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We’re continuing our ongoing analysis of the current European conflict and the systems, people and decisions that have been able to influence the course of battle, good bad or indifferent. This week after talking about Air Superiority and Cyber Warfare, we’re taking a look in a completely different direction, with the in depth analysis of possibly one of the most crucial and well known systems given to Ukraine over the course of this conflict. Namely, the US designed M142A High Mobility Artillery System, or HIMARS for short.
The media love child of the hour, HIMARS became famous overnight after its initial deployment to Ukraine and the immediate results its brought to the battlefield along with the slew of promotional and strike footage released by Ukrainian Military. We’ll talk about how this system works, what makes it so effective, why its been so devastating to RU forces and what, if any modifications were made to the system prior to its delivery to the Ukrainian battlefield.
But first! Our old friend, Chat GPT is going to give us a quick description of HIMARS, for those reading that as still unclear of what this system is and how it works. Over to you AI, have at it.
MGM140 ATACMS - The long range rocket system that can stretch to over 300 miles
Give me a short synopsis of HIMARS, including any previous combat deployments prior to 2022 and tell me which countries operate the system please.
The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) is a mobile rocket artillery system used by the US military and other countries, including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Romania. It has been deployed in various conflicts, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
HIMARS has an effective combat radius of approximately 300 kilometers depending on the munition used. This allows it to strike targets at significant distances from its position, making it a highly effective weapon for both offensive and defensive operations.
The GMLRS rocket features a GPS-aided inertial guidance system that allows it to navigate to its target with a high degree of accuracy. This system is capable of correcting for errors caused by factors such as wind and atmospheric conditions, enabling the rocket to hit its target with a high level of precision. The GMLRS rocket can carry a variety of warheads, including high-explosive, fragmentation, and penetration warheads. This versatility allows it to be used against a wide range of targets, from enemy personnel and light vehicles to fortified positions and bunkers.
Okay so that sounds pretty simplistic, a field mobile artillery system that’s been combat proven in multiple wars. But why has it been so effective in Ukraine??? Well, read on because that’s what we will be trying to answer today.
The HIMARS system itself, is reasonably new for military systems all things being considered. With the need for a system identified in the late 80’s HIMARS was designed and first tested in 1991, toward the end of the cold war. Designed as a more mobile replacement for the heavier tracked M270 system that was in use at the time, the setup was a victim of cold war peace dividends, with many at the time debating if there was even a need for that type of system.
Suspicious of the M270’s ability to be easily shifted and mobile, the time for HIMARS began to edge closer when, during the Gulf War (1), the weight penalty and subsequent transport issues that came with the M270 simply could not be easily mitigated and were more than confirmed to exist. This meant on Day 1, the M270 systems needed, were still in transit which meant the invasion kicked off with out a heavy artillery component. This less than ideal scenario was reasonably well mitigated by the air dominance held by the Americans, which was obtained during the opening stages of the conflict and not lost throughout, giving USAF near uncontested use of the skies over Iraq.
The first HIMARS system was test fired in 1991, at the White Sands Missile Range, using a modified Honest John launcher for the initial test firing. Upon completion, Loral Vought / Lockheed Martin continued development of the system, as a private venture with the assumption that upon completion the US military would procure the system. Development continued until 1993 where it first appeared publicly and finally ceased in 1996, when the US Army placed an initial order for 4 test systems, with the intention of field testing it and confirming its suitability for mobile warfare and targeting requirements. These initial test vehicles were delivered in 1998, where they were assigned a two year test period. Around the same time the US Army conducted the first firing of the long range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS for short. With test results coming in better than expected, the US military was sold on it, with multiple systems ordered for the army, and the Marine Corps placing an order for testbed units to assess suitability for its own forces. With a near 99% ready rate during testing, the system was a desirable unit and as such, the orders began to flow.
Lastly, in late 2017 in an additional twist, the system was even test fired from a Navy asset (USS ANCHORAGE for the navy fans here) which passed with flying colors, proving the ability of it to be accurately fired from a moving platform with no significant accuracy penalty.
The First True Test:
Given the extended peace that existed at the end of the Cold War, it took some time for HIMARS to find its feet operationally. Despite being tested in 1998 with GMLRS and with ATACMS in 1999, it wasn’t until the late 2000s that the system was regularly being used with its first real initiation coming during the War on Terror, with systems being tested in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2015 the system again gained some notoriety, being used against ISIL to great effect, with over 400 firings of GMLRS during the summer of 2015 alone. This continued into 2016, with firings into Syria occurring in support of rebels fighting in ISIL held territory.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news during this period. 2010 was probably the worst of this time, with the firing of HIMARS temporarily prohibited after 12 civilians were killed during Operation Moshtarak. HIMARS was able to escape this without incident however, after an investigation revealed that civilian deaths were due to the practice of using “Human Shields” and not due to a failure within the targeting system of the HIMARS rockets. Incidentally just on this for those who are unaware, both the GMLRS and ATACMS system fire GPS capable, or “guided” rockets. This means the system is particularly accurate and is even capable of maneuvering in flight en route to its target. This means the rockets can be maneuvered away from the point of firing, or even be able to hit targets from different directions (a particularly desirable trait in modern warfare). This makes counter artillery (shoot the shooter) far more difficult and makes the rockets themselves particularly deadly as the ability to actively maneuver gives additional protections to both the launcher and the rockets, although both GMLRS and ATACMS are able to be intercepted by some Surface to Air Missile systems. This is most certainly not your typical artillery system.
