The Faceting of the Belarusian Sapphire Is Coming to an End

On December 12, 2024, the State Authority for Military Industry (SAMI) of the Republic of Belarus and the Ministry of Defence successfully conducted firing tests of the Belarusian Sapphire grenade launcher system at the 227th Combined Arms Training Range, “Borisovsky.” These tests marked the next stage in the product’s adoption by the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. According to the results, the product confirmed all its declared characteristics, successfully hitting all designated targets during the tests.

The first domestic Sapphire grenade launcher system is designed to combat armored vehicles and neutralize enemy fighters in bunkers, light field shelters, and urban and rural structures. It is equipped with two types of warheads: high-explosive fragmentation and HEAT-fragmentation. The inclusion of a programmable fuzing device allows for two modes of operation: “contact” mode and “trajectory” mode (where the warhead detonates on its trajectory at a specified range).

To increase fire density, the launcher can fire a cluster of up to twenty projectiles, utilizing both high-explosive fragmentation and HEAT-fragmentation shells within the cluster. Notably, the cluster configuration enables both volley firing and burst firing.