Heir to the Red Army, the Russian army has retained a certain appetite for artillery systems. Not only does it have many more than its Western counterparts, with a mobile artillery system for 120 men, one for 500 on average in NATO, but also it is developing many systems in order to maintain a permanent advantage over potential adversaries.
And today, of advantages it has indeed. Not only do its self-propelled guns fire farther and more precisely than most Western systems, but it also employs a large number of multiple rocket launchers, with remarkable performance.
The 9M542 Tornado-S system fits perfectly into this description: Russian response to the development of the HIMARS system, each 8×8 vehicle carries 6 300mm rockets weighing 800 kg each and carrying 280 kg of military load, capable of waiting for targets with a very high precision up to 120 km thanks to the GLONASS guidance system. In this way, it replaces the BM-30 Smerch and BM-21 Grad systems, with much more limited performance. The Tornado-S is positioned between self-propelled artillery systems like the Koalitsia-S, and the Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems.
Designed to attack and destroy enemy strategic points, such as communication nodes, headquarters, or logistics depots, the rockets can be fired in salvos or individually, and can carry different types of ammunition, to optimize their effects. In addition, several indiscretions lead us to believe that, in the near future, the range of the Tornado-S rockets will exceed 200 km, and the system will further gain in precision. Thus, it exceeds the performance of the American system in all areas, from range to warhead.
According to the RIA Novosti news site, the Russian armed forces transformed a first artillery brigade to the new Tornado-S at the beginning of the year. At least four brigades are to be transformed in total in the coming years.