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Cobretti2 on 27 May 2022
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Ryuu96 said:
SecondWar said:

My question with that is how effective will they ultimately prove to be. The Howitzers were touted as a potential game changer for Ukraine but a week or so on from them being delivered and news about them has been eerily silent. That suggests ones pf two things - that Russia did indeed take out a good number of them when they claimed to hit an arms depot outside Kyiv a few days back or they haven’t been able to have much impact in the field.

Others claims they may not yet have made it to the frontline, which seems odd given the prominence they had in the media.

Bare in mind that Ukraine said their major counter attack won't start until mid-June at the earliest which implies that a lot of equipment still hasn't reached its target destination yet, I think the Howitzers have still been good to Ukraine but they're mostly slowly down Russia's advance rather than putting a stop to it, Russia has artillery too which can reach Ukraine's.

However, HIMARS is vastly more capable than the artillery that Ukraine currently has, it's a lot more capable in both its range and its amazing accuracy, Ukraine's M777 Howitzers have a top range of about 18 miles, the M270 MLRS has a range of 20 - 40 miles, the more advanced rockets can travel 100+ miles, the M142 HIMARS has a range of 186 miles, the specialized ammo has a range of 310 miles.

The Howitzers they have right now are nice but still put them in danger from Russia's counter artillery strikes, MLRS/HIMARS range vastly outperforms any artillery that Ukraine currently has, it will allow them to fire from relatively safe distances too, it will out-range most Russian artillery too, they could threaten not only Russian attackers but logistical buildings, supply routes, etc.

MLRS is a lot easier to move too, it was designed partly for that purpose, to fire and then drive off before the Soviets could zero in on it, Ukraine can fire from a relatively safe location, quickly pack it up and drive off before Russia spots the location, whereas with Howitzers require a truck to tow them around, the Howitzers can only fire one shell at a time too compared to M270 MLRS which fires 12 rockets in less than a minute.

There's zero chance that America will give Ukraine their best ammunition though but even the most basic one is far deadlier than these Howitzers, also, according to Lockheed themselves, the rockets have a 98% accuracy rating (due to it being GPS-guided). Of course no one thing will change the tide of war but a combination of everything, nevertheless, these MLRS will be very deadly and useful to Ukraine.

Also to add, if you buying 500 of them, its basically implying you target us, we will just mass launch them all, so even if there is room for error, well with that many these explosions would be on top of each other and nothing be left standing, if they chose to target a region (i.e, an advancing army convoy). 

More so a deterrent tactic that will never get used. I guess instead of building a wall out of rocks like China did, this wall will be out of M142 HIMARS