This article was updated on February 7, 2024 at 3 p.m..
Russia has stepped up its air attacks on major Ukrainian cities, Russian Air Forces bombarded a residential quarter of the Ukrainian city of Kherson with the latest Grom-1 air-to-surface missiles.
Photos published on X, formerly Twitter, show remnants of the attack with the Grom-1's distinctive pop-out wings on show amidst the rubble. The dimensions and other details align with known details of the Grom-1.
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While this is first use of the high-precision missile in the Kherson region since Russia's invasion, the Grom-1 is becoming a key tool in the country's war-time arsenal.
On September 19, during one of Russia's largest bombardments of Ukrainian energy facilities , the Grom-1 was used in an attack on Kupyansk, in the Kharkhiv region.
Oleg Sinegubov, the head of the local administration, provided a sobering account of the incident at the time: “Two of the dead were volunteers who helped with evacuation efforts,” he said. “The occupiers cynically struck with the new Grom-E1 missile.”
The regional prosecutor's office later confirmed the missile type as the "Grom-1," which is essentially a modification of the X-38, a high-precision air-to-surface missile. This missile variant was officially integrated into the Russian Armed Forces’ arsenal in 2013, though it wasn't until 2019 that testing for the "Grom-1" was officially concluded.
Comparison with U.S. JDAM guidance module
The "Grom-1" missile boasts a range of 120 kilometers (75 miles). What sets it apart is its unique design: the bomb-rocket hybrid features deployable wings, which enhance both its range and accuracy. In contrast, its predecessor, the "X-38," only has a range of 40 km (25 miles). The Grom-1 also has the ability to circumvent advanced Western air defense systems located near the front lines, making it a useful asset for Russian forces.
This hybrid missile is equipped with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead that varies in weight up to 480 kilograms (1,058 pounds). Russian state media has also claimed the existence of a thermobaric version of this missile, but this has not been independently verified.
Russian agencies have also drawn comparisons between the "Grom" and the U.S. military's JDAM, a guidance module used to upgrade unguided bombs. However, the Russian hybrid missile has yet to demonstrate that it has reached the same level of effectiveness and precision as the American guidance kit.
Pinpointing with precision
Prior to these recent incidents, the "Grom" missile had made only one appearance, which was reported in March 2023 on the pro-Russian telegram channel "Military Informant." Technical issues caused the missile to crash in a privately owned area of Donetsk. Nonetheless, the official Russian government newspaper "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" later published a report heralding the use of the Grom missile, which it described as the "latest high-precision munition," during the war in Ukraine.
Other reports have suggested that a high-precision hybrid missile used by the Russian Air Force had fallen somewhere within Russian-controlled Donetsk. However, photographic evidence of the rocket debris has never definitively pinpointed the exact crash site.