Russia tests Soloist missile in Ukraine

The Russian Ground Forces have deployed a new first person view missile called Soloist to Ukraine in at least a limited capacity, according to a report published by TASS, the Russian state-backed news agency, on the 10th February. 

The new missile is reported to be undergoing tests in the Donetsk People’s Republic and described as a combination of an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) and a first person view (FPV) drone. If it is successful in its trials and accepted into service, it could enter production at a rate up to 2,000 systems per month, according to Stanislav Gevorkyan, the general director of the Rivir Centre, which was involved in the weapon’s development and was set up to support the transfer of technology from the civilian sphere into the military.

The Soloist has a rocket motor propelling it at speeds up to 500 km/h. A Russian soldier with the call sign Skripach was involved in the design of the missile and told Izvestia that it is intended to fill the gap between an ATGM and mortars, as missiles are dependent on a clear line of sight to the target and mortars cannot be course corrected. 

The missile is launched at a high angle into the sky and then course-corrected, as opposed to controlled along its flight, through a pair of FPV goggles and a hand controller. It is reported to have a range of 10 km and a maximum flight altitude of 2 km. It can be deployed with the operator located 2 km away from the launcher, #

The weapon can be armed with warheads from the PG-7 and PG-9 families of munitions. The PG-7 family of munitions is fired by the RPG-7 shoulder-carried launcher, they are widely used and a relatively cheap anti-armour weapon. The range of an RPG-7 is limited, so adding the munitions to an FPV has been a common use for them in Ukraine. However, the munitions themselves, like the PG-7VR can penetrate up to 600 mm into rolled homogeneous armour, making them quite lethal when deployed effectively. 

Calibre comment

There have been a number of loitering munitions developed by Russian companies and supporters like the Scalpel from the Vostok Design Bureau, which claimed that several thousand would be delivered in the course of 2024, although there is little firm evidence of it being used. Other munitions like the Molniya, which is shown in the image above, are much simpler and cheaper in design, essentially providing greater payload to deliver large munitions like TM-62 land mines. The Lancet-3M still appears to be the primary long-range strike munition for the Russian Ground Forces, especially in the counter-battery and high value targeting role. The Soloist, however, appears to be more of a tactical munition designed to complement FPVs in the forward echelons.