The US is sending Ukraine heavy guided missiles with a range of 70km for use with the HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl revealed on Tuesday. The White House previously said that HIMARS launchers would be provided with “battlefield munitions,” widely understood to be unguided rockets with a shorter range.
The high-mobility artillery rocket system will come with GMLRS guided rockets, Kahl said on Tuesday, speaking at a conference hosted by the Center for New American Security (CNAS), a Democrat-linked think tank for which he used to work.
“Sometimes when you see images of MLRS firing off, it’s like salvos of multiple rockets going off at the same time. That’s really not how this system is meant to operate,” Kahl said.
“The GMLRS is a precision guided munition, and a big one – a 500 pound munition,” he added. “Think of GMLRS more like the effect of an airstrike rather than launching off whole salvos. So, in other words, you can do a lot with a little, or you don’t need a lot to have a significant effect.”
When the White House first announced it was sending HIMARS launchers to Ukraine on June 1, it said they would be armed with “battlefield munitions,” which was widely taken to mean barrage rockets with a range of between 32km and 60km, considering that HIMARS is also capable of launching ballistic projectiles with a range of up to 300km.
“The range does not depend on the system itself, but on the missiles that are used,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV interview earlier this month, adding that if the US sends long-range rockets Russia will “draw the appropriate conclusions and use our weapons, which we have enough of, in order to strike at those objects that we have not yet struck.”
Honestly what’s all the fuss about this stuff even about? It’s just a MLRS. Even if it was by far the most advanced MLRS in the world, it’s still just a MLRS. It blows up like any other piece of equipment. Same with the M777. It’s just a fuckin howitzer. A howitzer system doesn’t win you a war. It doesn’t even fucking matter at all in any way, unless you chuck in hundreds and hundreds of them fueled by hundreds of thousands of shells, backed by solid supply lines including replacement parts and service crews…
…and Ukraine is getting like a handful of the HIMARS. Who the fuck cares? They’ll get blown up like all the other shit they had at some point, but cause some civilian deaths in Donetsk in the meantime. Great. Slavyansk is still coming under siege, the cauldron around Zolote and the one around Lysychansk is still there. Ukraine is still losing hundreds and hundreds of men a day. They’re still out of ammo and armor. Their morale is still crumbling. They still don’t have any offensive capabilities.
These new systems will allow Ukraine to target Russian cities. And they will certainly do that, because killing civilians is the only thing Ukraine military is good at.
It matters because it will be used to terrorize civilians in LDNR and in Russian cities near the border. Rostov et al.
Sure, that’s a fair concern. I was mostly just ranting about the purely military impact that’s always implied when it comes to these - from both sides honestly. And on that front I don’t see how these matter in any way at all.