Moscow used a “new weapon” in the war with Ukraine. A glide bomblarge, classified as FAB-3000 M-54 and equipped with a special modification that allows a conventional aeronautical munition of 3,000 kg to hit targets of significant size and importance, such as strategic structures, with devastating results and high precision.
Putin’s new weapon, explains Stephen Bryen in one of his analyses, has already been used twice in the Lyptsi sector, in the region of Kharkiv, to hit the headquarters of the Ukrainian Army. According to the expert this is the version “bigger of Russian glide bombs” which are classified with the same name but with different numerical codes linked to their size (500, 1000, 1500). All weapons that were used, at least once, during the conflict.
The Tsar’s glide bombs
Glide bombs are essentially conventional aeronautical munitions, therefore “free fall”, which come modified with special kits which, through a package that includes a GPS guidance system and retractable “fins”, obtain the ability to glide on the target like guided bombs. The kit used is initialed as Umpc or Umpk and stands for “Unified gliding and correction module” and was developed by Bazalt Design Bureau Russian precisely to convert Soviet-era unguided bombs into precision ammunition with a margin of error of just 10 meters.
The bombs of FAB series they can be launched from Su-34 fighter-bombers and long-range bombers, such as the Tu-22M, but unlike the others, the FAB-3000 is presumed to also include in its modification package a “little rocket thruster to extend the range of the weapon”.
A precision worth evaluating
The target of this “large bomb” used by the Russian aerospace forces would have been a building in the town of Liptsy. Temporary headquarters of the Ukrainian Forces which we can assume had some relevance for the Russian operations command, which sent one of its strategic bombers Tu-22 or a Su-34 supersonic fighter-bomber to “drop” the load on the target. A video of strike was spread online but according to some sources the target would not have been “centered“. But remember that the real damage caused by the bomb has a much higher radius than the simple one explosion visible.
According to military analysts the “conversion kit” which make precision (or semi-precision) munitions of common free-fall bombs with a great saving of resources, represents the “future” of all those operations which in conventional conflicts do not contemplate, in many cases, the need to use weapons more sophisticated and obviously expensive.
Give “old ammunition” high precision weapons is the perfect solution to reduce the collateral damages of weapons that
otherwise they would remain relegated to the arsenals due to their “obsolete” concept of use other than carpet bombing. This is obviously if their precision were confirmed by the data and not just by expectations.
