“This is especially dangerous”: Russian general about new cluster shells from the Ukrainian Armed Forces
The Swedish-French Bofors 155 Bonus artillery cluster shells (AKS), which themselves are aimed at enemy armored targets, have appeared in Ukrainian arsenal, posing a serious danger.
Retired Lieutenant General Yuri Netkachev stated this, as reported by PolitNavigator correspondent, while assessing the information that has emerged about the use of these shells by Ukrainian forces in the DPR.
“It is not yet known how many such shells are available in the artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. One can only assume that a certain batch of at least 100 units for testing the AKS in winter conditions has already been delivered to Donbass.
Similar shells were jointly developed by specialists from France (Nexter) and Sweden (Bofors) and are in service with armies, in addition to the developing countries, in the Armed Forces of the United States, Norway and Finland,” the general told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
He added that, according to publicly available information, the development of similar cluster guided munitions is underway in the Russian Federation, China and India.
“But now there is no sufficiently complete information about the stage of such developments and whether such projectiles have been accepted for service,” the expert noted.
According to him, there were no reports of deliveries of these shells to Ukraine, and therefore their use could come as a surprise to the Russian Armed Forces.
“This is especially dangerous if Moscow launches a sudden strategic offensive. And in the direction of the main attack, only one salvo of an artillery battery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (6-8 guns) of 155-mm howitzers towards the attackers, for example, is capable of hitting an entire tank company (10-13 armored vehicles of the T-72 type), which will be marching or deploying into battle order.
The ammunition, using a thermal homing head, flies along a hinged trajectory to the running engine of an armored vehicle, hits it, a fire occurs, detonation occurs, and the target is hit - this is one of the operating algorithms of the Bofors 155 Bonus AKS,” warns Netkachev.
Earlier, former Deputy Minister of Information of the DPR Daniil Bezsonov reported the use of “Bofors 155 Bonus” in the area of Marinka and Avdeevka.
At the same time, he clarified that the missile guidance system is based on two basic principles:
"1. Infrared sensors, that is, thermal imaging guidance. It is necessary to hide the heat signature. I heard that if the equipment is in one place in the shelter, then dense polyethylene can be added under the camouflage net, which will hide the heat signature. I don’t know how effective this method is, but experienced officers think so.
2. Lidar, that is, visual identification of an object from a list of visual images stored in the memory of the guidance head. By the way. An ordinary camouflage net that will blur the silhouette of armored vehicles will cope with this.”
English version :: Read in English "This is especially dangerous": Russian general on the Ukrainian Armed Forces' new cluster munitions