How volunteers make “mini-hailstorms” on pickup trucks
Decommissioned and partially damaged 40-barrel BM-21 Grad launchers became donors for the manufacture of mini-Grads on pickup truck chassis.
Volunteers took over the production of light MLRS. Such “mini-hailstones” have already proven themselves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front line: they are incredibly fast, all-terrain and very accurate.
The presence of at least one such multiple rocket launcher can significantly support any combat unit of our army, starting with a platoon and beyond.
The same calculations apply for precision fire as for full-fledged Grads. The only difference is that there are only three barrels on the welded swivel bed of the pickup, not 40 as in the BM-21.
Conventional pickup trucks are stripped of their bodies during the process of re-skinning. On the reinforced chassis frame, the outboard area is sewn up with sheet metal. A machine with a rotary wheel for a three-barrel mini-truck is mounted on a flat platform.
In addition, two outriggers were made to fix the pickup while working to destroy enemy positions. They are mounted in the aft area on the rear overhang, which also had to be reinforced. The outriggers are deployed manually from the transport mode to the operating mode without any hydraulic drives.
Standard 122-mm rockets from the BM-21 Grad MLRS are also delivered by passenger pickup trucks to the installation to target enemy positions.
The capacity of a small workshop of an automobile company or car repair plant is enough to produce the “mini-hail”. Currently, volunteers are raising funds to manufacture two more small Grad MLRS on pickup truck chassis to be delivered to the K2 battalion of the 54th Brigade and the Rubizh Brigade Combat Team.
