In 2021, state tests of the new Krasnopol-M2 guided artillery shells and Gran 'guided mines for the Russian Armed Forces will be completed.

This was reported by the Kalashnikov concern.

“This year, the concern, together with the developer of the Instrument-Making Design Bureau, is completing two experimental design work on the Krasnopol-M2 and Gran 'guided artillery shells.

The state testing of products is planned to be completed this year ", - quotes the words of the concern RIA Novosti. 

According to Rosoboronexport, the Krasnopol-M2 guided weapon system is designed to engage both moving and stationary armored targets and structures.

In turn, the "Gran" complex is intended for use in mortars and recoilless guns of 120 mm caliber.

In addition to guided projectiles, they also include a complex of means for controlling fire "Malachite" - it provides detection and illumination of targets, their binding according to topographic data, as well as calculation and input of firing settings for weapons. 

Among the features of the Krasnopol-M2 complex are the ability to hit targets with the first shot without zeroing, hitting targets both during the day and at night from firing positions of any kind, as well as hitting targets located at a considerable distance from each other without changing the firing settings.

The maximum firing range of the complex is up to 25 km with a projectile mass of 54 kg.

At the same time, the temperature range of Krasnopol-M2 application is very wide: from -40 to +60 degrees.

According to military expert Alexei Leonkov, at the base of such a projectile there is a bottom gas generator with a small amount of solid fuel and an inertial navigation system, which corrects the flight according to the coordinates laid down.  

“If the projectile deflects, then with the help of the steering control, the flight can be adjusted so that it most accurately went to the set point.

This ammunition was created for such large-caliber artillery systems as self-propelled guns "Coalition-SV", "Msta-S", "Msta-B", - said Leonkov in an interview with RT. 

Long-term developments

The development of guided missiles "Krasnopol" began in the 1970s at the Tula Instrument Design Bureau (KBP).

One of the developers of these shells, Yuri Sergeev, said in an interview for the Rostec portal in 2013 that work in this direction began in 1973 after the signing of an agreement between the USSR and the United States on the limitation of strategic arms and missile defense.

  • Krasnopol-M2

  • © Vitaly Kuzmin

Then the laboratories for advanced developments under the leadership of designer Yuri Zhuravlev had to curtail their work on autonomous warheads for ballistic missiles, but the research team decided to apply their developments in artillery.

“Less than a year later, using our accumulated experience in homing, we developed a 122-mm guided artillery projectile with a semi-active laser homing head.

Based on the results of these studies, by decision of the government and the Ministry of Defense, we were assigned the Krasnopol ROC to create a guided projectile for the 152-mm D-20 and 2S3M artillery systems, ”said Yuri Sergeev.

The developers, he said, competed with the American 155 mm Copperhead projectile, as well as with another Soviet guided projectile - the 2K24 Centimeter complex of 152 mm caliber.

The designer noted that Krasnopol surpassed all analogues in terms of its performance.

For the first time the Krasnopol shell was presented abroad in 1993 at IDEX - the largest arms exhibition in the Middle East.

Then, during the demonstration, the Msta-S gun hit the target 39 times out of 40 at a distance of 20 km.

In an interview with RT, the editor-in-chief of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, Viktor Murakhovsky, explained the principle of operation of such shells.

Krasnopol-M2 belongs to the class of corrective ammunition, which regulates its trajectory according to the reflected laser beam.

For their effective use, it is necessary that a drone or an individual reconnaissance kit, which includes a laser rangefinder, illuminates the enemy's target with a coded beam, setting the target coding on the ammunition, ”said the military expert.

He noted that the modified versions of the Krasnopol and Gran 'shells are significantly superior in performance to their predecessors.

“Components for the first series of ammunition“ Krasnopol ”and“ Gran ”were produced in Ukraine.

In addition, they could not work at long distances, and they did not have a high accuracy of hitting enemy targets.

Today, these ammunition has been modernized, their components have been replaced with Russian ones.

All this together increased the hitting accuracy and reduced deviations to the minimum indicators - within one or two meters.

In addition, now the shells are capable of working at much greater distances, ”explained Viktor Murakhovsky.

Successful application

The Russian Armed Forces already have experience in the successful use of Krasnopol guided missiles in combat conditions.

In 2018, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the destruction of a group of militants with the help of this weapon, who carried out an attack on the Khmeimim air force base.

“Upon the arrival of the terrorists at the facility, where they were preparing to transfer to a minibus, the entire sabotage group was destroyed by the Krasnopol high-precision artillery ammunition,” the Russian defense ministry said.

  • 155-mm guided missile Krasnopol

  • © Vitaly Kuzmin

In addition, as part of this operation, in the province of Idlib, a workshop for assembling and storing attack drones used by terrorists was also destroyed with the help of a Krasnopol shell.

“After modernization, they were used in Syria, where they worked for the first time in a combat situation, complete with laser designators on Russian unmanned aerial vehicles.

It can be expected that as the use of high-precision and autonomous weapons grows, these shells will be more widely used in theaters of operations in the future, ”Murakhovsky said.

At the same time, the expert recalled that such ammunition belongs to the class of high-precision weapons, and their price is tens of times higher than the cost of conventional shells and mortars.

Most likely, after the tests and the final decision of the RF Ministry of Defense, the new Krasnopol-M2 shells and Gran guided mines will be put into service, Alexei Leonkov believes.

“This ammunition will not constitute the entire arsenal of the artillery installation.

This projectile will be present in a certain quantity, depending on the tasks that the Russian artillery systems "Msta-S" and "Coalition-SV" will have to solve.

Considering the high cost of one projectile, it will be used for special purposes, ”the expert emphasized.

However, despite the high cost, in the future, such ammunition will be more widely used in theaters of war, Leonkov said.

“If the target is far away, for example, for 20-30 km, then conventional shells will not hit it.

Even two shells fired at one target at the same time may not inflict damage on the enemy.

But such ammunition as Krasnopol will cope with this task, ”the expert concluded.