• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

1K113 Smelchak / Daredevil

The 1K113 "Smelchak" ["Daredevil", or "Acrobat"] laser-guided guided artillery weapon system is designed to destroy armored vehicles in places where launchers and artillery systems are concentrated at firing positions, command and control posts, long-term defensive structures, bridges and crossings. The complex can be used when firing from both a towed 240-mm mortar M-240, loaded from the breech, and a self-propelled 240-mm mortar 2S4 "Tulip", which is part of the reserve of the High Command. Mortars "Tulip" strengthen military units to solve the most important combat missions.

The composition of the "Smelchak" complex includes: a 3VF4 shot with a 240-mm corrected high-explosive shell 3F5; laser designator-rangefinder 1D15 or 1D20; shot synchronization system 1A35 and 240-mm towed mortar M-240 or 240-mm self-propelled mortar 2S4 "Tulip". The shot synchronization system includes: command device 1A35K (weight 1.2 kg), executive device 1A35I (weight 2.5 kg); means of communication R-107M, R-108M, TA-57. The laser designator-rangefinder 1D15 is carried in two packs with a total weight of 60 kg. Target designation range 0.2-5.0 km. The complex can use a lighter 1D20 device weighing 30 kg with a target designation range of a tank-type target of 7 km. Distance measurement accuracy with both rangefinders ±5 m.

In the mid-1980s, in an effort to turn the tide of the Afghan war, the Soviet government decided to use high-precision artillery. In 1985, the first echelon with the Daredevil complex was sent to Afghanistan. Shcherbakov Konstantin Gennadievich, who served in Afghanistan since November 1983 as a senior officer of the M-240 mortar battery, recalls: “The very first mortars received by us with the battalion commander Beletsky to replace the D-30 howitzers were exactly the M-240 towed mortars, and not self-propelled 2C4, as some say. And the very first combat use of the corrected shells "Smelchak" in Afghanistan was carried out precisely with the help of these wonderful guns. The first test of the "Daredevil" was carried out in 1985 in the Charikar valley when performing combat missions, and then in the same year during the army operation to eliminate the grouping of Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir gorge. With one hit of a 3F5 shell, a fortress was destroyed in which a group of militants was entrenched, and the first sighting was an ordinary shell (one, not two), and then we used the Daredevil, after which the target was destroyed. When I left my unit in November 1985, the battery still continued to be armed with M-240 towed mortars, and only later they were apparently replaced with 2S4 self-propelled systems.

Corrected shell ZF5 "Smelchak" is a rather large ammunition with a caliber of 240 mm, a length of 1.635 m and a mass of 134 kg. Mina consists of the following main parts. In the head part of the shell, under the drop ballistic cap, there is an optoelectronic correction head with a vane device, an electronics unit and fuse elements. The vane device has four aerodynamic surfaces, which, when interacting with the oncoming air flow, orient the head in the direction of the shell's velocity vector, which does not allow the head to lose the target from the field of view. The correction head is followed by a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, which contains 21.4 kg of a multi-component explosive, corresponding to 32 kg of TNT. The shell fuse can be set to detonate slowly or instantly.

Behind the warhead is a block of six chambers of solid-fuel impulse correction engines. Correction motor chambers are arranged parallel to each other. Each two chambers are connected by one common nozzle. Pulse correction motors work one by one according to signals from the head unit. Powder gases exit through the valve into one common nozzle for two engines. Three nozzles of corrective engines are located radially on the surface of the shell body at an angle of 120° relative to each other and are shifted back relative to the center of mass of the shell. When the powder gases flow through the nozzle, a transverse thrust force arises, which unfolds and displaces the shell on the trajectory in the direction of reducing the miss. If the miss value is not fully selected, then a signal is given to trigger the second engine, and so on. until the completion of all six engines. The correction engines for the Daredevil shell used a composition similar to the solid fuel of the Topol intercontinental ballistic missiles. Despite their low weight, in a matter of fractions of a second they develop an enormous power - 30 MW, which corresponds to the power of a thermal power plant. Due to this, in a short correction section, a shell can eliminate a miss up to 300 m and hit the target. The circular probable deviation of the Daredevil shell is 1.8 m over the entire range of firing ranges from 1.5 to 9.2 km. That is, regardless of the firing range, half of the fired shells will fall into a circle with a radius of 1.8 m, which is considered a high accuracy indicator for artillery ammunition.

Targeting a shell on a target is as follows. In the direction of the possible appearance of enemy tanks or stationary targets that need to be destroyed, an advanced observation group of three people with a laser target designator-rangefinder, communications and synchronization equipment is advanced. Due to the limited capabilities of the laser designator-rangefinder, the forward observation group should be located at a distance of no more than 5 km from the target to be destroyed, and even less, taking into account the terrain and weather conditions. From the observation point, a command is given for the first sighting shot with an ordinary shell. The flight time and the deviation of the ammunition are measured. Based on the results of measurements at the firing position, the mortar guidance angles are adjusted, and the Daredevil shell is prepared for firing. Knowing the flight time.

