Russia turns helicopter missile into truck-mounted weapon

Russia has fired a guided missile from its attack helicopters off a truck, using a new ground launcher called Izdeliye 347, or “Product 347,” against mock artillery positions during its Tsentr-2026 exercise.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Oct. 2 that the system carries a modified version of the LMUR light multipurpose guided missile and can hit stationary and moving targets up to 20 km (12 miles) away. During the main stage of the drills at the Chebarkul training range in the Chelyabinsk region, crews used it to strike artillery positions that had been found by aerial reconnaissance.

The ministry said the launcher is mounted on a truck and that an operator can steer the missile onto the target in the final part of its flight. It did not say how many missiles each launcher carries, what chassis it uses, who builds it, or when it could enter service.

The LMUR, also known as Izdeliye 305 and the Kh-39, is built by the KBM design bureau in Kolomna, part of Rostec’s High Precision Systems holding. It weighs about 105 kg (231 pounds) and carries a 25 kg (55-pound) high-explosive fragmentation warhead. The basic version has a stated range of 14.5 km, and a longer-range variant reportedly reaches beyond 25 km.

Russia fields the missile on its Mi-28NM and Ka-52M attack helicopters and has used it widely against Ukrainian forces. Its main advantage is that it does not need to see the target at launch. The missile flies toward given coordinates using satellite navigation, then sends video from its thermal seeker back to the operator, who picks out the target and guides it in. That lets helicopter crews fire from well behind the front, out of range of most Ukrainian short-range air defenses.

A ground version would give Russian units the same kind of long-range, man-in-the-loop strike capability without risking a helicopter. The concept is similar to Israel’s Spike NLOS, which is fired from helicopters, vehicles and ships.

Russia has tried this before. Several years ago, the Defense Ministry worked on a project codenamed Baikal to adapt the LMUR for ground launch. That design used an armored tracked vehicle, similar in concept to the Khrizantema-S anti-tank system, and was also meant to engage slow, low-flying aerial targets. Its fate was never made public.

Izdeliye 347 takes a different approach, putting the missile on an unarmored truck instead of a tracked combat vehicle.

The launcher was one of several new or rarely seen systems Russia showed at Tsentr-2026, which ran from Sept. 28 to Oct. 3 and involved more than 47,000 troops, according to the Defense Ministry.