HIMARS: How it's changing Ukraine's fight against Russia

it's been six months and counting of war  in ukraine and an american-made weapon   is helping ukrainian forces turn  the tide david martin reports it's been a standard largely unnoticed part  of the american military arsenal for decades   but when himars an acronym which stands  for high mobility artillery rocket system   showed up in ukraine it changed the face  of battle this capability has given the   ukrainians the potential to completely change  the momentum and the direction of this war   retired lieutenant general ben hodges former  commander of the u.s. army in europe says himars   which fires a 200 pound warhead up to 50 miles  and hits within 10 feet of its intended target has   virtually eliminated russia's numerical advantage  you don't have to have hundreds of artillery   rounds to achieve the same effect as one rocket  fired from high marsh is ukraine still outgunned   in numbers i'd say yes but what really matters is  effect and the effect that ukraine is achieving   seems to me at this point to be superior  to what the russians are able to deliver   since june the u.s. has shipped ukraine 16 himars  launchers and thousands of rockets which defense   officials say the ukrainians have used to attack  more than 350 russian command posts ammo dumps   supply depots and other high-value  targets far back from the front lines the   himars and other long-range capabilities have  have given the ukrainians the ability to reach out   and hit targets that the russians would have  thought were safe why can't they just move all   these command posts and ammo dumps further back  from the front line and get them out of range   you still got to get that  ammunition to the guns which are   closer to the front so now you've increased the  distance that the trucks have to move carrying   very heavy ammunition and they've lost well over  a thousand of their trucks in this campaign so far   and of course the result is significant reduction  in the amount of russian artillery and rocket fire   impacting on ukrainian forces all that from a  weapon made at this lockheed martin plant in rural   arkansas a seemingly minor outpost in america's  vast military-industrial complex which is now   racing to catch up with a sudden demand for himars  we'll give you a brief overview of the chassis   line here we accompanied the pentagon's chief  weapons buyer dr william laplante as he made plans   to dramatically increase production we have to  plan for at least to double this production here   probably will need double how long can you  keep that up as long as the demand is needed   we can keep production lines open for 30 years  so you heard the man from the pentagon he said   probably going to double production can  you double production absolutely chief   operating officer frank st john says the plant is  currently turning out about 7 500 rockets a year   we have capacity to produce 10 000 rockets a  year that's a rocket every 10 minutes if you do   the math on that and we're also doing similar  analysis to potentially take that up to 12 or   fourteen thousand rockets a year so how fast can  you do this i would say on the order of eighteen   to twenty four months to make any significant  changes in uh in the production quantities   the nose cone carries a satellite guidance system  which gives the rocket its sniper-like accuracy   but what impresses la plant most about himars  is not the sophistication of its technology   but the simplicity of its use there are just  three operators probably 18 to 20 years old   and they can use this and they can use it  effectively within a week okay that is to me   as important as its accuracy which is reliable  and can be done by 18 year old ukrainians   to see how himars operates in the field we went to  the u.s. army training range in yakima washington   they used the same tactics taught to the  ukrainians this is the hide site where   the himars tries to conceal itself from enemy  surveillance once it leaves here for its firing   point the himars is liable to be detected  and targeted so the clock starts ticking   the himars launcher has a top speed of 55 miles  an hour but off road in the high desert it's more   like 35 once it's out in the open it has about  five to seven minutes to find its firing position   train its rockets on the target and  fire one rocket every few seconds   the crew chief of this high mars  is staff sergeant cami white   how'd you guys do you did well what does that  mean well whenever we get a fire when ready   it's as fast as you can fire so with that  i think our time was around three minutes   three minutes from the time you got the  mission to the time that the rockets took off   when the himars fires the rocket exhaust gives  away its position so it has to get out of there   fast before the enemy can strike back how long  do you have to get out oh as quickly as possible   and how long does that take roughly a minute   it's called shoot and scoot and the ukrainians  are doing it now and they're counter offensive   against russian forces occupying kherson making  the most of the 16 himars provided by the u.s. 16 just doesn't sound like a lot it's nowhere near  what i think ukraine could use i mean look at the   effect they've achieved with 16. imagine  if they had three or four times that many

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 2,735,112

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, himars, ukraine, russia, war, united states, high mobility artillery rocket system, weapon, david martin, lockheed martin, test range, shoot and scoot

Id: iUEDRKLbKZU

Length: 6min 7sec (367 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2022