According to Egyptian news, at the Egyptian EDEX 2023 defense exhibition, an AR3 multi-barrel long-range rocket launcher developed by China North Industries Corporation has become an Internet celebrity in the hearts of various countries**.
The most fundamental reason is that China's AR3 multi-barrel long-range rocket launcher is the most advanced and powerful rocket launcher that can be found in the world's military trade market.
In terms of overall design, the AR-3 rocket launcher refers to the third-generation BM-30 tornado rocket launcher of Soviet Russia, and the launch box adopts the most advanced modular ammunition loading, which can carry 122mm, 300mm, 370mm, 610mm, and 750mm rockets. When using the maximum caliber 750 mm, the effective firing range is up to 500 km. The site uses 8x8 off-road trucks with double-door armored capsules, which have almost no backseat effect when firing large-caliber guns. According to the data released by NORINCO, the AR-3 is equipped with a complete meteorological detection system, an operational command system and a maintenance system, and the degree of automation has been significantly improved compared with its predecessors.
Beginning on 7 October, Hamas fired rockets frequently into Israeli cities, as far as the port of Eilat at the southern tip of Israel. However, due to the impact of range and accuracy, the elastic performance of Hamas rockets is not stable, and many of them land before they even fly out of Gaza.
Compared with Hamas's Qassam, Rajom and Fagil and other Turkish rocket artillery, the power basically depends on luck, and the AR-3 rocket artillery fuse adopts inertial guidance and satellite guidance of the launch platform, and the accuracy can be controlled at about 10 meters, which is not an order of magnitude at all. At the same time, the anti-aircraft artillery warhead carried can also be replaced at any time to meet the needs of different tasks.
For these Middle Eastern buyers, the main concern is whether Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, which claims to be the most advanced, can stop the AR-3 rocket launchers
There are three types of rockets fired by Palestinian resistance groups into Israel. Hamas Qassan rockets, Akhad Brigade rockets from the Ahud Brigades under Jihad, and Al-Aqsa rockets from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade under Fatah.
In the early days, the Cassan type was the most used, with 4 sub-models. Kasan-1 - Kasan-4, both have a length of about 10 meters, a warhead weight of 5-15 kg, and a range of range from 3-20 km. Overall, these home-made rockets are varied, essentially civilian steel pipes, tail welded swept tail, internal filling of sugar and potassium nitrate fertilizer mixed propellant, rough process, cost less than 800 US dollars. Later, Hamas used an Iranian version of the Victory heavy rocket launcher, with a range of 70 kilometers, which was also all thunder and rain for Israel, and more political significance than actual strike effect.
The Iron Dome regional air defense system, developed by the Israeli company Rafael. The main system is one EL M-2084 multi-functional phased array radar, one battlefield management and control system and three 20 combined launcher groups, using Mercedes all-terrain trucks as transport platforms, with all-weather combat capabilities, a range of about 10 km, can effectively intercept short-range rockets, artillery shells and mortars within a range of 70 km.
The Iron Dome will have four steps when it comes to work. First, determine that the rocket is coming. Second, estimate the intended landing point of the incoming missile, and select only "valuable targets" to land in the protected area to avoid wasting resources.
Thirdly, after the target enters the interception range, the command combat and ** management unit gives instructions to the nearest launch unit, followed by the launch of 1 to 2 Tamir interceptor missiles. Because the Iron Dome uses an anti-ballistic interception technology, the Tamir interceptor missile first flies on the pre-determined path of the incoming ballistic missile and then hits it head-on, which is the reason why the flight trajectory of the missile launched by the Iron Dome is always crooked.
Fourth, the interceptor missile switches to more accurate active millimeter-wave guidance at a distance of 2 3 kilometers from the target, uses photoelectric sensors and millimeter-wave radar to accurately aim at the target, and when the missile and the rocket are in a parallel position, at a position of about 10 meters from the target, the directional fragmentation warhead is activated, generating a large number of high-speed fragments to destroy the target.
This anti-ballistic interception method is tailor-made for Hamas rockets by the Iron Dome, and it is a "lazy" way. Hamas missiles basically use inertial guidance, the landing point is relatively fixed, the Iron Dome system only needs the best landing point, the interceptor missile only needs a small kinetic energy to fly to the path of the Hamas missile, and then detonate.
There is a saying in the field of anti-missile defense, "If you are not afraid of an incoming missile, you are afraid that you will not be able to hit accurately." The Iron Dome interception works by digging a hole in the path of an incoming Hamas missile, and then waiting for the bait to be hooked, and if the missile suddenly deviates from this trap, the interception fails. Therefore, Israel's Iron Dome system is prepared for Hamas's hand-rubbing kinetic guided rockets, a set of spears and shields.
According to the logic of the Iron Dome's work, it does not have the ability to intercept regular air defense missiles. First of all, advanced long-range artillery basically adopts head-body separation, or even stealth single-headed, and the radar reflecting surface is extremely small, which is not easy to be captured by the ground anti-missile system, which will greatly reduce the reaction time of the interception system. Secondly, advanced long-range artillery can maneuver and change orbit or spiral maneuver during flight and at the end, and it is very difficult to counter missiles. Third, advanced long-range artillery will also use decoy technology to imitate its own radar characteristics, similar to small jammers, to disrupt ground radar or interceptor missile guidance heads.
The technical difficulty of rocket manufacturing is not very difficult, and a kind of monkey cannon called the Sky Monkey Cannon released during the Chinese New Year is essentially rocket artillery, and Hamas can also create a lethal Laiyang steel tube rocket. The difficulty of rocket artillery is to improve hits.
China's AR-3 rocket artillery self-use version of the PCH-191 rocket launcher, alias far box fire, using inertial + satellite positioning guidance guidance fuse, the accuracy is more than 30 times higher than that of ordinary bullets, the CEP index is about 5 10 meters, better than the 30-meter accuracy of the PGK fuze in service in the US military, and has reached the level of "Excalibur" guided projectiles. In the CCTV program, the PCH-191 can hit multiple targets continuously and accurately with a single salvo.
Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries in the Middle East value AR-3 rocket artillery because of its cheapness, good damage effect, and the advantages of not being easy to intercept.
It can only be said that if the Israeli Iron Dome encounters AR-3 rocket launchers on the battlefield, it is estimated that it will only be bombed.