Vocal Voices

Two movements on the international scene.

First the emergency EU summit on Ukraine. The Ex Polish foreign minister is less than impressed.

Witold Waszczykowski is a career diplomat who served as foreign minister from 2015 to 2018. As an MEP, he chairs the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee and is the rapporteur on security in the Eastern Partnership area and the role of the common security and defence policy.

In an interview with EURACTIV, Witold Waszczykowski, the former foreign minister of Poland and a leading lawmaker in the European Parliament, gave a less than optimistic account of the extraordinary EU summit on Ukraine held on 30-31 May.

He said Hungary and “other countries” have allowed Russia to continue selling oil, while the agreed assistance package for Ukraine was too meagre. Furthermore, he said, no major EU country, including France, Germany, and Italy, was showing true support for Ukraine that could help bring the war to an end.

The other one is the US finally giving multi launch rocket artillery systems to Ukraine. Still only 50 miles and not the 300 mile tactical rocket, but important all the same.

Joe Biden has announced the US will send advanced missile systems to Ukraine. The new weapon is the Himars multiple launch rocket system, or MLRS: a mobile unit that can simultaneously launch multiple precision-guided missiles.

Both Ukraine and Russia already operate MLRS, but Himars has superior range and precision.

The existing rocket systems Ukraine operates have the same range as the Russian rockets. This means in order to respond and counteract the Russian rockets or artillery, they need to be in range and in danger themselves.

With the Himars, they will be able to stay out of range and, also, the rockets are GPS guided. This means that their drones can observe the Russian artillery, provide their GPS coordinates and let the rockets take them out.

But there is another part of this story the press has not put together. One of the deliveries from the UK to Ukraine are Artillery spotting radar. With this radar the Ukrainian army can locate the Russian artillery as the shells or rockets are in the air. With Himars, they can upload the GPS coordinates to the rockets and fire whilst the Russian bombardment is still in the air. Before the Russian artillery can move, the Himars rockets will rain down on them causing havoc. Because Himars is a modular rocket system, they can race away (in any direction), 1 or 2 km, reload in a matter of minutes from pre-positioned rocket containers and be ready to do it again within 15 to 20 minutes.

This is going to make a very LARGE difference to the way in which Ukraine can deal with the Russian attacks. No longer will Russia be able to sit back and bombard Ukrainian cities with impunity secure in the knowledge that they cannot be effectively engaged.

That's good for the Ukraine.
I just hope someone somewhere is trying equally hard to negotiate a lasting peace.

The Russians' Grad BM-21 can fire off 40 rockets in 10 seconds and be away in 1-2 minutes, fully reloaded in 10 minutes from reserves, same as HIMARS. They can sit just outside the range of the MAMBA.

OK, they are not sophisticated but a battle group (18 launchers) can fire off 720 rockets in a scattergun effect, and the Russians have hundreds of them in Ukraine. They can be fired by wire so the Russians could use them sacrificially without losing manpower. They are cheap and the Russians are still building them - nearly 100,000 units so far. These are the units the Western press are comparing HIMARS with.

However, Russia also has its own HIMARS type system with similar capabilities and satellite guidance, the 9A52-Tornado. And they are already in service in the Donbas.

It would also be naïve to think that the Russians will not know where the HIMARS are situated. The US only has 414 of them so their numbers might only be delivered in their tens - if that.


Time to talk.

Workingman wrote:Time to talk.

About what? Russia has set the terms. Ukraine has to be split.

Nothing to talk about until Russia accepts it has declared war on a foreign power and that it needs to leave.

As for the rocket launchers. As ever it depends on how you use them. Russia has been using them in static force mode because the Ukrainians had nothing to reach them with. Now the Russian tactics will need to change and they are not very good at that. Whereas the Ukrainian forces will be advised by NATO specialists.

One of the major disadvantages of these kinds of rocket launchers is a minimum range. The US faced this in the Gulf where they were too close to use sometimes.

When you look at it that way, boxing clever and brining the M777's inside the minimum range of the Russian rockets, blanketing them with Himars fire then finishing the area off with mobile artillery pieces is a real possibility. Something that has been denied the Ukrainian army till now.

It is how you use the technology you have. The Afghans were given stingers but soon learned that Russian helicopter pilots knew the range and kept out of danger. So they used training rockets to lure the big attack helicopters into a firing position on one mountain only to be shot up the ass from another mountain at point blank range.

First you need the tools. Now Ukraine is getting some of the tools.

What they really need is a solid anti air shield and their own air to ground attack aircraft to totally level the Russian artillery capability. Then go mop up on the ground. But the US is reluctant to give as it would allow Ukraine to sortie into Russia and take out their airfields from which they are bombing Ukraine.

Such is the state of play. When you phrase it like that it becomes more of a proxy war than real assistance to Ukraine. Although the US is doing a lot more than the EU right now. Without the aid of the UK, US and a few other countries Ukraine would now be rolled over. They know and are extremely grateful. But they need to survive this.