The "deadly dart" discovered in the Boucha massacre. According to the Global Network, the British "Guardian" has just published the first batch of forensic reports on the "Butcha massacre" in Ukraine. One of the passages shows that the dead civilian in Bucha contained a "deadly dart" in his body.
The town of Bucha is located about 30 kilometers northwest of Kiev, and the Russian army fought fiercely with the Ukrainian army in Bucha in the early stages of the war and occupied Bucha. After the withdrawal of Russian troops on April 2, Ukrainian troops regained control of Bucha and discovered horrific incidents. On April 3, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released photos and videos showing multiple bodies lying on the street, some of them with their hands tied behind their backs.
Ukraine's attorney general, Vinetiktova, said about 410 civilian remains had been found. Ukraine accused Russia of torturing civilians, calling them "massacres" and "genocide," and demanded that Russian forces be prosecuted for war crimes. Western countries also accused Russia of "creating a massacre", while Russia insisted that this was the result of the Ukrainian army bombing the city and was a "provocation". This civilian casualty became the "Rashomon".
Forensic doctors and pathologists who performed autopsies on civilian bodies found in mass graves in the Bucha area north of Kiev said that most of the civilians buried in Bucha died in shelling, and they found a small metal dart with an arrow-like body. It is a "small metal dart with an arrow-like body" embedded in the corpse, which is a prefabricated fragment of a Soviet/Russian D-30 122 mm howitzer shell.
The British newspaper The Guardian claimed that the shells and other similar ammunition were only possessed by the Russians, so it concluded that the shells fired by the Russians "slaughtered" the civilians of Bucha. However, according to the existing ammunition manuals, this ammunition was first produced in the Soviet Union, and it was widely equipped by the Soviet Army decades ago, and has been producing parallel troops since 1979.
Military experts have identified this as an "arrow-type howitzer" fired using a howitzer. Specifically, it should be a ZSh-1 arrow grenade fired by the D-30 122 mm howitzer. This method uses air-fired projectile arrow fragments to kill and injure the enemy, and each 122 mm arrow-type grenade can load up to 8,000 small steel arrows.
The arrow grenade is a human-wounded shell used since the Second World War, mainly used for intensive killing of personnel. The initial speed of the small steel arrow is very high, the penetration is relatively strong, and after shooting into the human body, it will twist the bend and cause greater trauma.
After small steel arrows enter a denser target (such as the body's muscle tissue) from the air, they are very prone to yaw and tumbling, most commonly bending into the shape of a hook, which not only complicates the traumatic cavity, but also causes great difficulties in surgery. Therefore, the arrow grenade is a very cruel ammunition.
Howitzers are very old ammunition, as early as the 18th century during the period of breech smoothbore guns. It is to launch a shotgun shell equipped with a small metal projectile over the enemy position, and use a slow-burning air blower to ensure that the grenade will explode in the air at the right time. This shell is equipped with a large number of metal projectiles, and after the shell is fired, it explodes in the air according to the time set by the fuze, and sprays metal projectiles to the ground.
Unlike the shotguns we know as well, howitzers are characterized by the fact that the metal projectiles are sprayed at the time after the shells have flown for a period of time, rather than as soon as they fly out of the chamber like shotgun shells. Unlike fragmentary grenades, the kinetic energy of the projectiles inside the grenade comes from the initial launcher rather than from the charge in the warhead. Battlefield performance proved that the effect of grenades for killing active forces at close range was better than shotgun shells that decayed quickly at the initial speed.
The arrow grenade is an improved version of the ordinary grenade, which is loaded with thousands of small steel arrows, fired using a howitzer, exploded over the target through a timing fuze, and throws thousands of small steel arrows out, which is more lethal to the unprotected living personnel. In the past, the artillery of major military powers was heavily armed with arrow-type grenades. For example, the U.S. military's M494 105 mm arrow-type anti-personnel grenade, which contains 8,000 small steel arrows, can kill and injure exposed infantry within 6,000 square meters. The Soviet Union also equipped the 122 mm howitzer with ZSh-1 arrow howitzers during the Cold War, and also equipped the 130 mm cannon and the 152 mm plus howitzer with 3Sh-2 arrow grenades.
China also produced arrow-type howitzers fired from 130mm cannons in the 1980s. A six-gun 59-1 type 130 mm cannon company, loaded with arrow-type grenades and 8 rapid shots, can beat all exposed targets within 30 kilometers of 280,000 square meters into a sieve in one minute, shooting like a hedgehog.
The strike effect of the arrow-type grenade is extremely terrifying, the small steel arrow has the characteristics of high initial speed, slow down, and strong penetration; the grenade bursts open over the enemy, and tens of thousands of steel arrows fall like a downpour on the heads of soldiers in trenches or open areas, which has a fatal effect.
As for who fired the arrow grenade found in Butcha, there are two inferences due to the fierce fighting in Bucha at that time.
The inference of the Western world, represented by the British "Guardian", is that the Russian army is very suspicious. Because in the Bucha area were Russian airborne troops, which were equipped with the same D-30 towed howitzers as the Ukrainian army.
The other side deduces that the Ukrainian army used D-30 howitzers to fire at its own civilians, on the grounds that only Ukrainian troops were equipped with D-30 howitzers. And as early as 2015, during the East Ukrainian Civil War, the use of arrow grenades was found.
Therefore, it is difficult to say who launched it. It is obviously too subjective to conclude in one fell swoop that the Russian military did it, as the Western media did. Therefore, it is impossible to conclude this matter at all. Unless one of the parties voluntarily admits that it was their own doing