Watch Vietnam's Su-30MK2 destroy targets with fragmentation bombs

The Vietnam Air Force has just organized a bombing, rocket and artillery firing exercise at sea targets for Su-30MK2 and Su-22 fighters and Mi-8 helicopters at TB5 Shooting Range.

The exercise aimed to improve the quality of work, coordination and command between units, and at the same time increase practice for young pilots to participate in shooting and destroying targets at sea. To destroy the targets in the exercise, the Su-30MK2 fighter carried OFAB-250-270 bombs.

As a multi-role fighter, the Su-30MK2 of the Vietnam Air Force can carry out many combat missions against enemies in the air, on the ground and at sea.

To do that, the Su-30MK2 is capable of carrying up to 8 tons of weapons on 12 hardpoints including: air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles; guided and unguided bombs and rockets.

Install OFAB-250-270 bombs on Su-30MK2 fighter.

However, the number of missiles or bombs carried depends on the rack, not all racks can be used to carry all the weapons.

For example, although it has 12 pylons, the Su-30MK2 can only carry a maximum of 6 R-27, R-73E, or R-77 air-to-air missiles or a maximum of 6 Kh-31A anti-ship missiles, although each missile weighs only about 600kg (a total of 6 missiles is 3.8 tons) while the aircraft's weapon load is up to 8 tons.

So how many bombs can the Su-30MK2 carry in air-to-ground combat? For a long time, the technical and tactical information of the Su-30MK2 for Vietnam has not been made public. However, the Su-30MK2 is designed based on the basic airframe of the Su-30MK aircraft, so the carrying capacity of the Su-30MK can be used to determine the number of bombs carried on the Su-30MK2.

A Su-30MK can carry a total of 6 KAB-500 guided bombs or 3 KAB-1500 guided bombs or 8 FAB-500T unguided bombs or about 20 OFAB-250-270 unguided bombs.

In which, KAB-500/1500 is a family of guided bombs designed by the Soviet Union since the 1970s. The symbol KAB-500/1500 corresponds to the bomb weight of 500kg and 1,500kg. Each plane can carry 6 KAB-500 bombs or 3 KAB-1500 bombs in rack positions 3,4, racks 1, 2 can hang 2 bombs in parallel.

The KAB-500/1500 smart bomb family is produced in many variants. And each variant is equipped with a different guidance system and warhead, creating high efficiency in fighting many different types of targets.

With the KAB-500 bomb, there are variants KAB-500L using a semi-active laser guidance system; KAB-500Kr using a television optical guidance system with an image sensor used only in daytime conditions and KAB-500S/SE using GLONASS (Russia) or GPS (USA) satellite guidance system.

The KAB-500 bomb's warhead includes 4 types: KAB-500L-Pr-E is used to penetrate bunkers; KAB-500L-FE is equipped with a fragmentation explosive used to destroy enemy forces; KAB-500L-OD-E uses a thermobaric explosive and KAB-500L-KE is a bomb containing many submunitions.

The KAB-1500 bomb also has a guidance system (laser, optical television, satellite, optical-electric) and different explosive blocks similar to the KAB-500.

The FAB-500T is an unguided bomb weighing about 500kg (corresponding to the number in the bomb's name), using a high explosive warhead. It is considered very effective when used in large quantities and at low cost.

The OFAB-250-270 bomb that was just used by the Su-30MK2 in the exercise is an unguided bomb weighing 266kg (almost equivalent to the number 270 on the bomb's name), in which the explosive part weighs nearly 100kg. The bomb is used to destroy many different targets, including armored vehicles.

Clip of Su-30MK2 fighter jet destroying target during exercise at TB5 Shooting Range:

According to Baodatviet