Ukraine's Home-built Long Range Ballistic Missile

Ukraine has been working on developing their own ballistic missile system for a while. Way back in the ancient days of 1996, they first started a project codenamed “Borysfen” to replace their Soviet-era Tochka-U ballistic missiles. Ukraine inherited about 500 Tochka missiles after the fall of the Soviet Union and Ukraine wanted a newer system to expand on the 120 kilometer range of the old missile along with the industrial benefits of developing their own domestic arms industry.

Based on the capabilities of the last system we can fill in the blanks a little and guesstimate what the new one will have. The Tochka-U fired operated similar to how the Iskander launcher does. It’s main high explosive warhead was pretty huge at 420 kilograms or 930 lb, for context that’s like twice the boom of an ATACMs. But the problem is the accuracy because the Tochka-U has a circular error probable of hitting within 95 m of the intended target.If you’re aiming at a giant base that might not be too bad but nowadays we expect higher levels of precision. This is a hint as to what might have been upgraded here. For context HIMARs rockets are meant to hit within 10 meters of point of aim.

Written by: Chris Cappy and Diego Aceituno
edited by: Savvy Studios

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Task & Purpose is a military news and culture oriented channel. We want to foster discussion about the defense industry.

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[tkg__]

People tend to think that Soviet Union was Russia. Ukraine's engineers and industry was a big part of it, they have the industry with traditions and the brains to do it.

[davidcrawley]

Ukraine has some of the best advanced engineers in the world due to their outstanding and rigorous STEM education at all levels. They designed most of the Soviet space program and many of the soviet missiles. I have no doubt that Ukraine has the brains to build such a missile.

[scotshabalam]

Ukraine: "A official test site for the missile? We already have one." LOL, I love those guys.

[alanpolain]

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Privdenne in Dnipro were building ICBMs since the 1960s. It’s quite possible they got the solid fuel technology from a western company

[Fattyyyyx]

People forget Ukraine was the workhorse of the Soviet Union's Military

[tkg__]

He never said Ukraine will develop nukes. He later clarified. It was his English not being his first language. He meant that for a country like Ukraine to be independent and safe it needs either nukes or an alliance like NATO. He didn't mean they will get nukes if they won't get into NATO. He meant they HAVE TO get into NATO, because they don't have nukes.

[SPITSPHIRE]

"There are many rumors being propagated that our country is developing a weapon of mass destruction, and i would just like to take this opportunity to allay fears."
"Are we developing such a weapon? No, we are not."
"Because we have already developed it."

[stayanonymous]

Not a surprise since Soviet missiles and rockets were mostly designed, built and serviced in Dnipro and subsequently Ukraine serviced and built most of the S- rockets

[triglav]

Hrim (Грім): Ukrainian for “thunder” transcribed into latin letters
Grom (Гром): Russian for “thunder” transcribed into Latin letters

Ukrainian “Г” has a “gh” sound, like “Galicia”, so the pronunciation is like “ghrim”.

edit: g -> gh

[ocnu]

A lot of people do not realize Ukraine was the technology hub of the USSR everything went through the Ukraine and they are built different in the Ukraine very intelligent people

[Ellirius]

Ukrainian "Южмаш" (Southern Machine Building) was developing and servicing soviet and ruzzian ballistic missiles until the 2010s.

[seitbekir]

It's not even second.

Sapsan system has been used in first months of war against few targets in Crimea and Russia. The problem was a lack of missiles. That's why I personally hate out politicians. The war in country for almost decade. You're not ready to finance the main rocket system. They even not modernized Tochka-U systems. We had only about 100 rockets of class and less than 250 missiles for Burevee and Vilkhah, which is an analogs of GMLRS and ER GMLRS.

[zsolex]

Zelensky clearly said they don't need nukes they need NATO. Also ppl tend to forgot it, at one point Ukraine was the 3rd biggest nuclear power after the USSR fell apart. They gave up on nukes for exchange for protection of their sovereignty. How ironic...

[stephenoneill]

Now that N Korean troops have been sent to the area, Ukraine should get in touch with South Korea's huge arms industry. I'm sure these two genius countries will get on very well.

[leonlisscott]

I love the way you address the audience with your sourcing of information at the start of this video. the clarification is a breath of fresh air. I wish more mediums would do the same!! 👍🏾

[WasBornHim]

Almost 5000 views in 20 mins .. congrats on your channel is channeling

[DaOideRassl]

Cappy really has the coolest sponsors 😂

[DRAEK]

I really appreciate how informative and entertaining you make your videos. No monotone boring voice explaining things.

[IllemDaFunk]

The history of Ukraine's ballistic missile program is pretty cool to know. Thanks for sharing!

[AlexPeace]

I worked way out in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian oilfield and took a cheap thermal/NV spotting scope thing with me since we stayed on site in the middle of the woods. I got made fun of it by quite a few people, but really everyone who hadn’t used one enjoyed trying it, and it actually ended up coming in handy since we had bears, mountain lions, and moose in the area regularly. One night I noticed a vac truck hotter than I’d ever seen (instead of the engine and exhausts being the hottest spots, the whole front of the truck seemed really hot, even the glass) and asked the operator who was busy working if he’d noticed, or if it was meant to be that hot? It wasn’t. That camera saved his truck at the very least, but potentially saved us all on site from something much worse going wrong.