HIMARS is re-shaping eastern European strategies against Moscow
Ukraine’s effective use of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems has dented Russia’s attempt to wage a war of attrition in the east, and made HIMARS a weapon of choice on NATO’s east flank
The countries in eastern Europe most worried about a future Russian attack are arming themselves with M142 HIMARS – High Mobility Artillery Rockets Systems – supplied by the United States.
Poland and the Baltic States have drawn the lesson that this has been among the most effective weapons at stopping the Russian advance in Ukraine, and are ordering hundeds of launch systems at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Polish defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced on May 26 that he had requested 500 HIMARS launchers plus ammunition – an enormous number, which he said would involve extensive co-production. Estonia would buy six launchers and ammunition worth $500mn, the US State Department said on July 15. Latvia made public its request for $300mn in launchers and rockets a week later.
Lithuania is expected to follow suit. “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 wrote on July 22, referring to Russia’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea.
“The Baltics will become a single theatre of war for Russia,” said Estonian defence minister Kusti Salm, explaining the region’s co-ordination on defence procurements.
Latvia and Estonia have talked about acquiring the latest, 300km ATACMs (Army Tactical Missiles) for their launchers. From the Estonian border, these would easily be able to strike St. Petersburg. From Latvia they would be able to strike halfway to Moscow, impeding any invasion force long before it reached the border. From the Polish and Lithuanian borders they could strike almost anywhere on the territory of Belarus, Moscow’s only regional ally, whose territory was used as a marshalling ground to attack Kiyv.
“We will force our enemy to hike the price of aggression. If they know we can destroy certain kinds of targets, they will have to start looking for alternative solutions. However, those are notably more expensive. Attacking Estonia, Baltic countries and NATO will become a lot more complicated and expensive for the enemy," said Salm.
The United States’ armed forces are to bring an even more advanced HIMARS-launched rocket, the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), with a 500km range, into the field next year. Should that be supplied to regional allies, they would be able to strike in the vicinity of Moscow.
What makes HIMARS so effective?
Ukraine has inflicted enormous damage on Russian ammunition depots, command posts and air defences using just a dozen HIMARS launchers, each of which has six launch tubes armed with the ordinary GMLRS (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems) rockets with 80-120km range.
These first went into service in Ukraine on June 25. By July 16 Ukraine’s defence ministry said they 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.
This has thrown a spanner in the strategy of Russia, whose 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. Striking Russian logistics hubs has thus allowed Ukraine to undermine the source of Russian power.
Australian retired major-general Mick Ryan believes that after the retreats in Luhansk and Donetsk, “HIMARS has once again changed the battlefield calculus in the fight for Ukraine,” to enable 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 called HIMARS a “game changer”, helping Ukraine gain the advantage.
What makes HIMARS ideal for this job is its precision.
“Himars, along with GMLRs, achieve remarkable strike precision,” says Konstantinos Grivas, who teaches advanced weapons systems at the Hellenic Army Academy.
“The Russians have nothing equivalent because these systems were developed by the Americans as a sort of sniper artillery for use in difficult environments like Fallujah [in Iraq], where you had to hit the target exactly because it was surrounded by civilians. If there’s a building you’re receiving fire from within the urban environment, you aim at that building from up to 80km away, and within a few minutes of receiving fire you land a rocket on the building in question.”
The secret to the rockets’ precision is an inertial navigation system – a collection of gyroscopes and accelerometers - that tell the rocket its exact location relative to its target, enabling it to achieve a strike precision of three-to-five metres at maximum range.
Equally important, say experts, is the intelligence network that provides strike co-ordinates to the gunner, and US military officials say they have shared such intelligence with Ukraine.
The system is highly cost-effective. Individual GMLRS rockets cost about $100,000. The S300 anti-air batteries and ammunition depots they have destroyed in Ukraine cost millions of dollars, and the psychological effects of Russian soldiers’ knowing that they can be struck far behind the line of contact are incalculable.
Russia has been reacting to HIMARS by bringing some of its logistics closer to urban centres. For example, Ukraine’s military intelligence reported that Russian occupying forces delivered truckloads of artillery ammunition for storage in Kherson’s municipal theatre on the night of July 11-12.
Grivas believes using cities as shields “won’t affect Himars because it’s designed for such urban warfare.”
“Because it is a mobile system, HIMARS is also able to halt, shoot and then move away quickly. This ensures that it is a highly survivable weapon system in an era where the time between detection and destruction can be just a few minutes,” Ryan recently wrote.
“An important factor that contributed to our retention of defensive lines and positions is the timely arrival of M142 HIMARS, which deliver targeted strikes on enemy control points, ammunition and fuel storage depots," said Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny.
A senior US military official described HIMARS as a “a thorn in the Russian side… having a very significant effect on the Russians ability to mount offensive operations… the ability for these men and women to shoot, move, and stay alive is just exceptional.”
US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley also recently praised the Ukrainian human factor. “The fact that the Ukrainians were able to quickly deploy these systems speaks highly of their ability, their ingenuity, their artillery ability, their gunner capability, their determination, and their will to fight,” Milley said.
HIMARS have become a symbol of Russian vulnerability. In occupied southern Kherson oblast, posters appeared in July featuring a picture of a HIMARS system and threatening retribution on the Russian occupiers for “looting, killing, rape, destruction”.
How many systems will victory require?
Military commanders have warned that HIMARS is 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.
But Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, recently said Ukraine needs 100 HIMARS launchers to roll back Russia’s territorial gains.
Ukraine’s definition of victory is a complete ouster of Russian forces from the Crimea and the Donbas region, which broke away in 2014, as well as the territory Russia took since February 24 this year. Publicly, the US, NATO and G7 have said the same, but it is clear that within NATO some favour a more cautious approach.
Given Ukraine’s effective use of HIMARS, journalists have asked why they haven’t received more than a dozen.
“We’re trying to be responsible,” the senior US military official recently told one reporter. “We also take a look… that we balance our readiness,” because the HIMARS systems being sent to Ukraine are drawn from US reserves.
But there also seems to be a sense that the US is trying not to provoke Russia by providing Ukraine with the means to inflict a humiliating defeat. Britain 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.
“We’re not the only ones providing this type of capability,” said the US senior military official. “There will be the synergy of those effects,” he said, referring to other countries’ supplies, and suggesting that there is perhaps an upper limit to what the US wants to achieve.