Russia is making excuses for US-Made HIMARS In Ukraine

• Russian forces have had difficulty countering Ukraine’s use US made HIMARS rockets.
• Russians have an explanation for this: HIMARS is equipped with a secret feature that makes them harder to target.
• Insider has learned that it is probably just bluster intended to distract from Russian military failures.

Why can’t Russia destroy Ukraine’s HIMARS rocket launchers made by the US?

Russian defense blogs offer an explanation: HIMARS contains a secret feature that stops Russian artillery targeting it.

Not quite, Western defense experts say. Russian incompetence is the most likely explanation.

September Russian defense blog AviaWe wrote about how Russian artillery failed to defeat Ukraine’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. They fire GPS-guided missiles that have decimated vital Russian targets, such as command posts and ammunition dumps.

Russia’s massive arsenal of howitzers, multiple-launch rocket systems and rocket systems should be capable of destroying HIMARS. Counter-battery radar can track the trajectory of rockets it launches back to their launch points.

Avia’s blog post unsigned says that the clever Americans had a trick. They created HIMARS to change the trajectory of its rockets and fool counter-battery radars.

“This can easily be seen from missile’s flight path which actually shifts the coordinates established by counterbattery weapons of combat by hundreds, making it impossible for accurate strikes,” says the post, pointing at videos of Ukraine firing the rockets.

According to Google’s translation, “Experts draw your attention to video footage that was published by the Ukrainian military. It shows that rockets change their flight paths almost immediately after launch.”

This is what sets American systems apart from other MLRSs. [multiple launch rocket systems]This is where projectiles are launched along a trajectory that is ballistic. It adds that this fact is highly probable and prevents us from establishing the precise location of the launchers’ coordinates.”

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Insider asked Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of HIMARS missiles, for comment. The US Army responded simply by saying that the missile had reached the target’s ballistic trajectory.

Counter-battery fire — using artillery to knock out other artillery — is a difficult process even under the best of circumstances. Poor Russian counter-battery abilities are adding to the problem.

Insider heard that Samuel Cranny Evanss, a land warfare expert at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said, “The article may be grasping at straws.”

Russia, for instance, Zoopark-1 counter battery radarHIMARS rockets are capable of detecting rockets from a distance of 50 to 100 miles.

Cranny-Evans stated that the radar must pick up the projectile as it launches to attempt to predict its trajectory and plot its probable approach, before extrapolating backwards in order to arrive at a probable launch site. “So, if the radar doesn’t pick up the rocket from its launch point or it’s out of range, it cannot provide a targeting solution.”

Counter-battery radars can also be set up to scan for incoming rockets or shells passing through a particular sector at a certain height.

Cranny Evans stated, “Unless the radar happens be looking in exactly the right place at just the right time,” HIMARS launches will not be detected by it. “I doubt that the Russians have enough anti-battery radars for continuous coverage. They would also be limited in their ability provide persistent monitoring, even if they were within range of rockets.”

Counter-battery radars provide an estimate of the location of the firing batteries. This is good enough for a general barrage, but not enough to give a precise shot.

This is particularly true for mobile artillery like truck-mounted HIMARS, armored self propelled howitzers and armored self -propelled howitzers. They use “shoot & scoot” tactics to fire a salvo, then move in a matter of minutes.

That tactic requires counter-battery fire to be launched within minutes of detecting incoming fire – and Russia’s command structure has been too slow to do this.

Cranny-Evans stated that the Russians have a slow targeting process, which is often unable or unwilling to consider moving targets or changing situations. They will not engage if they don’t fire immediately on the suspected HIMARS site or if the fire mission is assigned a low priority, for whatever reason.

While this Avia article appears groundless, Russian defense blogs — which often have Links to the Russian government and military — can be quite illuminating.

HIMARS exposes Russia’s frustration with Ukraine’s new Western-supplied arms. Their more modern artillery was able to outrange Ukraine’s older Soviet-era weapons when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February. Now, the shoe is on its other foot.

According to the article, someone in Moscow is searching for scapegoats. Instead of fixing inefficient or poorly designed procedures, they prefer to blame the defeat on enemy secrets weapons. It’s not possible to win wars with bitter grapes.

Michael Peck is a defense journalist whose work has been published in Forbes and Defense News as well as Foreign Policy magazine. He has a master’s degree in political science. Follow him on TwitterAnd LinkedIn.