The US Weapon Beating the Russians in Ukraine

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👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/AutoModerator 📅︎︎ Sep 13 2022 🗫︎ replies

HIMARS if you don’t want to watch the video.

👍︎︎ 10 👤︎︎ u/SlaveToNone666 📅︎︎ Sep 13 2022 🗫︎ replies

Goddamn the click bait bullshit is heavy with this war.

Gotta profit somehow am I right?

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/TigerClaw338 📅︎︎ Sep 13 2022 🗫︎ replies

This video is pretty out of date. If you’ve been following the war up till now you’re not really going to learn anything new.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/Jeffersons_Mammoth 📅︎︎ Sep 13 2022 🗫︎ replies

This Youtube channel is the absolute worst.

Most of the content is just shameless clickbait with nothing new to say.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/whypillowguy 📅︎︎ Sep 13 2022 🗫︎ replies
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Somewhere in the east of Ukraine, a drab green  military truck roars to life and pulls out of   its temporary shelter inside some trees. On  its back is a single pod of 6 227mm rockets,   despite having less power than  a traditional multiple rocket   launch system this single truck is the  deadliest weapon in the Ukrainian war. The driver clears the trees  and the crew gets to work,   as the rocket pod lifts up off the bed of  the truck on its own and swings to the left.   Targeting data provided by US satellites  and secret intelligence sources   is fed into the firing computer, which in turn  programs each rocket with its own impact point.   Once ready, a simple press of a button sends  six of the big rockets screaming into the sky. As soon as the last rocket clears the  launcher, the truck is already on the move.   This single piece of rocket artillery provided  by the United States is Ukraine's most important   weapon, and is the single most hunted piece of  hardware of the entire war. Russian troops are   on the hunt for each and every one of these  sixteen trucks currently in the nation,   and their commanders have been ordered to expend  any amount of life required to destroy them.   Thus the trucks are constantly on the move, never  staying still in one place for long and always   under heavy cover when idle. They pop out of  their tree cover or camo netting to fire a salvo   and then immediately retreat to avoid counter  battery fire or an air attack. It's a dangerous   game of cat and mouse, but to date the Ukrainians  have been winning- to devastating effect. The truck is long gone by the time  its rockets find their target.   Several dozen miles behind enemy lines, well  out of the reach of any other artillery,   Russian Colonel Andrei Vasilyev, commander of an  elite paratrooper regiment, is taking a meeting   with his senior officers. To date, Russia has lost  a whopping 55 Colonels in its half a year effort   in Ukraine, a casualty figure so staggering the  only parallel is from the second world war. Thus   Colonel Vasilyev has taken great pains to keep his  exact location a secret- but US intelligence has   found him and transmitted the GPS coordinates  of his secret command post to the Ukrainians. One rocket impacts the command post  with a precision of half a meter,   instantly incinerating the good Colonel and his  officers. For him, the war is over, but for those   Russians still living the deadly rain of rockets  continues. Supplies and ammunition for artillery   pieces is destroyed, as dozens of other soldiers  are killed or wounded in the precision strike. Colonel Andrey Vasilyev is now the  56th Russian colonel to die in Ukraine,   but he won't be the last. And a large  part of Ukraine's stunning success   in recent months is all down to one  single gift from the United States:   the High Mobility Artillery Rocket  System, otherwise known as HIMARS. The impact of HIMARS in Ukraine cannot be  understated. While the Javelin has become   the patron saint and protector of Ukraine, this  American weapon is far deadlier to the Russians   than even the Javelin- and that's thanks to  its range and precision. With just twelve of   these weapon systems in the country, Ukraine  has ground the Russian offensive to nearly a   complete halt. But how in the world could so  few weapons be giving Russia so much trouble,   and why can't Russia overcome  such tiny numbers of US weapons? The HIMARS was developed in the  late 1990s for use by the US Army.   