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Rocket artillery is a type of artillery equipped with rocket launchers instead of conventional guns or mortars.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2014) |
Rocket artillery is a type of artillery equipped with rocket launchers instead of conventional guns or mortars.
Note that the "Calibre" of rocket projectiles may not refer to the warhead diameter but to the launch tube diameter.
| Caliber (mm) | Tubes | Weapon name | Country of origin | Operational period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 20 or 50 | Volovsky rockets |  Russian Empire | 20th century, 1912, |
| 76 | 1 | Mysorean rockets |  Kingdom of Mysore | 18th century Southern India, |
| 46 | 100 | Singijeon Hwacha |  Joseon | 15th century |
The Katyusha is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Multiple rocket launchers such as these deliver explosives to a target area more intensively than conventional artillery, but with lower accuracy and requiring a longer time to reload. They are fragile compared to artillery guns, but are cheap, easy to produce, and usable on almost any chassis. The Katyushas of World War II, the first self-propelled artillery mass-produced by the Soviet Union, were usually mounted on ordinary trucks. This mobility gave the Katyusha, and other self-propelled artillery, another advantage: being able to deliver a large blow all at once, and then move before being located and attacked with counter-battery fire.
The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System is a light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s for the United States Army and mounted on a standard U.S. Army Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) M1140 truck frame.
A mortar today is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, muzzle-loaded cannon, consisting of a smooth-bore metal tube fixed to a base plate with a lightweight bipod mount and a sight. Mortars are typically used as indirect fire weapons for close fire support with a variety of ammunition. Historically mortars were heavy siege artillery. Mortars launch explosive shells in high-arching ballistic trajectories.
The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System is an American armored self-propelled multiple launch rocket system.
The MGR-1 Honest John rocket was the first nuclear-capable surface-to-surface rocket in the United States arsenal. Originally designated Artillery Rocket XM31, the first unit was tested on 29 June 1951, with the first production rounds delivered in January 1953. Its designation was changed to M31 in September 1953. The first Army units received their rockets by year's end and Honest John battalions were deployed in Europe in early 1954. Alternatively, the rocket was capable of carrying an ordinary high-explosive warhead weighing 1,500 pounds (680 kg).
S-Series is a fleet of sounding rockets funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that have been in service since the late 1960s. Manufactured by IHI Aerospace and operated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). The nomenclature of the S-Series rockets is the number of "S"s indicates the number of stages, and the following number details the diameter of the craft in millimeters. For example, the S-310 is a single stage rocket with a diameter of 310 mm.
The RT-2 was an intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the Soviet Union, which was in service from December 1968 until 1976. It was assigned the NATO reporting name SS-13 Savage and carried the GRAU index 8K98. Designed by OKB-1, about 60 were built by 1972.
The Kaituozhe or KT rocket family is a series of launch vehicles built by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
The Mesquito is an American sounding rocket vehicle developed for the NASA Sounding Rocket Program on Wallops Island, Virginia. The Mesquito was developed to provide rocket-borne measurements of the mesospheric region of the upper atmosphere. An area of great science interest is in the 82–95 km region, where the conventional understanding of atmospherics physics is being challenged.
Rocket artillery is artillery that uses rockets as the projectile. The use of rocket artillery dates back to medieval China where devices such as fire arrows were used. Fire arrows were also used in multiple launch systems and transported via carts. The first true rocket artillery was developed in South Asia by Tipu Sultan, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. In the late nineteenth century, due to improvements in the power and range of conventional artillery, the use of early military rockets declined; they were finally used on a small scale by both sides during the American Civil War. Modern rocket artillery was first employed during World War II, in the form of the German Nebelwerfer family of rocket ordnance designs, Soviet Katyusha-series and numerous other systems employed on a smaller scale by the Western allies and Japan. In modern use, the rockets are often guided by an internal guiding system or GPS in order to maintain accuracy.
The Fajr-3 is an Iranian heavy 240 mm intermediate-range multiple-launch artillery rocket (MLRS). The Fajr-3 is a license-built copy, with slight modifications, of a North Korean MLRS called the M-1985. The Fajr-3 was introduced in the 1990s and has since been exported to Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Fajr-5 is an Iranian 333 mm long-range multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The Fajr-5 was developed during the 1990s and has since been exported to various armed actors in the Middle East.
Zelzal-3 is an Iranian-made solid propellant guided artillery rocket with a range of 200 km. It is an upgrade of the Zelzal-2 rocket with slightly improved range and was first shown to the public in 2007. A variant, the Zelzal-3B, has a smaller warhead and a range of 250 km. The shape and dimensions of the Zelzal-3 are nearly identical with previous versions except that the nosecone is cone shaped rather than the dome shaped Zelzal-1 and Zelzal-2. The Zelzal-3 has received little use as the much more accurate Fateh-110 missile was also developed from the Zelzal-2.
The MGR-3 Little John was a free flight artillery rocket system designed and put into service by the U.S. Army during the 1950s and 1960s.
The Naze'at 6-H and Naze'at 10-H/Mushak-120/Iran-130 are two Iranian long-range artillery rockets with ranges of about 100 km. The Naze'at 10-H is larger, more powerful, and has a longer range than the Nazeat 6-H. Like Iran's similar shaped Zelzal rockets, Naze'at rockets do not have a guidance system. Both systems are also widely known without the -H suffix, as the Naze'at 6 and Naze'at 10. The Iranians also have developed another 500 kg version called the Mushak-160 with 160 km range.
The Falaq-2 missile is the second generation of Falaq unguided artillery rocket systems. This system was also developed in the 1990s by the Shahid Bagheri Industries, which is part of the Aerospace Industries Organization.
The 45 cm naval rocket was a rocket artillery system used by garrison troops of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the late stages of World War II in defense of island bases in the Pacific.
KN-25 is a designation given to a North Korean tactical ballistic missile.
The Noor or Arash 3 is an Iranian 122 mm fin-stabilized artillery rocket. It is speculated to be an Iranian variant of a Chinese or Russian 122 mm artillery rocket.
The Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) is a weapon developed by Boeing and the Saab Group to allow Boeing's GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), originally developed for use by aircraft, to be ground-launched from a variety of launchers and configurations. It combines the SDB with the M26 rocket, enabling it to be launched from ground-based missile systems such as the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System and M142 HIMARS.
