- Yes
- No
Description:
Romania’s primary means of self-propelled artillery is in the form of their APR-40, a 122mm MLRS system developed by Aerostar as an improvement over their old soviet era BM-21 GRADs, and to this day remains to be Romania’s most numerous Self-propelled Artillery systems in active service with the Romanian Land Forces. However in 2008, Aerostar collaborated with Israel Military Industries (IMI) in the hopes of developing and incorporating an improved version of the Israeli LAR-160 MLRS into the Romanian military. This system is known as LAROM which is essentially an MLRS system which mounts a GRADLAR system onto either a DAC-665, or ROMAN 26.410 trucks.
Top 2 images is the DAC truck, while the lower image is the ROMAN. Though I could be wrong on this, from the looks of it, the ROMAN is an armored cabin, while the DAC is unarmored (though has been seen with armor plating covering the windows). With that in mind I would opt for having the ROMAN variant be added over the DAC, as it would at the very least protect the crew from being picked off by basic machine gun fire.
What separates GRADLAR from the standard LAR-160 is that its capable of firing both 122mm rockets, or 160mm rockets, which for Romania, who has a large stockpile of 122mm rockets, greatly simplify logistics combat effectiveness, and readiness of the vehicle. GRAD rockets can be fired in salvos of 2 rockets per second, and have a maximum range of 20km, Whereas the LAR-160 Mk.4 rockets can be fired in salvos of 1 rocket every 1.8 seconds, having a max range of 45km, and packing more of a punch against enemy fortifications and armored vehicles, with its HE munitions capable of penetrating 40mm of armor. This is also combined with an overall better fire control system when compared to GRAD MLRS’. LAR-160s are powered by an electro-hydraulic drive which gives the armament 0 to +45 degrees of vertical travers, and ±85 degrees of horizontal travers.
One thing which I feel is both a blessing and curse for the LAROM when compared to the APR-40 is ammo capacity, because the APR-40 mounts two pods which can hold 20 rockets, giving it a max ammo capacity of 40 rounds, vs the LAROM which has two rocket pods, each capable of holding 13 rockets, with a total ammo capacity of 26 rounds. Some advantages to this however is the overall profile of the rocket pods is smaller than that of the APR-40, combine that with the fact that the LAROMs rocket pods are armored, means a fully loaded LAROM would be slightly harder to ammo rack than a fully loaded APR-40.
Initially, Romania had just upgraded 18 of their APR-40s to the LAROM standard, however as of today, Romania currently has around 54 LAROMs in active service.
Its place in the game:
MLRS’ don’t exactly have a great reputation in war thunder, and I’d recon this would suffer from many of the same issues that plague other MLRS systems already in game, but with this vehicle having a bigger boom, good range, and decent horizontal traverse, could make this a rather solid ~rank V vehicle for a Romanian Tech/Sub-Tech tree.
Specifications:
Spoiler
| Mass | 13.7 tonnes |
|---|---|
| Length | 7.35 m |
| Width | 2.40 m |
| Height | 3.10 m |
| Crew | 5 |
| Armament | 26x LAR-160 Mk.4 |
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