Missile Weapons Capability

DB "Luc h" Unv eil s it s Mos Recent Missil e, he RK-10

State Enterprise "State Kyiv Design Bureau “Luch” (an affiliate of the Ukroboronprom State Defense Industries Group), has won great renown, both in and outside of Ukraine, as developer of a range of precision-guided missile weapons products such as tank-launched ATGM Kombat as well as Skif, Corsar and Barrier lineups of man-portable and vehicle-mounted anti-tank missile and launcher systems.

At the 16th edition of the Arms & Security International Expo, held in Kyiv in October 2019, the Company unveiled its most re

RK-10 features an automatic laser-tracking guidance system 170-mm ATGM RK-10

cent development – a highly versatile guided missile system that received the nomenclature RK-10.

Designed in 170-mm caliber size, the RK-10 missile is intended to be used against targets such as ERA-protected armored vehicles (both static and moving), small surface ships, and slow flying targets in the air. The missile is delivered and transported as an all-up round in a storage/transport/ launch canister and can be attached with different types of warheads.

So far the ammunition has been developed in two versions: • anti-tank guided missile R-10-K, developed specifically for use with rotary-wing aircraft. It is armed with a tandem-charge HEAT warhead boasting an armor penetration capacity of 1,100 mm behind ERA; • guided ground-to-air missile R-10- OF developed for use with mobile SAM air defense systems; armed with a proximity-fuzed, high explosive, explosively formed (HE EF) penetrator warhead, it can pierce through 120 mm of core armor behind ERA.

Both versions feature an automatic laser-tracking guidance system.

Luch is also developing a variant of the missile armed with a Fuel-Air Explosive (FAE) warhead.

A highly versatile missile, the RK10 is suitable to be launched from platforms based on land, at sea or in aircraft, against aerial and land targets distanced at up to 10,000 m. The missile weighs 38 kg, and when it is ready to fire in canister it weighs 62 kg. It can be launched at temperatures ranging from minus 40 to plus 60 degrees Celsius.

Some analysts are looking at the RK-10 as an improved and enhanced follow-on to the already renowned 130-mm ATGMs Barrier and Barrier-V. By way of comparison, the Barrier missile can reach targets out to 5,000 meters and can be launched primarily from turrets on BMP and BTR series of armored fighting vehicles, while the Barrier-V, which was designed as part of upgrade to the Mi-24 series of helicopters among other combat aircraft platforms, can be fired to a range of 7,500 meters.