Ukrainian Su-25 “spotted” with American 127mm air-to-surface missiles
Back in early January of this year, the United States announced in one of its defense aid packages that it would transfer to Ukraine unguided 127-mm air-to-surface missiles called Zuni. It was about the transfer of four thousand missiles, which are actually analogous to Soviet unguided aircraft missiles of the C-13 type, and it was reported that the Zuni missiles should be adapted for launching from both airplanes and helicopters.
And today, four months after the announcement of the transfer of these missiles to Ukraine, they were first spotted in Ukraine together with a Su-25 attack aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force.
Ukrainian Su-25 armed with US-supplied Zuni 5-inch Folding-Fin Aircraft Rockets (FFAR) pic.twitter.com/yrwzWZlv44
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) May 1, 2023
The missiles were first published on social media with two sketched out points of the plane’s suspension, and later a photo of the missiles along with the plane was published by the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk.
We have already described the Zuni missile in detail before – the development of this weapon began in the 1950s, and the missile was adopted in 1957. The missile has a range of 8 km (some sources say 9 km), can have various warheads, including high-explosive and armor-piercing, and weighs from 20.7 to 25.6 kg.
The missile is unguided, and it is worth mentioning here that back in 2006, MBDA had an initiative project to create a Laser-Guided Zuni Rocket, which can be compared to the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) guidance system for unguided Hydra 70 missiles, which are successfully used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the Rashid. It is known that the Laser-Guided Zuni Rocket was successfully tested in 2009, including against moving targets.
