Grouping "Dawn of Libya" and her crafts
The lack of spare parts for sophisticated weapons systems sold at one time to Libya led to a number of rather interesting alterations by the Libyan national army and the Libyan Dawn group, which are seeking to take advantage of each other. Recent examples of such rework included installing installation ship guns Oerlikon GDF for trucks grouping "Dawn of Libya" and installation AK-230 ship cannons for trucks of the Libyan People’s Army.
Libyan Dawn, currently controlling the capital of Libya, Tripoli and other major cities, such as Misurata, has received a large number of ground-to-air missiles found on its controlled lands in western Libya. Because the aviation while Libya is not yet a class, there is no need for such missiles or it is very small. Therefore, Libyan Dawn began to study the possibility of converting some of these anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAM) into ground-to-ground missiles. This group has already gained experience in similar modernization, when it used several X-29 air-to-ground missiles mounted on the Libyan Su-24 as unguided missiles, firing several targets near Tripoli.
Taking an unexpected step, the Libyan Dawn grouping transported at least two 125 “Neva” complete brigades (the export name of the Pechora complex, according to the classification of the US and NATO Defense Mines SA-3 Goa), along with the corresponding missiles and equipment in Tripoli early December 2014 and early March 2015. While the original intentions that caused these transfers remain unknown, recent photographs show that Dawn of Libya began using C-125 missiles as ground-to-ground missiles.
The missiles are mounted on their original (now mobile) launcher, but they have removed the front steering surfaces in order to obtain a more stable flight path in the role of an unguided ground-to-ground missile. More interestingly, the nose was extended, possibly to increase the size of the warhead. The original missile can take as much as a 60 kg of combat load, which is enough for serious damage or for destroying a potential air target, but too little for significant damage when performing tasks in the role of ground-to-ground. The warhead was probably replaced by a conventional high-explosive, which is more effective than the original high-explosive fragmentation warhead intended to destroy aircraft. Finally, the most likely remote fuse, usually associated with this rocket, was replaced by a more suitable fuse for work on ground targets.
But such an alteration of ground-to-air missiles into ground-to-ground missiles, made by the Dawn of Libya, is in fact not the first in the world. Back in 1988, Iraq redid several C-125 missiles into ballistic missiles with a target range of 200 km. The rocket, designated al-Barq, was refined to perform ground-to-ground tasks by eliminating some elements that determined the maneuverability of the C-125 rocket: the front steering surfaces and the radio fuse in the warhead were removed, and the self-destruct mechanism was disabled.
This alteration was only possible, since the C-125 warhead is part of the rocket body and is difficult to modify. Work on the rocket is slow and, although several test launches were indeed carried out, the achieved range was only 117 km with a circular probable deviation of several kilometers! Due to such unsatisfactory results, the project was subsequently closed in 1990.
Obviously, the Libyan Dawn group is unlikely to be able to do anything of practical value, even bringing together all these remnants of dusty rockets. It is unlikely that they will be able to achieve at least the range or accuracy of the failed Iraqi al-Barq missile; Modified on the knee of the rocket, most likely, suffer from an extremely short range and terrible inaccuracy. However, given the fact that there is more than an adequate supply of C-125 missiles for rework, and the fact that the civil war does not seem to be the end-edge, upgrades like this will, no doubt, be continued.
2K12 SAM as ground-to-ground missiles
The amazing activity of the “Dawn of Libya” group in re-engineering several ground-to-air C-125 missiles into ground-to-ground missiles is not the only example of such improvements in Libya. Indeed, at about the same time Dawn of Libya also worked on upgrading the Cube missiles (GRAU index 2K12, according to NATO classification SA-6 Gainful) in order to convert them into ground-to-earth missiles. An example of the first symbiosis: in the photo above is a combination of the Italian BTR Puma 6x6 with the launch part of the Soviet anti-aircraft missile system 2K12.
This Puma armored personnel carrier was part of the party (at least 12 vehicles), which was donated by Italy to the newly formed Libyan national army as early as 2013. But now it has been upgraded for completely different tasks by its new owners. Unlike the modifications of the C-125 missiles, there are no signs of improvement here, although of course they are extremely ineffective when used with their original high-explosive fragmentation warhead of 59 kg. In addition, rockets may not earn at all if the original fuse and guidance system are not replaced by more suitable alternative solutions.
As was already mentioned above in the part concerning the conversion of the “Dawn of Libya” of the ZN-XNMX missile, Iraq became the first with the idea of converting anti-aircraft missiles into ground-to-ground missiles. In addition to the refinement of several C-125 missiles, Iraq also modified 125M3 missiles from the 9K2 complex to ground-to-ground tasks, which received the name Kasir. The project was launched in 12 year, his goal was to reach the range of 1989 km.
It turned out that the 3M9 rocket, as well as the C-125, is very difficult to modify for the tasks of the "earth-to-earth". In addition to the problems encountered when redesigning C-125 rockets, for example, the impossibility of modifying a solid-fuel accelerator in order to achieve the desired range, Iraqi engineers faced several problems concerning the refinement of more complex guidance and control systems.
Despite this, two test launches were carried out in the 1989 year, during which disappointing results were obtained, the flight range was only 62 km with too much of a possible circular deviation; This led to the closure of the project at the end of 1989.
The alteration of the 2K12 missiles by the Dawn of Libya grouping was no doubt no better than its Iraqi counterparts, since they can only be launched for large targets in the direct line of sight of the operator. However, the number of self-made projects in Libya is growing and the examples given are obviously not the last.
Materials used:
www.spioenkop.blogspot.ru
www.ru.wikipedia.org
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