HIMARS’ extended journey into the middle east continued in to 2017, 2018 with the system being repeatedly used in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In one notable strike a single HIMARS shot (comprising of 4 GMLRS rockets) gained particular notoriety after killing over 50 ISIL fighters. Later debriefs showed the rockets hit the building from opposing directions over a period of around 14 seconds. Similar tactics were used in Ukraine at the end of 2022, but we’ll get to that bit soon enough.
A change of Scenery:
After the initial russian invasion in 2/22, Ukraine demonstrated a serious lack of heavy artillery systems and an increased need for mobile systems due to the type of warfare being faced in country. However it took until June 2022 before US weapons lend lease packages included the first HIMARS platforms scheduled for delivery. Untested in near peer combat, HIMARS time in the sun had finally arrived. It came with a catch however, as the initial delivery omitted the the long range ATACMS system and as was later found even came with a software modification that would prevent long range shots of the system deep inside Russian territory. Pretty terrible from the side of UA but a rather large bullet dodged by Moscow as HIMARS even using the shorter range GMLRS still had the range to reach deep inside russian territory, meaning in the right circumstances, it could put Russia’s heavy bomber fleet directly under threat. Not a bad thing, but not this time unfortunately.
Arriving late in the month, somewhere around the 23rd it took less than 48hrs for HIMARS to join the fight, with multiple GMLRS rockets fired on a russian FOB near Izyum. Making its presence immediately felt the first strike accounted for over 40 deaths, and happened the same day US President Biden announced an additional 4 systems for Ukraine that were scheduled to arrive in July 2022. Never ones to let a good opportunity to go to waste, UA forces were selective with targets for HIMARS in the early stages, using it repeatedly to attack the russian chain of command to devastating effect with a slew of dead officers to show for it. Then, shifting and using it to attack russian logistical lines, this was also done with good effect with many pictures and video of HIMARS strikes on trains, ammunition dumps and storage appearing online. These attacks pushed struggling russian lines to near breaking point as logistics struggled to keep up with the flow of bodies into the country once conscription numbers started arriving in theater.
Honey I’m Home:
Given the original concept of HIMARS came as an evolution of the M270 system which was designed for a cold war confrontation with Soviet forces, HIMARS being brought in theater to attack deployed russian forces gained the attention of many defense analysts as this is effectively what the system was designed to do. This was the time for HIMARS to sink or swim, and swim it did, making life exceptionally miserable for russian conscripts. This was made worse by the russian strategy of throwing troops “into the grinder” during offensives which is responsible for huge casualties as the one of the many things HIMARS does well, is destroy troop formations using bad strategies. There’s even two specific rounds for that, the M30 containing over 400 sub munitions (similar to a cluster bomb system) and the even more effective, M30A1AW, which contains tens of thousands of tungsten fragments, giving the same “grid killer” effect as the M30 without the risk of unexploded ordnance and also requiring no de-mining or EOD attention post strike. Fire the weapon, let it do its thing, move your troops into the area immediately. HIMARS is many things, one of which is deadly efficient.
Lets just pause there for a second and talk tactics. For those with limited military knowledge there’s a saying regularly used by those with lots. “Amateurs talk tactics, Professionals talk logistics”. One of the reasons the US military is devastatingly efficient and is able to project force across the globe is because it has a well honed and large logistical base that it can draw on, which allows it to get equipment and bodies into the area in a timely fashion. This enables America to use the force projection we’ve regularly seen in situations such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the like where special forces, naval assets and boots on the ground are supported by things like naval gunfire (occasionally) and Close Air Support (CAS, more regularly).
UA strategists were exploiting the weakest link in the chain, namely the ability to keep russian troops fed, equipped and supported. Recognizing the failed military convoy outside Kyiv showed all the signs of a logistical line in peril, UA targeted logistical lines where possible, using HIMARS to destroy both ammunition and fuel dumps, with the expected effect on both equipment levels and morale appearing shortly after. Whilst numbers take time to validate and can be confused in the early stages (fog of war is real) it is generally accepted that at least 30 command posts were destroyed. Oh along with thousands of needed RU artillery rounds and up to 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition along with tonnes of badly needed fuel. Despite being a priority target, as at the end of 2022 it is believed that none of the systems delivered to UA in 2022 were destroyed by Russia, although at least 10 3M-54 KALIBR missiles have been wasted attacking wooden decoys that UA has used to protect the actual systems. The face and tools of war are forever changing, but the smart and consistent use of decoys will take a long time to change and become ineffective.
