6IX WORLD NEWS

Horrifying rain of thermite from Russian Grad 9M22S incendiary rockets

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This is the Russian 122mm 9M22S (9M22C), an incendiary, forward-ejection, electrically initiated, surface-to-surface, fin and spin stabilised rocket launched from the BM-21 Grad truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher systems normally used against personnel and flammable targets. The basic variant rocket is designated the 9M22 with other types of warhead installed including chemical, incendiary, smoke or submunitions. 

The 9M22S payload (9N510) consists of 180 un-fuzed incendiary elements which are ignited on ejection by an ignition/expelling charge of six linear shaped-charges (LSC). The incendiary elements are ML-5 magnesium cups filled with a thermite-type mixture and packed in a matrix, each element having a burning time of at least 2 minutes. 

The total weight of the incendiary elements is assessed to be 5.9 kilograms (13.0 pounds). The 9M22S warhead is painted light grey and has a red band.

Thermite burns at 3,000 C - through metal. Ukraine’s troops are facing some of the most savage, barbarous weapons ever devised. There’s no excuse not to quickly supply them with weapons to fight back with.

The 9M22S 122 mm incendiary rocket was developed by the Splav State Research and Production Association in 1971, and was broadly based on the 9M22 high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) munition which preceded it. In place of the 9M22 rocket’s HE-FRAG warhead, the 9M22S carries the 9N510 warhead, which contains 180 individual incendiary elements (see Figure 3).


Designed to start fires in vegetated areas such as forests, amongst ammunition or fuel storage sites, and elsewhere, these incendiary elements consist of hexagonal prisms made of a magnesium alloy known as ML-5, filled with a pyrotechnic composition similar to thermite.

Each element is nominally 40 mm long and 25 mm wide, and has a burn time of at least 2 minutes. The incendiary elements are packed into the body of the rocket in 9 layers of 18 elements per layer, with a further 18 elements arranged in three layers in the conical nose of the munition.

 After the rocket is fired, a time fuze (most often the GDT-90, although the TM-120 has also been observed in use with these munitions) fuze arms and functions the munition after the selected delay. When the munition functions, the individual elements are ignited by way of a black powder expelling and ignition charge, and scattered over an area of approximately 80 × 80 metres (6,400 square metres).

 

Despite some reporting to the contrary, the 9M22S does not deliver a white phosphorous payload. In fact, white phosphorous—whilst available in ‘unitary’ format munitions for incendiary use and sometimes used as an ignition source in some incendiary munitions due to its pyrophoric characteristics, is most often used for marking and screening purposes, dues to the large volume of dense, white smoke it can quickly produce. Magnesium- and thermite-based incendiary munitions, by contrast, are most often used to ignite fires in areas such as fuel depots, ammunition storage sites, and other flammable military targets. 

A Soviet manual for the 9M22S also specifically details the intended use of the weapon in areas of dry vegetation. Unfortunately, such munitions have also been used in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere in areas primarily or exclusively containing civilians and civilian objects.