Heavy flamethrower battalions are coming to the Russian army. The goal is to use incendiary weapons – devastating physically and psychologically – to clear enemy troops from cities, bunkers and tunnels. Eurasia Diary reports citing National Interest.

 Russia will be using the new TOS-1A Solntsepek (“burning sun”) a multiple rocket launcher – mounted on a T-72 tank chassis – that fires thermobaric rockets. These weapons mix mix fuel and  air in a cloud that, when detonated, creates massive heat and pressure effects. Russia has reportedly used the older TOS-1 Buratino in Syria.

“Solntsepek heavy flamethrowers will clear the road for Armata tanks and motorized riflemen,” according to Russian newspaper Izvestia. “They will form battalions, which are armed with those powerful systems, in each military district, Their primary mission is to dislodge the enemy from fortifications.”

Viktor Murakhovsky, a Russian defense expert, boasted to Izvestia that the new thermobaric weapons will so devastate the enemy that the infantry will have a cakewalk occupying the terrain. “‘Solntsepek’ systems provide complete destruction on a large area,” he said. “They are good during the breach of heavily defended fortified areas. Ordinary tube or rocket-propelled artillery will require much more time and ammunition to accomplish a similar mission. Moreover, the result will not be ensured in the end. But the heavy flamethrowers using fuel-air explosive munitions will destroy that defense with one salvo. Later, tanks and motorized riflemen should enter the engagement and, essentially, there will already be no one to offer resistance to them.”

“The typical Russian flamethrower battalion consists of two companies of shoulder-launched flamethrowers, and one company of vehicle-launched ‘heavy’ flamethrowers. The typical shoulder-fired flamethrower company has 71 personnel and nine BMO-T ‘Terminators’ (the BMO-T is a modified T-72 chassis for the transportation of 20-30 of the highly volatile shoulder-fired disposable RPO-A Shmel series flamethrowers). The typical vehicle-launched ‘heavy’ flamethrower company has 35 personnel, three TOS-1A ‘Solntsepek’ heavy flamethrowers, each with 24 220-mm thermobaric rockets mounted on a T-72 chassis, and six TZM-T transporter/loader vehicles that are also mounted on a T-72 chassis.”