The system is not much different than other  rocket artillery, save for the fact that   instead of the two rocket pods used by the  Army's M270 MLRS, HIMARS has only one pod   for greatly increased mobility. This allows the  system to very quickly move into firing position   and then escape before enemy counterbattery fire  or a ground attack mission arrives on-scene,   and is why Russia is having such great difficulty  neutralizing the dozen units provided to Ukraine. HIMARS can be loaded with a standard six rocket  pod, or can carry a single tactical ballistic   missile with a quick conversion. Its rockets have  a range of between 1.2 and 190 miles (2-300km), or   up to 190 miles (300 km) when using the army's  ATACMs surface-to-surface missile. It can even be   equipped with SLAMRAAM missiles, surface-launched  variants of the AMRAAM anti-aircraft missile.   But its versatility doesn't end there, because  unlike any other rocket artillery in the world,   HIMARS can even engage targets while loaded up on  a transport ship. In October of 2017 the US Marine   Corps fired a single rocket while at sea from  the deck of an amphibious transport dock ship,   successfully hitting a shore target with  precision. This now makes HIMARS deadly   not just on land, but even when it's still  loaded on a ship and waiting to be delivered. The weapon system saw wide use in  the Iraq/AFghanistan conflicts,   and in a prelude of what was to come-  if Russia had been paying attention-   HIMARS’ high precision allowed it to target  Taliban commanders' hideouts in October of 2010,   forcing them to flee the country temporarily.  With its impressive range and precision,   HIMARS has fired over 400 rockets at Islamic  State militants since November of 2015,   and the year after it fired rockets into  Syria in support of Syrian rebels there. In January of 2016, manufacturer  Lockheed-Martin announced   that HIMARS had reached 1 million  operational hours with US forces,   achieving an incredible 99 percent operational  readiness rate. Compare that with strike fighter   aircraft who have been loitering at around a  70% readiness rate for years and you can see   why HIMARS and its precision fire has become  an incredibly important tool for the US Army. And now it's the most important  tool in the Ukrainian army. Russia must have been sleeping through the last  decade, because upon making an appearance in   Ukraine, HIMARS' impact was immediate- pun  intended. The first four units arrived on   the 23rd of June, and just two days later  they were in use against Russian forces,   killing over 40 Russian soldiers on a  precision strike at a military base in Izyum. For the first time since the war began, Russian  rear areas were under threat from Ukrainian   weapons, and the fear this realization struck was  palpable- specially as successful fire mission   after successful fire mission took place. Within  days of its opening salvo, the Russian military   said that the US's M270 MLRS and M142 HIMARS  were the most dangerous weapons in Ukraine,   and that it was vital for Russian  forces to destroy them at any cost. Yet not all Russian officers were convinced,  and it was believed that their air defense units   such as S-300 and S-400 systems would be able  to knock the American rockets out of the sky.   That however never happened, prompting the Russian  government to launch an investigation into the   manufacturer of the S-300 air defense system- just  one of many ongoing investigations into failing   or underperforming Russian weapons. For Russian air defense operators,   HIMARS rockets fly too fast and too high for  their systems to understand them as a threat-   they have the flight trajectory of traditional  artillery but with the speed of a fighter jet,   and this can cause havoc when trying to  identify a HIMARS attack. Russian software   will need to be patched to begin targeting  incoming rockets, a development which could   take months to complete- if Russian can manage  the feat given all their current difficulties. Any doubt amongst Russian officers as to the  deadly efficacy of HIMARS however was ended   in the coming weeks, as Ukrainian bombardments  targeted Russian command posts and supply depots,   inflicting crippling casualties in  Russia's command and control networks   and destroying over fifty supply  depots. On the fourth of July,   Ukraine even honored the American independence  holiday- with help from the Russians-   with a suspected HIMARS strike  against a massive ammo depot HIMARS has been so effective in countering  Russian forces that Ukrainian commanders   report that Russian shelling is down  tenfold after successful HIMARS strikes,   sparing the lives of hundreds  of Ukrainian soldiers. But how   in the world could twelve weapons be  turning the tide of the war in Ukraine? It has everything to do with precision. Russia  has the largest amount of artillery in the world,   and has come to be called an 'artillery  army'. Yet the vast majority of that   artillery is completely unguided. It  is fundamentally the same artillery   that was in use since the second world war.  