The war in Ukraine

“The agreement to unblock Odesa would have been impossible without HIMARS. It’s now very clear that the war will end earlier if we arm Ukraine faster,” Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on July 22, referring to Russia’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea.

  alJazeera

"The war will end earlier if we arm Ukraine faster" Wow. Whoever could have guessed?

The M142 HIMARS, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems supplied to Ukraine by the United States, have become a symbol of Russian vulnerability.

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Ukraine has reportedly damaged Russian ammunition depots, command posts and air defences using just eight HIMARS launchers.

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These went into service in Ukraine on June 25.

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The attacks have thrown a spanner in Russia’s strategy. Moscow’s main territorial gains in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk came thanks to a concentration of overwhelming superiority of firepower. Ukrainian troops who survived tactical retreats on those fronts spoke of an inability to do anything but take cover. Attacking Russian logistics hubs has allowed Ukraine to undermine the source of Russian power.

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Australian retired major-general Mick Ryan believed that HIMARS have “changed the battlefield calculus in the fight for Ukraine”, allowing Ukrainians to pursue what he calls the “strategy of corrosion” of Russian capabilities and morale, which brought them victory in the battle for Kyiv.

Retired US army general Mark Hertling has called HIMARS a “game changer”, helping Ukraine gain the advantage.

Too bad they couldn't have had them in March.

Military commanders have warned that HIMARS are not a silver bullet given the small number of systems in play. On July 20, the US said it was sending four more, bringing the total up to 16, with an apparent goal of reaching 20.

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Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, recently said Ukraine needs 100 HIMARS launchers to roll back Russia’s territorial gains.

Get a move on.  Twenty isn't going to cut it.

“If there’s a building you’re receiving fire from within the urban environment, you aim at that building from up to 80km (50 miles) away, and within a few minutes of receiving fire you land a rocket on the building in question.”

Yes, we saw that in the US shelling of a hotel in Iraq where journalists were housed.  Never mind, that was a tank.  Or so they said.

By July 16, Ukraine’s defence ministry said Kyiv had destroyed at least 30 logistics hubs deep behind enemy lines. A week later, US Pentagon sources were talking about 100 high-value targets having been hit.

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The United States’s armed forces are to bring an even more advanced HIMARS-launched rocket, the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), with a 500km (310-mile) range, into the field next year. Should that be supplied to regional allies, they would be able to hit in the vicinity of Moscow.

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Poland and the Baltic States have drawn the lesson that they are among the most effective weapons in stopping the Russian advance in Ukraine, and are ordering hundreds of launch systems at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

War is always good for US arms manufacturers. The US survives because of a "defense" economy.

Ukraine’s definition of victory is the complete removal of Russian forces from Crimea and the Donbas region, which broke away in 2014, as well as the territory seized since February 24 this year.

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Given the effective use of HIMARS, some have questioned why Ukraine has not received more.

“We’re trying to be responsible,” a senior US military official recently told one reporter.

By slow rolling the delivery, we're being responsible for more destruction and Ukrainian loss of live.

“We also take a look … that we balance our readiness,” because the HIMARS systems being sent to Ukraine are drawn from US reserves.

In case of attack by Canada or Mexico?

The United Kingdom has announced it is sending an unspecified number of M270 multiple launch rocket systems to Ukraine, each of which amounts to a pair of HIMARS.

Good. And they're more likely to need reserves than we are.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.