WASHINGTON – The most advanced weapons the United States has yet delivered to Ukraine are making an impact in the first few days on the battlefield, destroying Russian ammunition depots and command centers, US and Ukrainian officials say.
The Ukrainian military was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first batch of truck-mounted, multiple rocket launchers, whose satellite-guided missiles have a range of more than 40 miles, greater than anything Ukraine possessed. The weapons have even earned a grudging respect from some Russians for their accuracy and power, analysts said.
Still, only four of the launch vehicles, called High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and their U.S.-trained crews are in the fray, although four more are expected this month. Ukrainian officials say they need about 300 grenade launchers to fight Russia, which is firing several times as many rounds as Ukrainian forces in an artillery-led war of attrition in the country’s east.
Ukrainian soldiers are using their new weapon judiciously, firing one or two guided missiles at ammunition depots or command posts, often at night, and keeping them well away from the front lines to protect them, Pentagon officials and military analysts say.
“So far, they look like a pretty useful addition,” Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer, said of the systems. “They will help prevent further Russian advances, but will not necessarily mean that Ukraine will be able to regain territory.”
HIMARS are the centerpiece of a suite of new long-range Western weapons that Ukraine’s heavily armed military is transitioning to as its arsenal of Soviet-era howitzer and rocket munitions dwindles.
Western weapons are more accurate and highly mobile, but it takes weeks to be deployed by the United States and Europe and soldiers trained to use them. Meanwhile, the Russian army is making slow but methodical gains in the eastern Donbass region, where both sides have suffered heavy losses.
The Biden administration says all eight HIMARS should be in Ukraine by mid-July. The first group of 60 Ukrainian soldiers trained to use them are now firing the guided missiles in combat, and a second group is undergoing training in Germany. Britain and Germany each pledged three similar systems for volley fire.
A senior Pentagon official said this week that the Ukrainians appeared to be using HIMARS with lethal effectiveness and that the four additional systems would be deployed in the “near future.”
At a NATO summit in Madrid on Thursday, President Biden pledged another $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including more HIMARS munitions. The United States has provided nearly $7 billion in military aid since the war began in February.
As Russia has focused its campaign eastward after failing to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and other cities in the north, Ukrainian officials have pleaded with the United States and other allies for more advanced artillery.
On June 23, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov announced that the first US HIMARS had arrived, promising in a tweet: “It’s going to be a hot summer for the Russian occupiers. And the last for some of them.”
Two days later, General Valery Zaluzhny, the supreme commander of Ukrainian forces, posted a video on the social media site Telegram of the HIMARS being used. “The artillerymen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine skillfully hit certain targets – the enemy’s military facilities on our Ukrainian territory,” he said.
US officials said the Ukrainian statements were accurate, and Mr Lee added that even Russian accounts credited HIMARS with early success.
“In general, they seem to respect them and realize they are quite capable,” Mr. Lee said, citing a popular Russian Telegram channel whose posts are shared by Russian defense accounts.
Updated
July 1, 2022, 4:04 PM ET
There is still debate over how many salvo missile systems Ukraine needs.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in June that Ukraine needed 300 multiple-launch missile systems and 500 tanks, among other things, to achieve battlefield parity — several times more heavy weaponry than is promised.
Michael G. Vickers, the Pentagon’s former top civilian official for counterinsurgency strategy, said the Ukrainians need at least 60 and perhaps as many as 100 HIMARS or other multiple-launch missile systems to win the artillery battle .
“There is a lot available that can be delivered at minimal strategic risk,” said Mr. Vickers, who was the CIA’s chief strategist for arming anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s.
Mr. Lee noted that the future success of HIMARS and other salvo fire systems depends not only on the number sent, but also on how much and what kind of munitions the United States and other allies provide.
The switch to American-made missile weapons was forced in part because of supply problems facing the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine has three types of Russian mobile missile launchers, but the ammunition for only the one with the shortest range is produced by its allies. Ammunition for Ukraine’s longer-range artillery rockets is produced solely by Russia and Belarus.
For HIMARS, Ukrainian forces rely on a guided missile that is aided by GPS signals and is accurate to within about 30 feet of its intended target. Before launch, a three-man crew enters coordinates for each shot.
After a NATO meeting in Brussels on June 15, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said the guided missiles fired from both the new American-supplied launchers, which can carry a single package of six missiles, and the launchers from Britain and Germany, which can carry twice as many, were much more capable of the Russian artillery rocket weapons that have been used on the battlefield.
“These are precision munitions and with a properly trained crew they will hit what they’re aiming for,” Mr Austin said. “Over time, we think the combination of what allies and partners can bring to the table will matter.”
In addition to firing long-range guided munitions, HIMARS wheeled trucks have the advantage of speed. Not only can they drive quickly to a firing point, they can program targets on the go, fire their missiles individually or in waves of all six within a minute, and reload much faster than anything the Russians use .
With 200 pounds of high explosives in each missile, a salvo from HIMARS can rival the devastating effect of an air strike from a jet aircraft loaded with precision-guided bombs.
After Mr. Austin’s remarks to NATO, General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted at the effect HIMARS could have in Ukraine’s hands.
“If they use the weapon correctly,” General Milley said, “they should be able to destroy a significant amount of targets.”
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