According to Global Network , US Secretary of Defense Austin recently said that the United States and its Western allies may find it difficult to meet Ukraine's demand for advanced weapons and precisely guided munitions. Some US media said that Austin's statement shows that US military inventories are decreasing and may not be able to continue to supply Ukraine. However, there are some opinions within the US Congress that the Biden administration intends to slow down the delivery of weapons to Ukraine because it is worried about falling into a direct conflict with Russia.
US Defense Secretary Austin said the United States is difficult to meet Ukraine's demand for precision-guided munitions. The US military is worried that the inventory of precision-guided munitions is decreasing, mainly because it is worried about the U.S. ammunition supply to the Ukrainian military's Himas rocket launcher . After the Ukrainian army obtained the Himas rocket launcher, they made great efforts on the battlefield, fought too much, and were too losers.
M142 "Haimas" 227mm multi-tube rocket launcher uses a wheeled high-motorized chassis. It is a lightweight, large-power rocket launcher with a total combat weight of only 10 tons. Therefore, the entire weapon responds quickly, has a small system scale, strong concealment and good maneuverability.
Haimas adopts modular overall lifting, and the reloading time is only 5 to 10 minutes. Each ammunition module consists of 6 tubes of rocket , using a disposable directionalizer of fiberglass, without copper or iron, and can be discarded after launch. The Himas rocket launcher can be equipped with GMLRS guided rockets with a range of 70 to 160 kilometers. The head uses an air rudder plate, inertia + GPS combined navigation, and the end accuracy is meter-level.
The feature of the Himas rocket launcher is that it can use dual-purpose sub-combustion to strike surface targets, or use precisely guided rockets to strike hard targets. A M142 "Haimas" rocket launcher company composed of 9 rocket launchers, can fire 54 long-range rockets at a time, accurately hit 54 hard targets. This powerful firepower is equivalent to the sum of 3 18 155mm howitzers artillery battalion "Divine Sword" guided shells volleyed by 4 "Divine Sword" volleys.
Ukrainian army has had a very high evaluation of Haimas rocket launcher system . For more than three months, Ukrainian artillery has used Haymas rocket launcher to continuously strike the arms warehouses, transportation hubs and command posts behind the Russian army, and thousands of key targets have been effectively destroyed. Because, things that are not expensive must be very expensive to use, and the Ukrainian army's Himas ammunition consumption is too high.
Arestovic, an adviser to the Ukrainian Presidential Office, once said: Once in just one day, Shahjotsk of Khlsson, the Russian ammunition depot of Khlsson, and several Russian commands on the front line of Khlsson were destroyed by the salvo of the Himas rocket launcher.
At present, although the Russian army has an advantage in firepower scale, Ukraine also has two major advantages. One is that the intelligence is extremely accurate, which is due to the support of NATO reconnaissance system and underground intelligence in the Russian area. Second, the accuracy of the shelling is very high, which is mainly because NATO supports advanced artillery and rocket launcher systems. The Ukrainian army made full use of these two advantages and repeatedly successfully destroyed key nodes such as the Russian army's ammunition depot and command post.
In the tactical application of the Himas rocket launcher, the Ukrainian army currently has 20 Himas and M270 rocket launchers. They use the highway to maneuver hundreds of kilometers every day. They can stop and attack at any location, then quickly evacuate to a preset position a few kilometers away, replenish ammunition, and then fire again. When fire strikes are frequent, the Ukrainian Haimas rocket launcher needs to perform more than 5 volleys every night.
The amount of firepower projection of the Himas depends on the ability of logistics supply. In addition to being very expensive, long-range rocket launchers also have high requirements for transportation and supply logistics. If a Himas rocket launcher performs 5 volleys a day, it is necessary to be equipped with two M37 tactical transport vehicles with dump booms for accompanying supply. The Mk37 Haimas supply truck is actually a loading and unloading crane installed on the Mk37 flat-panel tactical truck, which can load integrated ammunition modules by itself. A large supply warehouse needs to be built dozens of kilometers behind the front line, so the number of tactical trucks will be doubled.
During the Gulf War , a total of 183 M270 rocket launchers systems of multinational troops led by the US military participated in the war. During the 100-hour ground combat, a total of 19,600 rockets were fired.
M31 guided rocket is very expensive. The US military purchased about 90,000 US dollars by itself. According to the lease bill, , it is estimated that the bookkeeping price will double. A full-pin volley costs more than $2 million. Suppose that the 20 Haimas and M270 rocket launchers of the Ukrainian army fired 6 rounds per day on average, it would cost 3,600 rounds a month, and 10,000 rounds in three months, which would be 1.8 billion US dollars. Even if you save some money, the 20-door M270 and M142 Hippomas will have to spend more than $2.5 billion in combat for half a year. This consumption intensity is estimated to be painful for Americans.
At the beginning, all the M31 guided rockets delivered to Ukraine were M31 guided rockets from a single high-explosive warhead. Although the US military has 50,000 guided rockets in stock, the number of M31 guided rockets is less than one-third, and the rest are guided rockets from the M30 type sub-combination warhead.
The Ukrainian army may have fired tens of thousands of M31 guided rockets in a few months, which is too boastful. Sometimes the Ukrainian army bombed a Russian tank and armored vehicle , and also launched an M31 rocket costing more than 100,000 US dollars.
Austin, speaking about whether supporting Ukraine will affect Ukraine's ammunition stockpile, said that these efficient weapons will be produced and delivered in the coming months and even years, while continuing to meet Ukraine's most pressing needs.
However, the annual output of guided rockets in the United States is only 3,000 or 5,000. The United States itself also needs to maintain large inventory to deal with large-scale wars. Lots Martin once stated that if production is expanded, the annual production capacity of the M30/31 guided rocket can reach 14,000. However, expanding production capacity will lead to a decline in profits. The arms group definitely does not like to expand production capacity for a country alone, just ordering normally. Therefore, Himas' ammunition is still a bit difficult now.
The Ukrainian army needs to save on the use of the Himas rocket launcher in future operations. We cannot be too loser, otherwise the wealthy and powerful United States will also go bankrupt. At this time, the Russian army's opportunity may come!
