Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Serhii Sternenko has published a video of a claimed drone attack on a 2S40 Floks self-propelled artillery system. The events in the footage unfolded in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. The consequences of the strike and the damage caused were not confirmed.
Notably, the russian media reported the first batch of these vehicles transferred to the armed forces of russia only a day prior to the strike, thus a potentially brand-new artillery piece now needs to go back for repairs, if not burned down on the spot.
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Prior to this episode, no 2S40 Floks were ever spotted on Ukrainian battlegrounds, let alone recorded as damaged or lost.
The 2S40 Floks is a russian-made 120mm gun installed on the armored Ural-4320 truck with a 6x6 wheel configuration. The main feature of the 2S40 Floks is its semi-automatic rifled gun that can fire all types of mortar shells and artillery rounds in the 120mm caliber.
The system was developed by the Central Scientific Research Institute Burevestnik which is formally a part of the Uralvagonzavod armor-making corporation. The first presentation of the 2S40 Floks was in 2016.
Then in August 2022, russian state-owned media TASS reported that this artillery system had entered mass production but none of them had been heard of until recently. On October 6th this year, russian defense industry giant Rostec announced the first batch of these systems had arrived in the ranks of the russian armed forces.
Specifications of the 2S40 Floks:
- 2A80 gun, caliber 120mm;
- range of fire:
- 8.5 km – for a 17.3 kg high-explosive OFS 13 round,
- 7.2 km – for a OFM round, or
- 10 km – for a Kitolov-2M guided munition;
- rate of fire: 8 rpm effective, 10 rpm maximum;
- rotation angle: vertical −4/+80°, yaw +/−35°;
- transportable ammunition stock: 60 shots;
- chassis: 6x6 Ural-4320, maximum weight up to 20 tons;
- carries a 7.62-mm machine gun.
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