Interesting!
Specialist's Commentary
Colonel Aleksandr Silin (first and last names changed) commanded a chemical services unit in Chechnya, which was equipped with with the reaktivnye pekhotnye ognemety 'rocket infantry flamethrower' (RPO), which carried the code name 'Bumblebee': The RPO 'Bumblebee' uses 3 types of projectiles: incendiary or napalm; smoke, which can lay down a smokescreen over an area of more than 3 km; and thermobaric, that creates such high temperature and pressure that an explosion of great power is produced. Shooting 3 thermobaric projectiles from a 'Bumblebee' at a 5-story building can completely destroy it.
I doubt that they could fire such charges at the school. It is possible that could have substituted a considerably smaller thermobaric warhead than used on the 'Bumblebee', based on the RPG-7 rocket launcher. This projectile we named 'pig'. The operating principle is the same as on the 'Bumblebee', only the power of the blast is less. These charges cannot be used indoors, since the RPG and RPO tubes cause a strong back-blast, which can even slay the one firing the weapon.
Writen down by Vyacheslav IZMAYLOV, military reviewer of 'New Gazette'.
07.10.2004