HIMARS however is a complete game changer,   because it's smart while Russia's artillery  is dumb- and it has greater range. With its extended range, HIMARS can hit  targets well behind the front lines,   putting areas normally considered safe from enemy  attack at great risk. This means command posts,   staging areas, supply depots, and even  long-range air defense or ground-attack systems-   all juicy and very high value targets that  traditional artillery simply can't reach.   With command posts and supplies being forced  to relocate further behind the battle lines,   Russian troops can’t move or react as  quickly as they once did, slowing down an   offensive and limiting the Russian military’s  ability to exploit battlefield opportunities.   Overextension becomes a very real problem,  and could lead to outright disaster. But the system’s real strength comes from  precision, because HIMARS can accomplish with   one salvo what it takes traditional artillery  dozens, if not hundreds of rounds to do.   And Ukraine is using that precision to  great effect by targeting Russian supplies   and command posts. This is a strategy  in effect since the start of the war,   with Ukraine devastating Russian logistics even to  the point of ignoring targets such as artillery,   troops, or tanks. After all, without  fuel and ammo, an army can't fight. And Russian forces are discovering that  they are having acute supply issues   thanks to HIMARS destroying their supply hubs,  greatly slowing the pace of their advance and   even halting it in places. The use of just  twelve HIMARS systems has helped open up a   window for a Ukrainian counterattack in  the south, which is expected to commence   at the end of July and will probably have  started by the time you watch this episode. But precision is worthless if you don't  know where the enemy's juiciest targets are,   and this is largely where the US comes in. The  United States has been feeding vast amounts of   intelligence to Ukrainian forces since the  start of the conflict, and the US is very   good at sniffing out enemy VIPs and other high  priority targets. That's partly thanks to one   of the largest intelligence apparatuses in the  world, but also thanks to the Russians themselves   who have almost no concept of operational  or communications security. A fundamental   lack of encrypted radios has allowed Ukraine  and the US to snoop on Russian communications,   and take appropriate action. US intelligence has  led to over a dozen Russian generals earning an   early and permanent retirement. And with HIMARS  on the front lines, that list is bound to grow. The US is committed to keeping Ukraine resupplied  with the rockets it needs to keep blasting Russian   targets, and is even shipping additional  HIMARS units over the next couple months.   Ukraine has said that with 100 of these systems  it could push Russia out of its territory,   and though we don't know how many the  US will end up sending to Ukraine,   we know that an additional four are  already being planned for delivery. For its part, Russia has publicly  downplayed the threat HIMARS poses-   yet the facts don't lie. Russian use  of artillery is down significantly   in areas where HIMARS is in play, as Russian  artillerymen are forced to conserve ammunition,   and destruction of the American weapons  has become a top priority. Russia claims   it has destroyed four of the units to date, a  claim that both Ukraine and the Pentagon deny. Now we have news that the US House of  Representatives has approved a measure to   provide $100 million in funding to train Ukrainian  pilots in the use of American F-15s and F-16s.   If the bill passes the Senate in September, then  Ukrainian pilots could begin training as early   as January of next year in US planes. By next  summer, Russia could have yet another headache   on its hands as it now faces modern American  weapons both on the ground and in the sky. The real question though is: with all  its bluster about destroying NATO,   how exactly does Russia plan to do that when it  can't even handle a dozen US HIMARS? With nearly   400 HIMARS units in service, other NATO members  are now requesting the weapon system from the US,   which is bad-news-bears for Vladimir  Putin's dream of Russian expansionism. Now check out What Will Ukraine Do After Its War  With Russia? Or click this other video instead!
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Channel: The Infographics Show
Views: 2,216,930
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Id: AN64Zkp7nb0
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Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)
Published: Mon Sep 12 2022
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