RPO-A Shmel in the Vietnamese Army

17 Januari 2020

RPO-A Shmel trained in the Vietnamese Army (photos : QPVN)

The RPO-A Shmel is a 93mm thermobaric rocket launcher (classified as a 'flamethrower' by the Russians) that's highly effective against most soft targets such as buildings and other structures.

They are also capable of engaging vehicles with thin layers of armor such as conventional trucks, humvees, or anything with open hatches though heavily armored vehicles such as tanks would unlikely suffer any internal damage from the warhead.

The weapon has a max range of 1000 meters. The projectile creates a 6 meter radius fireball upon impact though the casualty radius is 50 meters - anyone within that would be barbecued.

RPO-A Shmel (photo : Vitaly Kuzmin)

RPO-A Shmel rocket launchers are notably equipped with the 86th Chemical Warfare Brigade of the People's Army of Vietnam, shown here in the first image. The 2nd-4th images are the results of the target after the weapon itself was fired somewhere in Russia.

(VietDefense)