After the shell exits the muzzle of the mortar barrel, the powder gases open the stabilizer blades, which provide the ammunition with a stable flight and a given rotation speed around the longitudinal axis. The shell moves along a ballistic trajectory to the target area. Before the start of the correction section, a powder firecracker of a temporary cap ejection device is triggered. When the cap is dropped, the optical system of the correction head is exposed and the aerodynamic planes of the vane device are revealed. Then the shell continues to fly in the trajectory correction mode. Under the influence of each corrective impulse, the shell significantly unfolds on the trajectory. As a result, the head may deviate from the direction of the target so much that the target leaves the field of view of the head. However, the aerodynamic surfaces of the vane device, rigidly connected to the optical system of the head, which has a relatively small mass, interacting with the oncoming air flow, set the head along the velocity vector of the shell in a time shorter than the shell itself. As a result, the field of view of the head is set according to the velocity vector, practically regardless of the position of the shell in space at the moment.

At the observation post, the fire spotter needs to point and hold the crosshairs of the “sight” of the laser designator-rangefinder on the target. At the time of the shot, through the command device 1A35K, located at the firing position, the signal about the shot is transmitted by radio to the executive device 1A35I, located at the forward observation post. Having received a signal, the 1A35I device starts the timer of the laser designator-range finder via cable. On the last 2-3 from the flight of the ammunition, the target designator-range finder automatically switches to target designation mode, and the target is illuminated by pulses of laser radiation in the wavelength range invisible to the eye. At this time, the shell correction head picks up the laser beam reflected from the target and turns on the corrective engines 900-600 m before the target, depending on the initial miss.

The technical solutions implemented in the Daredevil shell had their advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage of the Daredevil shell was the relative cheapness of the homing head and a significant increase in firing accuracy compared to conventional shells. So, the serial shell "Smelchak" in the process of acceptance and periodic tests during the year was subjected to firing tests in the amount of 92 shots. At the same time, there were no failures, and the average value of the hit probability was 0.78, which significantly exceeded the requirements of the technical conditions, according to which the hit probability should be at least 0.5. The circular probable deviation was 0.8-1.2 m. High firing accuracy made it possible to significantly reduce the time for completing a combat mission and the amount of ammunition spent.

An example of this is the memoirs of Vladimir Kolybabinsky, a participant in the hostilities in Afghanistan: “Our battalion walked through the mountains and covered the battalion, combing the gorge. Suddenly, an anti-aircraft gun opened fire on him. We started working with heavy artillery. For about 30 minutes she hammered along this hill, everything was covered in dust, in smoke. The smoke dissipates, the battalion rises, the kopeck piece shoots. With the advent of the Daredevil shell, the situation has changed. According to the estimates of the participants in the hostilities in Afghanistan, to defeat and demoralize the enemy, 2-3 high-explosive fragmentation shells were required for sighting and 1-2 Daredevil shells for defeat. The execution time of the fire mission did not exceed, as a rule, 12-15 minutes. Among the important shortcomings of the complex, the need for a sighting shot should be noted. Therefore, there was no question of any sudden attack on the enemy.

Another disadvantage was the high risk for the spotter to illuminate the target with a laser. It is technically possible to illuminate the target with a laser from a distance of 5 km. But in order to perform a flight correction, the target must be illuminated in such a way that nothing interferes with the passage of the laser beam. Not always the conditions of the landscape allow this to be done from a great distance, especially in hilly and rough terrain. In this case, the gunner needs to be as close to the target as possible, which is dangerous. So in reality, the target had to be illuminated from a distance of less than 3 km. In addition, modern armored vehicles have recently been equipped with laser irradiation sensors and systems for setting up aerosol camouflage curtains. This, on the one hand, increases the likelihood of detecting a target illumination source and destroying it with return fire, on the other hand, it allows the enemy to hide in an aerosol cloud that prevents the passage of a laser beam.

However, this drawback can be partially eliminated, since with the modern development of technology, target illumination can be carried out both from small unmanned aerial vehicles and from ground-based robotic vehicles, which saves the lives of soldiers. When illuminating a target from the air, landscape conditions are no longer so important, and illumination can be carried out from a greater distance than when illuminated from the ground. For example, the American unmanned aerial vehicle of the Fire Scout helicopter type is already capable of illuminating a target with a laser at a distance of 8 km, and in the future up to 16 km.

Subsequently, the Daredevil shell was modernized. In particular, the TNT equivalent of the warhead was increased to 40 kg instead of the previous 32 kg. In addition, it was supposed to reduce the labor intensity of manufacturing shells in mass production by more than 2 times, increase the TNT equivalent of the warhead to 60 kg, increase the hit accuracy (KVO) to 1.0 m and expand the range of firing ranges - 1.5-10.2 km. The modernized complex "Smelchak-M" was supposed to be equipped with a lightweight automated reconnaissance and laser target designation system.