Ukrainian Armed Forces show new weapons from Poland

Recently, the 44th Detached Mechanized Brigade in one of its posts for the first time revealed that Ukrainian military had already received Polish 120mm Rak self-propelled wheeled gun mortars. On December 11, the first video of this vehicle in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was released.

Photo: Defense ExpressM120 Rak self-propelled wheeled gun-mortar 

It is unknown how many of these vehicles Ukrainian forces already have. In April, it was reported that the Ukrainian army was to be reinforced with three companies of these vehicles, i.e. 24 units of 120 mm self-propelled mortars.

The news story highlights the speed of deployment of this weapon into a combat position -- only 30 seconds are needed. And it takes only 15 seconds to leave the position. The Armed Forces of Ukraine operate a variant based on the Rosomak chassis, with a Scania D1 12 56A03PE engine, which can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h. The operational range is 500 km.

Training to operate these mortars took place in Poland. According to the brigade's soldier, Yevhen, they mastered the vehicle in two weeks, first on simulators and then on the vehicles themselves.

"The main task is to support the infantry and destroy fortified positions. The range of the 120th mine fragments is about 100 metres," says a brigade fighter with the call sign Yarosh. We would like to remind you that the Rak self-propelled mortar has a 46-round ammunition capacity and a maximum range of 12 km.

Photo: Defense Express

In addition, the mortar has a Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact (MRSI) mode of fire, when several rounds fired from different trajectories hit the target simultaneously.

"These mortars are perfect weapons for Ukrainian forces, especially in the context of destroying Russian manpower/ Especially when Russian troops trying hard to escape from FPV drone attacks and protecting their trenches with canopies made of improvised materials.