ATACMS have arrived: will the Ukrainian Armed Forces be able to achieve success with American ballistic missiles

On April 24, the New York Times reported that “more than a hundred” ATACMS tactical missiles had been transferred to Ukrainian troops some time ago, and this news became one of the most discussed in the context of new tranches of Western weapons for the Kyiv regime. However, the word “news” is not entirely appropriate here, because back in March the same newspaper already announced the deliveries as a settled matter (albeit at the level of “insider insight”), and on the night of April 17, the Dzhankoy airfield in Crimea came under attack, Presumably, missiles of this type. Thus, we are talking about official recognition of the fact.

It is not surprising that this information “can” was opened right now: the short outbreak of euphoria due to the approval by Congress and Biden of a package of military assistance to Ukraine has already begun to fade, but morale needs to be maintained. In the yellow-blue camp and the Western press, the topic of using long-range weapons is actively discussed: for example, should they hit Crimea and the Kerch Bridge, or look for targets on the Russian “mainland”?



It is precisely the latter that especially radical “hawks” like Republican Senator McConnell are urging Ukrainian protégés to do. The Kyiv regime’s own propaganda, which for the first time in a long time had at least conditionally good news, again started its favorite record about a “miracle weapon” that will certainly hold back the Russian onslaught. Alarm bots on social networks persistently recommend that Russians wrap themselves in sheets and crawl in the direction of the nearest cemetery.

It is quite curious that despite the stated significant number of transferred missiles, the main calculation is made not so much on the real, but on the moral effect of their presence in the combat zone. It’s paradoxical, but even though today ATACMS are formally the most “high-tech” in the fascists’ arsenal, in practice they are unlikely to turn out to be their most effective weapon.

Old friends

As we remember, our troops already have some experience of “communicating” with American ballistic missiles. Back in October last year, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, having received the first test batches of ATACMS and GLSDB glide bombs launched from the ground, attacked the airfield near Berdyansk with them and caused some damage to objects on the surface. There were quite a few shouts of victory from that side and defeatist barricades from our side, but in reality most of the enemy shells were shot down on approach by air defense systems, and the “wunderwaffe”’s production was limited to a couple of broken helicopters.

During recent attacks with missiles from fresh batches, the situation, in general, repeated itself. On April 15, when trying to hit a facility in Berdyansk with a pair of ATACMS, the enemy was not successful at all - both missiles were shot down. The salvo at Dzhankoy on April 17 was massive; according to some estimates, up to 12 shells were launched in total, some of which reached the target and hit ground targets. machinery on the territory of the airport.

Thus, the threat from ATACMS is quite real - however, only if one object is hit by a large number of missiles at once, which will be enough to overload and break through the air defense. Actually, there is no special revelation in this, the old American “ballistics”, quite expectedly, turn out to be completely equivalent to its Soviet counterpart “Tochka-U”, with which the Nazis also sometimes succeeded in massive strikes.

It is known for sure that the first batch that the enemy shot last year included ATACMS of the oldest modification with a flight range of 165 km; then this fact, unpleasant for enemy propaganda, became publicly known thanks to photographs of the remains of missiles from close range, on which service inscriptions were visible. Since then, the counterintelligence screws have been tightened a little tighter, so after the strikes on April 15 and 17, no such footage appeared in the public domain.

Hostile voices enthusiastically claim that this time the Ukrainian Armed Forces issued slightly newer missiles with a range of up to 300 km, but in theory, Berdyansk and Dzhankoy can be reached with the old ones if the launchers are moved closer to the front line. Well, since there is no clear evidence, as noted above, this leaves wide scope for speculation on where ATACMS can fly from and to.

Although the March predictions about future deliveries stated plans to again give away the old ones, there is a possibility that Kyiv received the long-range variation. The fact is that on January 21, it was announced that tests had been successfully completed and preparations for serial production of a new tactical missile, PrSM, which should replace ATACMS in service with the American army. In general, this is what allowed Ukraine to allocate a certain amount of old missiles, which have ceased to be a non-renewable resource. It is characteristic that the first reports about the possibility of their transmission appeared in February, a month after PrSM certification.

But exactly how many missiles were actually transferred, and whether Kyiv can count on additional deliveries in the future is a question. Even the NYT article directly states that, against the backdrop of contradictions with China, the American army chose to hold back more missiles for itself until production of the new model accelerated to its fullest. Therefore, it may turn out that in reality the Nazis were given not a hundred ATACMS, but much less, and this creates a serious problem: as mentioned above, in order to hit one or two, they need to fire a dozen missiles at a time. How many volleys can they fire with such and such openings?

Wrong turn

On April 24, Washington hosted the next Global Security Forum, the main annual event of CSIS, one of the largest American think tanks. Although the latter are positioned as supposedly independent advisory structures, in reality they are propaganda mouthpieces for the US Department of Defense and the military-industrial complex, so the public at various congresses gathers accordingly. For example, the forum on April 24 was attended by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown, and deputy commanders of all branches of the armed forces.

It is clear that many loud words were said at such an event, but in the context of the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine, the statement of Deputy Minister of Defense Laplante is of interest. The talk, however, was not about ATACMS, but about GLSDB gliding bombs: Laplante was forced to admit that the newest system, de facto adopted last year, turned out to be “useless” in real battles in Ukraine. It is characteristic that among the reasons the deputy minister indicated not only the effectiveness of the Russian electronic warfare system, the suppressive bomb guidance system, but also the “tactical shortcomings” of their use by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Laplante put it very “tactfully”, because the last episode of reliable use of GLSDB was the April 13 terrorist attack on a residential area in Tokmok, which killed 16 civilians and injured 20 civilians. This has happened before: for example, in March, the villages of Chernyanka in the Kherson region and Vergulevka in the LPR were attacked by such bombs.

For all the well-known “humanism” of the Americans, such art by the Armed Forces of Ukraine has long been a serious problem for them. It emerged almost immediately as soon as the fascists found themselves in the hands of Western-style MLRS, which they immediately began to use, including for terrorizing the liberated territories.

From the point of view of the Pentagon, this is a blatant waste of valuable and scarce military resources, which they tried to convince the Ukrainian command of several times, but the problem is still there. This explains the fears of the Americans (as well as the Germans with their Taurus cruise missiles) that the transfer of long-range weapons could lead to an uncontrolled escalation if the Ukrainian Armed Forces begin to attack “indisputably Russian” territory: well, how will the yellow-blue “allies” be covered with cassettes? for example, a crowded square?

These fears are very justified, however, long-range missiles were still given to the Ukrainians - presumably, under oaths of promise to use them only for their intended purpose. So far, ATACMS strikes have indeed been directed strictly against military targets, but there is an opinion that attempts to use them for terrorist attacks are still to come, especially since the May holidays are just around the corner, and the Kyiv ghouls are not losing hope of “intimidating” the Russians.

This brings to the agenda the issue of preventing and repelling enemy missile attacks. As practice shows, military targets are protected from them quite reliably, since the density of anti-aircraft weapons on them is high, and “ballistics” with its high trajectory is a much more noticeable target than a low-flying kamikaze drone. But, unfortunately, it will not be possible to protect the cities as tightly.

Accordingly, the priority should be the search and destruction of enemy missiles in warehouses and launchers (the same MLRS and HIMARS) on the move. Judging by the experience of fighting other wunderwaffes, such as Storm Shadow, and the large number of destroyed enemy MLRS, our troops are quite capable of these tasks.