Countries by number of rocket artillery

Rocket artillery is a variant of regular artillery that instead of shooting typical 200mm calibre or bigger, makes use of other ammunition. As the name can suggest, this ammunition are missiles, known as rockets. One rocket artillery is capable of shooting from one up to several dozens of rails that can sow destruction behind the enemy’s front line. Rocket artillery is most often used when commanders want to reduce the enemy’s manpower. Besides that, it is a great device for destroying infrastructure, defence equipment, and many other crucial elements. We should bear in mind that in most cases missiles fired from rocket artillery cannot be directed towards specific targets.

In short, we can simply say that rocket artillery is a type of artillery equipped with rocket launchers instead of conventional guns. Modern rocket artillery are used in similar fashion to other self-propelled artillery. Global Positioning and Inertial Navigation terminal guidance systems have been introduced.

Of course when it comes to rocket artillery, we can distinguish several categories. It is quite important to know this division since they play different roles on the battlefield. Of course one of the most popular rocket artilleries that ever appeared during any of the wars was the multiple rocket launcher. The first models that applied such technology (except for devices from the times of Song dynasty, where gunpowder was used to fire several dozens of arrows into the enemy), occurred only in the Second World War. Arguably, one of the first multiple rocket launchers that became such successful devices were the Russian Katyusha. Simple rocket systems were usually placed on the back of the truck. However, the Americans or Germans decided to make use of tanks as the base for their artillery rocket launchers. In such way, M4 Sherman together with T34 Calliope became the equivalent for Katyusha offered by the Soviets.

The text that you can find below offers you an access to thorough and descriptive analysis of this particular part of military in many countries. There, you will be able to compare the number of multiple rocket launchers and mobile missile launch systems. Currently in equipment and in reserve. Of course once you compare the percentages, you can always go and browse through numeric data and see how many rocket artillery in the form of multiple rocket launchers your country has!