- Yes
- No
General info
The story of this unique little vehicle, known as the Land Rover (Firos-6) began during the cold war. Italy was gradually becoming more self reliant on its military, due to some laws that prevented such being slowly removed. Eventually many new and old companies began to work on military equipment, in the hopes they’d be picked up by the Italian armed forces or exported elsewhere. One of those companies, known as BPD (Bombrini Parodi Delfino), would be one of the leading national effort in rocket propulsion devices, which would in turn also lead them to working on the military field. One of their many creations was the FIROS (field rocket system) family which was a set of Italian-made Multi-Launch Rocket systems. The FIROS family would originally developed to allow Italy, and the west to have something compareable to the USSR’s rocket launch systems due to the Soviet Union being overwhelmingly equipped with them. BPD would eventually come up with several designs, one of them being the FIROS-6 which would be mounted on a few Italian vehicles and have some small export success around the world. The FIROS-6 was previously mounted on an Italian made Fiat 6614 APC, alongside it for demonstration and evalutation purposes the FIROS-6 system was also installed on an Italian Land Rover. Other systems which Italy mounted the FIROS-6 on would be the FIAT Campagnola and FIAT 40 PM10. Italy was one of the main users of the Land Rover, they even had a couple which mounted the TOW ATGM, so mounting it on the Land Rover would’ve mainly helped to encourage the purchase of the system as it would mean that several vehicles they had in service could quickly be converted into an MLRS platform. In the grand scheme of things, this would’ve seriously meant trouble for the opposing forces as having such a system in high numbers could’ve shifted the tide of the cold war quite a bit, not only was it relatively cheap system, but it could be mounted on pretty much anything due to it being lightweight. In terms of speed, there isn’t any data on it but it would’ve likely been similar to the normal Land Rover, just a little bit slower due to the system being mounted. In terms of survivability, the vehicle and the crew would be exposed so any sort of attack would quite litreally render it out of action. Do keep in mind that this was an MLRS platform so it wasn’t exactly meant to be used on the front lines. In terms of the system itself, the FIROS-6 would be able to utilize many different types of warheads, some of them inclduing AT-AP,HEI and HE-FRAG. The overall range for the system would be 6.5km, the launcher was able to be traversed 360 degrees while elevation angles would range from -5 to +45 degrees. The rockets would be 51mm in length and could hold up to 96 rockets inside the launcher, paired up with a mobile platform meant that the vehicle also could be used for quick attacks or counterattacks to enemy forces. It usually had a crew of 2, but would sometimes require a third member to speed up the reload of the machine, which according to some sources would’ve been 5 minutes max. Testing of the FIROS family kept going, and would begin to be presented on even more vehicles, this began to peak the interest of some potential export customers. One of the users of the FIROS-6 would be Mexico, which would buy some systems for their Navy, they’d mount the FIROS-6 on ACMAT Jeep. Another user of the system seems to be the UAE, however currently there’s little to no documentation on that. In the end, the prototype that was presented to the Italian army would not generate enough interest to warrant any sort of purchase order. BPD eventually moved on and would shift its focus more on the FIROS 25/30, which was another system they designed around the same time.
Armaments
AT-AP Rockets (Anti Tank, Anti Personnel)
HEI Rockets (Incendiary)
HE-FRAG Rockets
Specifications
Spoiler
Why it should be in game
It should be in game along with its variants as i can see this vehicle being very fun to play, and being useful in area denial. I can see this being in the tech tree around the same br other similar MLRS are already in game at. The ammount of different rockets it could use could render it very helpful as it’ll be able to better itself depending on the sort of enemies it’ll face. Alongside that it wouldn’t be OP as its not really armoured, along it being open for artilery, planes, helicopters and machine guns to be able to take it out rather quickly.
Sources
Spoiler
Centuary of Italian armoured cars - Pignato
Jane's armour and artillery 1985-86 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Automotive Catalogue http://www.autocatalogue.ru/ : История автомобилей
Land Rover series - Wikipedia
ESERCITO CONSUNTIVO 1987 PROGRAMMAZIONE 1988 by Biblioteca Militare - Issuu
Firos (artillery) - Wikipedia
http://www.military-today.com/artillery/firos.htm
FIROS - Wikipedia
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HayxOr0RiSUC&pg=RA5-PA83&lpg=RA5-PA83&dq=firos-6+italy&source=bl&ots=WCmQ4DpDvE&sig=ACfU3U1ae4c4GwvsLAmYmuhlNuX5ApiIxg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwipmtHzyovoAhVIUMAKHdPhCRw4ChDoATAAegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=firos-6 italy&f=false
https://www.forecastinternational.com/archive/disp_pdf.cfm?DACH_RECNO=355
122 mm Firos 25/30 rockets (Italy) - Jane's Ammunition Handbook
FIROS-30 - РСЗО - армия - Справочник - Fact Military
JOURNAL OF ITALIAN ARMY 1988 N.1 "RIVISTA MILITARE" by Biblioteca Militare - Issuu
http://warstudy.com/theory/modern/weapon_system/02/007.xml
Italian MRLs
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zUu4AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=firos-6+italy&source=bl&ots=vETUrae_xd&sig=ACfU3U3rtqRyliMlZb5B4yIyGDTnF_vbfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjh8Mzcx4voAhWVSxUIHW7ICi0Q6AEwEXoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=firos-6 italy&f=false
Photos
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