Downrange:
As we briefly mentioned earlier HIMARS as delivered to Ukraine came with a few limitations. Firstly as mentioned the word is GMLRS rockets have a limited ability to be used within russian territory, whilst the long range (300km plus) MGM-140 ATACMS rockets weren’t delivered at all. Why is this so?
After the initial invasion, many were willing to provide support, however no one really wanted to risk a nuclear escalation. Thankfully this didn’t mean aid wasn’t provided, but It did mean the lead up to it was contained, done in such a way so as not to provoke a response and was done with limitations in place to safeguard this. Whether that’s right or wrong is outside the scope of this article, as we aren’t looking at the politics of that, however it is agreed that this has affected the equipment that’s been supplied to Ukraine and also the time frame which with the equipment was supplied.
One of the US “red lines” has always been precision strikes deep into russian territory, as in the eyes of their analysts that is the first step that bridges the gap between a defensive action and an offensive action. The general acceptance has been that defensive action is okay, however the concern with offensive action is that American provided weapons to enable those strikes, may mean America is held responsible for that action. Whilst id tip my hand toward NATO and the US coming out as victors in that scenario, this is a less than ideal option for the world at large, particularly should the use of nuclear weapons be involved. Even a “minor” exchange of tactical nukes would cause a prolific loss of life, with devastating economic and social consequences as a result.
This doesn’t mean that these behind russian line attacks haven’t occurred, as UA has been insanely creative in making these strikes happen using everything from Bayraktar to Mi-17 Helicopters. However we probably wont know the full level of creativity that was used until the end of the conflict, as some strikes UA will not acknowledge other than “that’s a shame that accident happened” as operational security is key in regards to maintaining an edge.
However we can look at a number of incidents that have been credited, as well as several attacks that have been well know due to footage and social media captures / shares.
We mentioned earlier how HIMARS had been used to target logistical lines, and we believe this was what occurred in Aug 2022, when a power station, ammunition dumps and a number of officers were targeted and destroyed near Dzhankoi. Later in the month, several parked fighter aircraft were attacked and destroyed near Hvardeyskye. It is unknown how many aircraft were actually damaged in this incident, but the strike was believed to affect the Sukhoi fighter fleet, which were damaged due to poor handling and storage procedures whilst on the ground.
Probably the most notable attack though in terms of damage as well as strategic impact, was the destruction of at least 8 fighter jets whilst parked at Saky aerodrome, to the west of Crimea. This attack was notable, because it showed Russian assets were not guaranteed to be safe, whilst on Russian soil. Whilst this should be assumed in any war, in the earlier stages of the “special military operation” (WAR) there was a general assumption Russian assets were safe in russian territory and were nigh on untouchable. The destruction of these aircraft was more than the sum of the airframes as it blew this assumption wide apart, forcing Russia to look at all its assets, some of which were forced to be redeployed deeper into Russian territory. Assets like it’s heavy bomber fleet can not afford to be replaced, and should rightly be a target for Ukrainian attacks. At the very least, it makes RU reactive and forces them to respond to Ukrainian behavior on the back foot, rather than being the one that calls the dance pattern.
Id like to place an order please:
As we close this article, we’d like to re iterate one thing. We’ve already discussed how the system was limited and for what reasons, yet we see a remarkable number of successes using the system even with these imposed limitations. If we put the political component to the side for a moment and analyze things purely on the numbers, when you consider that ATACMS has a huge range advantage over GMLRS and then consider that geographically it doesn’t take long to see that whilst it isn’t a silver bullet, that the impact of HIMARS would have been far far greater had the Ukrainians been given the ATACMS system in June last year with the original delivery. To what extent exactly will now never be known but there is a myriad of important targets within that arc of that range loop, which includes everything from military airbases and aircraft, to industrial systems vital to the russian economy. There are a few points to consider, GMLRS and ATACMS load outs do differ, with the pod carrying a pair of ATACMS, as opposed to 6 of the shorter ranged GMLRS, however considering the losses we’ve seen using that system, paired with very good application of intelligence to provide targeting data we start to see the strategically speaking things could have been even worse for RU forces.
However there is one final thing to consider. This is Ukraine, and Ukraine is merely a part of the European continent, not Europe itself. Some of the fallout resulting from this hostile action is actually responsible for turning HIMARS from a good idea, to battle proven system and with that proof the order books have now flown open and they are selling fast. At the start of the article we asked chat GPT to give us a run down on the current operators and received Jordan, Taiwan, Romania, Singapore and the American military. Well, we now have Poland ordering both the US made system and rights to produce a number of local equivalents, Taiwan who appear to want to cancel their Paladin system in favor of obtaining more HIMARS launchers and Australia, who has also just placed a large order for multiple systems, including the long range MGM-140.
This means that should wars of conquest continue to be perpetuated countries cant stop this from starting. What they can do though, is use systems like HIMARS to make its prohibitively expensive in both equipment and manpower, which is rightly how it should be.
Till next time.
