Russia creates new artillery gun for “land, water, and sky”

In late June, at the Army-2019 weapons show outside Moscow, the machine-building corporation Uralvagonzavod unveiled its latest development, the 57-mm AU-220M artillery gun – a first-of-its-kind versatile weapon for “land, water, and sky.”

“To date, JSC Central Scientific Research Institute Burevestnik has laid the scientific and technical groundwork to create, in the interests of Russia’s land, air, aerospace, and naval forces, an interspecific 57-mm armament system on the basis of a unified combat module on a multipurpose land chassis, as well as on aircraft and ships,” stated Georgy Zakamennykh, general director of Burevestnik (part of Uralvagonzavod), the developer of the weapon.

The system is the intellectual heir of the ZSU 57-2 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun of the 1950s (nicknamed the “infernal thresher”). That weapon achieved a then unimaginable rate of artillery shell fire of 80 rounds per minute.

In turn, the new version of the gun produces up to 120 volleys per minute. It has an extended strike radius of up to 9 km for aerial targets, and 14.5 km for ground targets. Moreover, its ammunition capacity has been increased to 148 warheads (the arsenal of such installations can be used up in just over a minute, after which the machines need to be replaced on the battlefield).

On top of that, the combat module exists in two versions: heavy (weighing 5,000 kg) for heavy tracked vehicle platforms and ships, and light for BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles or BRM-3K Lynx combat reconnaissance vehicles.

At the same time, it does not matter where the system is located; it can destroy even well-protected facilities or enemy manpower entrenched inside a fortification.

Its arsenal ranges from traditional fragmentation and armour-piercing shells to the latest new-century remotely detonated and guided artillery projectiles.

The installation can operate at any time of day and in any weather. The artillery gun, moreover, does not interfere at all with the optical and electronic countermeasure systems – the unit both receives the target designation from the central command post, and independently and individually “selects” the most effective ammunition to destroy the objective.

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