According to the official data of the KBM announced at the Army-2021 forum, the 305E rocket has a mass of 105 kg, a length of 1945 mm, and a body diameter of 200 mm. The mass of the high-explosive fragmentation warhead is 25 kg. The solid-propellant engine provides a flight speed of up to 250 m / s, a declared controlled firing range of up to 14,500 m, and a flight altitude of 100 to 600 m.
Suspect that is export weapon data... in the Combat Approved video this weapon was described as having a flight range of 25km plus... perhaps the ~15km control range is for the export model only?
Question. The KH-38M is already mated with the Ka-52K. Granted it is larger and heavy but offers far superior range and capability - why not just stick with it? Both are available for export I presume?
Rather different weapon weight class... the Kh-38M is essentially a 40km range 250kg bomb, while this is more like something like the British Sea Skua...
Of course the 25kg warhead is a rather potent warhead for a missile this size there are a lot of targets this would make more sense against than a much lighter ATGM.
Then you also get the Hermes...
They are going to be spoiled for choice are they not?
Yeah, that made me wonder either dunno
The answer can be the warhead difference, but it is quite a questionable reason.
Sounds like a mature fully developed system that has been in service for almost 5 years now... why not test it and adopt it if it is any good...
The Hermes meanwhile is an anti-tank missile that can also be used for pinpoint strikes.
While this new missile is its heavier counterpart and can be used against a greater range of targets. Defensive installations, concentrations of manpower, ammunition depots, pontoon bridges or anything else that will require more high-explosive than something like a Hermes or Vikhr or whatever.
I agree, but Hermes can be carried four to a weapon pylon and its reported range for the helicopter launched model is about 20km so it is only slightly shorter ranged than the LMUR. Its warhead is about 30kgs so it actually has a better warhead than the LMUR too.
I rather suspect Vikhr and Krisantema and Ataka will be used against enemy armour, and the longer ranged missiles like LMUR and Hermes and perhaps SOSNA/Pine will be used against infrastructure targets and perhaps even aircraft and air defence batteries etc, but I think the LMUR sort of combines air to ground weapon with suicide drone... I could see the Russian model being lofted up high to get a view of the battlefield and then sort of falling on the targets homing in on the highest priority target for the kill.
F_P has a clue, Ch-38 is incorporated mainly due to maritime strike capabilities, it is less expensive and lighter Ch-35, still having a real decent punch with its 250kg warhead.
It also suggests that the GROM glide bomb based on the Kh-38 could also be used on these helicopters... more the powered model with the lighter warhead of course due to lack of flight speed and potential altitude from a helicopter launch than the all bomb model...
305 and Hermes share some spectrum of operations, but 305 seems to be a much more complicated and universal platform.
It is like combining capabilities in one piece. 305 is a downsized Ch-38, kind of
Or different products from different companies that are different enough to make both worth buying and using maybe.
A bit like the Su-33 being their choice of aircraft carrier based fighter but when India (ie FSB) orders MiG-29KRs (LMURs) then taking some examples and testing them and finding they are good and buying some yourself without having to pay to set up production makes a lot of sense.
I just hope it has not damaged the chances of other programmes like Hermes or the guided unguided rockets.
I just noticed that this missile, the Izd. 305, shares the same designation with what we had earlier assumed to be the Hermes. There was some discussion on that last year I think. Apparently the Izd. 305 has already been used in Syria
Yes.
I thought that it was possible that this LMURs missile is the payload stage of the Hermes which uses a solid rocket booster like the SA-19/-22 missile family it is based on... that would make sense because the Hermes should have a powered second stage to improve performance to allow terminal stage manouvering... which I believe they are working on now... but the ground launched Hermes with a range of 100km suggests a powerful solid rocket booster to get speed and altitude, while the helicopter model with no solid rocket booster has the much shorter range of about 20km...
If you are going to power the second stage it makes more sense to make it full calibre for extra internal space for fuel and warhead etc etc, while the unpowered rockets of the Pantsir and Tunguska and SOSNA missiles are narrow very low drag payloads on a large calibre solid rocket booster inside a launch tube.
When we saw the blurred view of this new LMUR missile it was clear it was not in a launch tube which made me think it was not Hermes because the protection of a launch tube is useful and it would allow multiple missiles per pylon rather more easily.
Looking at the tail fins however they look rather like the nose fins of the old model SA-15 missiles with the large fold hinges so maybe they can go in a launch tube when ground launched with a large solid rocket booster...
Very confusing.
The 305 is more similar to the Spike NLOS in fact. It's much more versatile than the Kh-38 with half the weight. And most of all, it has the NLOS capability which the Kh-38 doesn't. They are installing this on the Ka-52, but I can see it being used in future ground-based systems as well.
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