Uran-9, Armiya-2018. IMAGE: Dmitri Reshetnikov/TASS
An updated variant of Russia’s Uran-9 unmanned combat ground vehicle (UCGV), which has been already tested in Syria, has got additional 12 flamethrowers, the Russian state-run news agency TASS reported on August 24.
According to the report, Uran-9’s weapon systems, four Ataka missile launchers and a 30mm automatic gun, were expaned with 12 Shmel flamethrowers.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed that it had tested a number of modern weapons and military equipment in combat enviroment in Syria, including the Uran-9 UCGV.
Robot war is behind scary. God bless humanity
I always figured flame throwers to be…., well…., actually throwing flames? But its evolved into rocket delivered charges full of flammable hell. I wonder, is this a field of technology that the Russians have carved out a niche for themselves or has the West its own equivalents? I only see smart bombs and guided explosive missiles from the West. And its not like they delivered anything like these to their headchopper friends, only high explosive AT missiles.
Russia leads the field with fuel-air explosives aka thermobaric weapons aka vacuum bombs, but the west has them as well to a lesser degree from the 70s. Very effective against underground facilities – where your cia-jihadi would hide.
Old school flamethrowers were very messy, volatile and dangerous to operate. A fuel-mix canister and hose-line strapped to an infantryman, or atop/towed behind a vehicle, were vulnerable to shrapnel and quickly attracted targeted hostile fire – with potential catastrophic results for operators. Likewise, old school flamethrower operators were basically guaranteed not to be taken prisoner if cornered in combat conditions. A thermobaric warhead delivers a fuel-air mix explosion. Mounting one on a Shmel rocket that any infantryman can carry, or can mounted any vehicle, is a far more compact and safer package for delivering a single shot surface to surface fuel detonation explosion in a modern non specialized operator format. The US military has traditionally seen fuel-air warheads as the business of their air to surface bombing – and accordingly the US air force has a number of such bomb variants.
I stand enlightened, good sir!
Looks like a Lambo
I did some work on a Miura many years ago, and the build quality was awful. They had switches in a roof panel, that all fell out, just hanging from the wires. The paint was oxidizing etc. Ferrari’s were a bit better, although the 308GTB’s would crack where the rear of the cab met the guards. If you want a supercar that is well built, and you can actually use as a daily driver, buy a Porsche 911, the best attention to detail of any car I have worked on.
They need to make a specialized flame throwing tank robot. it would be very useful in Syria against entrenched and fortified terrorists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pRihxvk4YY
Remote-controlled armor is developmental technology. But in meantime the Russians have sent batch of reliable and devastating TOS-1 tracked/armored thermobaric missile launchers to Syria – these are capable of clearing most fortified positions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuyCZiI2f8U
Now reality starts to look more than science fiction, who remembers TERMINATOR I?
I guess the next step will be for these robots to make their own decisions on the battlefield in order to make them more effective by eliminating human error…
And that would be the scariest part in all this
It seems that science fiction writers tend to be more accurate predicting the future than scientists. Star Trek had flip phones in 1966.
Nope. They just write whatever comes to their mind, and some of it come true (and some don’t). Flying cars, colonizing other planets and bunch of other stuff will remain in the domain of SF for a long time (if not forever).
P.S. 2001: A Space Odyssey had a tablet in 1968 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T1UGfm_OMM
lol