The New Russian GROM Missile Revealed
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The global arms race is not stopping, and this time it’s Russia’s move. At the MAKS 2015 international Air Show, Russia has revealed the new generation of Grom bombs. The Grom bombs family, meaning “thunder” in Russian, includes two versions – Grom1 and Grom2. The first bomb is actually a guided cruise missile equipped with an engine and an inertial satellite guidance system, while the other bomb is equipped with a state-of-the-art guidance system and is a high-accuracy bomb.
The warhead system, with all its commponents, weighs 130 kilograms and has a maximal range of 280 kilometers. The second bomb of the same family has a warhead with an overall weight of 280 kilograms.
Although different in design, the two Grom bombs are based on the multi-purpose, laser guided missile – the KH-38. In addition, this new smart bomb is designed to be carried on top of the Su-24 and Su-34 bombers and the Mig-29SMT jet plane. However, the main goal is to equip the Sukhoi T-50 fighter, to carry up to four bombs at once.
One of the main characteristics of the Grom bombs is the modular design, allowing to combine different types of payloads and guidance system: Four types of inertial guidance systems, laser, radar, thermal imaging system and satellite guidance system.
The Grom smart bombs can be equipped with blast fragmentation, penetrating or pellet warheads. The bombs can hit both ground and surface targets in coastal zones. Various types of payloads allow for destroying light and heavy-armored targets.
“One of the principal advantages of this type of bombs is that they are powerful and at the same time not that expensive in development and production,” military analyst Ruslan Pukhov was quoted as saying by Rossiskaya Gazeta. “What is more, this type of bombs is easy to use. The pilot doesn’t need to be heavily trained for this. It is a ‘fire and forget’ bomb. It can find the target on its own,” he explained.
