• 9A52-2 modernized launch vehicle;
• transloader;
• automated fire control equipment;
• set of arsenal equipment;
• training facilities.

The 300mm rockets with a firing range of 70 and 90 km and various warheads have been
developed for the Smerch MLRS.

The 9A52-2 vehicle with the automated system ensures:

• delivery of fire from an unsurveyed fire position;

• laying of the launch tube cluster with the crew staying in the cabin and without
using aiming points;
 • autonomous determination of an azimuth of the launch tube cluster’s longitudinal
axis;
• visual representation of graphical information for the launch tube cluster laying,
the route of vehicle movement and location as well as a point of destination and
direction of movement on the video terminal;
• increase in MLRS survivability owing to reduced time of staying at a fire
position;
• increased comfort for the laying operator, especially in adverse weather
conditions and at night;
• increased independent operation owing to the navigation and survey equipment,
which allows the vehicle to rapidly change fire positions and move autonomously;
• reduction of the combat crew.

• Chassis: MAZ-543M
• Combat Weight: 43.7 t
• Length: 12 m
• Height: 3.05 m
• Width: 3.05 m
• Crew: 3 men
• Emplacement Time: 3 min
• Displacement Time: 2 min
• Launcher: 9A52-2, 300-mm, 12 tubes
• Launch Rate

Salvo Time: 12 rounds in 38 seconds

• Reload Time: 20 min

Operators

• Algeria: 18 systems in 1999.

• India: 38 systems to be delivered by 2008 and additional 24 systems by
2010.Total cost $750 million.
• Kuwait: 27 systems in 1996.
• Russia: 300 in 2001(100 in 1995) [2]
• Belarus: 48 system in 1990 [3]
• Ukraine: unknown number [4]

[edit] Former operators

• Soviet Union: Passed on to successor states

Rocket Projectiles

Variant Rocket Warhead Range

Self-
destruct
time
Name Type Weight Length Weight Submunition Min. Max.

Cluster munition, 72 × 1.75 kg,

9M55K
anti-personnel 243 kg each with 96 110 sec
fragments (4.5 g
each)
Cluster munition,
9M55K1 self guided anti-
tank 243 kg 5 × 15 kg

Cluster munition, 243 kg 25 × 5 kg mines 24 hour

9M55K4
AT minelets. 800 kg 20 km 70 km

7.6 m 646 × 0.25 kg

HEAT/HE- 243 kg (120 mm RHA 260 sec
9M55K5
Fragmentation. armor piercing)

separable HE- 258 kg

9M55F
Fragmentation

243 kg
9M55S Thermobaric

HE- 243 kg 7.6 m 25 km 90 km

9M528 815 kg
Fragmentation