M712 Copperhead high-precision projectile destroys enemy fortification in the Kherson region

The artillery of the Ukrainian Defense Forces hit a concrete fortification of the Russian invasion forces in the Kherson region using an M712 Copperhead guided projectile.

Soldier Stanislav Bunyatov posted the corresponding video on his Telegram channel.

The WarArchive project detailed that the damaged fortification was located in the village of Hola Prystan, in the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region.

The published footage shows that the facility was completely destroyed in the attack.

Militarnyi recently reported that the Ukrainian company Skyeton has integrated a laser system into its ACS-3 Raybird reconnaissance drone to guide adjusted munitions.

At the time, a video was released that showed the process of guiding a precision munition to an enemy position, with the same interface as in the Kherson recording.

Accordingly, it can be assumed that Raybird was used to target the fortifications.

M712 Copperhead

The M712 is an adjusted 155mm artillery shell developed in the United States in the 1970s as a laser-guided precision strike weapon.

The Copperhead is equipped with a conventional high-explosive or fragmentation warhead to combat armored vehicles. It can be used by conventional 155mm howitzers and has a range of 3 to 16 kilometers.

The United States first used these projectiles during the 1991 Iraq War. Today, they are not produced.

According to publicly available data, in 1995, the United States had about 20,000 of these shells in its possession.

The use of M712 Copperhead in Ukraine

In November, it was reported that one of the groups of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine aimed the M712 at a tower with enemy equipment during the Kursk operation.

The targeting was performed using a LEONARDO Type 163 Laser target designator portable station.

The program codes for the interaction between the targeting device and the programmed shells (a four-digit digital code, for example, “1111”) were taken beforehand.

After confirmation of readiness, the artillery unit fired a projectile, during the entire flight of, which the operator irradiated the target with a laser target designator.

After the first hit, a second shot was fired, which also hit, resulting in a partial tilt of the pillar, but not complete destruction, due to the use of ineffective ammunition for such tasks.

In cooperation with the Special Forces unit, the artillerymen also fired a third shot that missed the target. The reason for the miss was a physical malfunction of the projectile: the projectile’s aiming lens was damaged and smoked as a result of burning.