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| Russia's New Weapon GROM Flying Missile For All Fighter, Including For Su-34 And Su-57 |
Moscow - Russia has been proven to use a new flying missile weapon or gliding munition known as the GROM-32. The new ammunition is designed to be used on all combat aircraft, including the Su-34 Fullback fighter bomber and the Su-57 Felon stealth aircraft.
The use of the GROM-32 missile is clear from several sources, including photographic evidence from the war in Ukraine. The GROM-32 glide missile is actually a constructor that is combined with various missiles according to the specific mission and task to be accomplished.
Quoted from The War Zone, the GROM missile is a Russian air-to-surface weapon with a pair of pop-out wings that provide a longer flight capability. Even the basic warhead in the form of a classic High Explosive (HE) can be added with additional warhead modules with different characters.
Quoted from the Bulgarian Military, the weight of the GROM missile reaches 315 kilograms, enough to cause damage. However, with the auxiliary warhead module behind the main warhead weighing 165 kg, the total weight is almost half a ton. Additional warheads allow increasing the effect of the explosion, and changing the payload.
Russian experts say that the payload can be replaced with a thermobaric warhead option. If there is a threat of using a long-range anti-aircraft weapon, such as the Patriot or NASAMS, the auxiliary warhead can be replaced with an MDU or propulsion unit.
In his 2015 book entitled Russia's Air-Launched Weapons: Russian-Made Aircraft Ordnance Today, Russian military aviation expert Piotr Butowski explains that GROM weapons are produced by the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV).
The overall design of the weapon is derived from the Kh-38M air-to-surface missile which was also designed by KTRV. The Kh-38M missile has four wings attached to the body and rear tail fin. Butowski in his book quotes the head of KTRV, Boris Obnosov, explaining that the GROM missile uses the Kh-38 missile body, by adding pop-out wings and changing some of the design.
In other words, GROM is a long-range weapon adaptation of the Kh-38M powered missile that has been designed with additional modules. This includes folding wings to allow it to travel longer distances and an additional warhead.
KRTV during the MAKS Airshow 2015 at Zhukovsky International Airport near Moscow demonstrated two variants of the GROM missile for export, namely the Grom-E1 and Grom-E2. The Grom-E1 missile is a rocket powered missile using the OFAB-500U bomb body.
The GROM-E1 missile weighs about 12.2 inches in diameter, 3.9 meters in length, and 9 inches in width with a wingspan of just under 2.1 meters. The Grom-E1 missile is armed with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead that weighs just under 700 pounds (317 kg) and is chambered for impact propellant.
The Grom-E2 missile, known as 9-A2-7759 in Russia, is based on the 990 pound (449 kg) KAB-500OD bomb body. The Grom-E2 apart from being a guided-launch weapon, with the addition of an HE warhead.
The new GROM-32 missile appears to be a new version used by Russia during the Ukrainian war with a longer range of about 120 kilometers. Longer range capability is aimed at securing the aircraft from enemy threats.
In addition, the GROM-32 missile also has elements of the steering mechanism, control system and planning module. There are three main variants of the new additional ammunition, namely small cruise missiles, boosted aviation bombs and thermobaric.