Weapon identification is not just some hobby of amateur military experts online. It is actually an important task. By identifying weapons in the enemy forces – including the types of their rockets – you can gather a lot of important intel.
For example, if you know what weapons are used against you with a high degree of effectiveness, you can prepare your defense accordingly. However, Russians in Ukraine, apparently, are struggling with this issue.
A clueless Russian soldier with an unexploded MO.1.01.04M meant for the TOS-1A (Screenshot).
Two Russian soldiers found an unexploded rocket in a field in the Avdiivka region in Ukraine and identified it as “something Western”.
That was a large rocket – one of the Russian soldiers measured it with his steps and estimated it to be around 3 metres long, albeit a smaller diameter. Russians filmed the inscriptions on the body of the unexploded rocket up close too, but quickly dismissed them as being something written in English.
However, as noted by war observer Oleksandr Kovalenko, it is clearly a Russian rocket. There is not even a crumb of doubt and these two Russian soldiers didn’t need any special knowledge or training to figure this one out.
“I don’t know where these “experts” saw English letters on the hull of the rocket, without noticing the Cyrillic characters “КБ” and “3Д” (apparently they don’t even know the Russian alphabet, let alone Latin), but their rocket turned out to be a rocket-propelled projectile MO.1.01.04M for TOS-1A Solntsepyok”, Kovalenko writes.
The TOS-1A Solntsepyok is a multiple rocket launcher capable of using thermobaric warheads. Russia is the manufacturer and the main user of the TOS-1A, although the defenders of Ukraine managed to destroy a handful of them.
Ukraine reportedly captured at least 3 TOS-1As and four TZM-Ts during the ongoing war and at least one of them was used against the Russian positions.
However, even so, Ukraine barely has any of the TOS-1A systems. And it doesn’t even matter – the only thing that matters is that that particular rocket was not from the Western countries and did not have any English inscriptions.
A group of TOS-1A Solntsepyok (“Scorching sunlight”) firing a volley of rockets. Image credit: Vitaly V. Kuzmin via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
According to Kovalenko, that video is interesting because it is the first recorded malfunctioning MO.1.01.04M and the rocket was produced in 2023.
Also, this rocket landed in Russian-controlled territory. That is, it could have fallen on the heads of the occupiers themselves. Russia is using weapons straight from the factory and they are already malfunctioning dangerously.
Regarding the inability to identify their own rocket, this Russian mistake is merely funny, because they made and uploaded this video themselves.
However, in some cases, these mistakes can be dangerous, because unexploded munitions can be extremely dangerous depending on their type and how you treat them.
Written by Povilas M.
Sources: Charter97.org, Wikipedia