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This week, the world was made aware of a new addition to Russia’s already formidable military arsenal, which strikes fear into the hearts of enemy combatants unfortunate enough to find themselves in its crosshairs.
A new video recently released by the Russian Ministry of Defense shows the deployment of TOS-2 Tosochka heavy flamethrower system in the Ukrainian conflict zone where this weapon has already wiped out an entrenched Ukrainian troop formation.
So what exactly is TOS-2 and what makes it so dangerous to enemy infantry and lightly armored vehicles?
TOS-2 is the latest iteration of Russian “heavy flamethrower” weapon systems, which are essentially rocket artillery units that fire thermobaric munitions, the first of which – TOS-1 Buratino – was developed in the 1970s and saw action during the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
While TOS-1 and its successor TOS-1A Solntsepyok are both fitted on T-72 tank chassis, TOS-2 is mounted on Ural 6x6 all-terrain armored truck.
With its wheeled chassis making it more agile than its tracked predecessors, TOS-2 is also much lighter than them, weighing only 20 metric tons as compared to TOS-1A’s 46 metric tons.
New electronic countermeasure equipment affords TOS-2 a degree of protection from enemy precision weaponry, and its onboard automated fire control system provides a substantial accuracy boost.
TOS-2 also does not require a dedicated loading vehicle as this weapon system has a built-in loader crane.
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