Military industry of russia is working on a new version of the Tigr armored mobility vehicle adapted for carrying and launching artillery rockets, a project inadvertently revealed by the russian defense ministry during minister Shoigu's visit to a defense enterprise in Tula.
The photo published by the press service shows a Tigr vehicle with a multiple launch rocket system. The 40 launch tubes accommodate S-8 unguided rockets commonly used by attack air- and rotorcraft.
Read more: russians Demonstrate New MLRS Vozrozhdenie Based on the Zemledelie Mine-Laying System
The specifications of this novel rocket system on the Tigr chassis are currently unknown. If we take a look at the general specs of the Tigr, we get the following picture: the armored car offers a decent obstacle capacity and speed of 110 km/h on road, mobility range is 950 km. The armored cabin is stated to have ballistic protection equivalent to STANAG 4569 Level 2. Simply put, it withstands fire from common rifles of 7.62mm caliber.
Notably, this is not the first attempt to make such mini-MLRS on the basis of Tigr chassis. Particularly, the Mini-Grad system was presented in 2013, a name referring to the BM-21 Grad artillery rocket system. The designers said their development had 20 tubes and two varieties: for 81mm and 105mm ammunition, respectively.
The declared range of fire was 2 km for the 81mm rockets and 10 km for the 105mm ammunition, the vehicle carried up to 40 shots, manual reloading took 4 minutes, and preparation for a launch took 20 seconds. However, the russian army at that time was not interested in the idea of an MLRS mounted on a Tigr vehicle.
Another project offering to place a rocket launcher on Tigr was initiated by, unexpectedly, Brazilian company Mac Jee, the design was named Armadillo TA-2. The concept was presented in 2017, the basic version had 64 tubes for 70mm rockets, and alternative variants were supposed to fire 105mm and 122mm rockets. But when Armadillo TA-2 applied for quality tests in 2019, the chassis for some reason had been changed in favor of HMMWV. The tracks of this project are lost after that.
Earlier Defense Express covered the features of the Sivalka VM-8 rocket system, a Ukrainian improvised MLRS utilizing the same S-8 rockets, which became a widespread solution on the frontline and a surprisingly effective weapon for shoot-and-scoot strikes.
Read more: Inguar-3, Ukrainian Armored Vehicle Created and Honed in Battle: Features and Specifications
