Russia's multi-barreled rocket artillery has a distinct advantage.

Military historian Sebastien Roble, an expert for The National Interest (NI) magazine, listed the advantages of the heavy flamethrower system (TOS-1) - the "Buratino" multi-barreled rocket artillery over similar Western weapons.

Heavy flamethrower system (TOS-1).

According to the historian, Buratino has no competitors in the Western arsenal. There is no shortage of multiple fire systems in the world, for example, the HIMARS rocket launcher on the M142 used by the US in Iraq M142, but all of them are only lightly armored and designed to be located in a protected firing point.

TOS-1 rocket gun has direct fire aiming, to meet this mission it has a full fire control system including laser rangefinder and ballistic computer. In addition, TOS-1 possesses heavy armor of T-72 designed on tank chassis, TOS-1 weight is 46 tons.

“There are understandable reasons here: the basic TOS-1 model has a range of less than three kilometers, so the weapon must be ready to withstand enemy fire from all types of guns,” Mr. Robl commented.

Similar systems usually use conventional explosive or cluster munitions, while Russian weapons use incendiary ammunition - rocket ammunition of the Smerch and Uragan complexes.

On mobile salvo systems the US military uses thermobaric bombs and larger air-dropped types. A version of the Buratino that entered service in 2001 is the TOS-1A "Solntsepyek", which has a range of up to six kilometers.

"That's a pretty large range that allows the weapon to continue firing in the face of return fire from most anti-tank guns," he said.

According to Sputnik