Russians installed an RBU-6000 anti-submarine MRL on MT-LB

The Russians installed the naval RBU-6000 Smerch-2 MRL on the MT-LB.

The photos of it were released on social media.

RBU-6000 is a Soviet anti-submarine rocket launcher with a fixed dual-plane gun installation with twelve radially located barrels.

It was developed by the Research and Development Centre №1 and adopted by the USSR Navy in 1961.

The system is designed to destroy enemy torpedoes and submarines.

The boundary angles of guidance RBU-6000 in the vertical plane are between -15° and +60°, and in the horizontal plane at the heading angle – between 0° to + 180°.

The speed of guidance drives in automatic mode is 30° per second, and in manual mode, it is -4° degrees per second. The system installed on the MT-LB most likely has a manual drive.

The launcher is armed with RGB-60 depth charges with a UDV-60 fuser.

The bombs have a mass of 113.6 kilograms and a flight speed of up to 300 meters per second. The maximum firing range reaches 5230 meters.

Based on this, it can be assumed that the Russians will use the new installation as a short-range MLRS.

The RBU-6000 installed on the ships has a special mechanism to load ammunition from the vault under the installation. The system installed on the MT-LB will be charged manually.

Accordingly, the Burya fire control system is not likely to be available. Therefore, targeting will also be performed manually, which will negatively affect the MRL’s accuracy.

It is not the first time that the Russians have installed naval MRL on MT-LB. Militarnyi previously reported on Russian vehicles equipped with the Soviet А-22 Ogon’ naval multiple rocket launchers.

At that time, the Russians integrated sighting devices into these launchers for manual targeting without the use of ship’s systems.

Read more about developments based on MT-LB in the article: “MT-LB: combat chariot of the Russo-Ukrainian war“.