Getting MLRS guided rockets in either M142 HIMARS wheeled or M270 tracked launchers represents a phase shift increase in artillery capability for Ukraine.👇
American Guided MLRS artillery rockets are a combat proven precision guided weapon (thousands fired) with a 200lb (90.7kg) insensitive explosive warhead equipped with multi option fuzing that is set electronically.
They use GPS & inertial guidance for 3 meter accuracy. 2/
Both the US move away from cluster munitions & the 30 year rocket age have seen early MLRS unguided rockets disposed of.
And while pilot quantities of GMLRS were built with cluster munitions in the early 2000's. Most (>99%) GMLRS built have unitary warheads. 3/
To restore lost lethality of cluster munitions against radars, towed artillery & missile launchers in peer combat, a modified version of GMLRS has been given a much improved fragmentation warhead.
This "Alternate Warhead" will be available for GMLRS ammo shipments to Ukraine. 4/
Given the bad memories of losing soldiers to unexploded M26 rocket cluster munitions in 1991's Desert Storm operations. The US Army spend a lot of money to make the GMLRS fuze as reliable as possible, in addition to being multi-option.
It functioned 74/75 times in testing. 5/
It is accurate to say that the arrival of GMLRS missiles, and their launchers in numbers similar to the M777, in Ukraine's hands will overwhelm both Russian artillery and the railway logistics it in the Donbas.
The USA has over 40,000 GMLRS missiles available in stock.
6/
This is the Lockheed-Martin video celebrating the 50,000th GMLRS produced.
The recent lot 14 production award was for 9,500 GMLRS unitary and alternative-warhead (AW) rockets and over 300 low-cost reduced-range training rockets.
7/End
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In the late 1960's to 1973 Arab-Israeli War US EW contractors could meet a two week cycle time with "quick reaction capability program" to bypass normal procurement procedures and speed urgently needed electronic systems to the battlefield.
2/3
Given the the triple handicaps of Silicon Valley practice of outsourcing of engineering talent, counting foreigners as 'diversity hires,' and ITAR restrictions for defense work.
The USA lacks the electronic engineering talent it did in the Apollo/Vietnam era to do 'QRCP.'
3/3
The mass production of China's "Corvus Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.
Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that is building the means CCP will use to invade Taiwan! 1/
The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.
China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip. 2/
Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?
Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for for far fewer US lives.
The mass production of China's "Corvu Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.
Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that are building the means CCP will use to invade them.
Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?
Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for far fewer US lives. 2/
The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.
China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip.
It turns out that, in addition to "TAF-10" USMC SCR-270 radars, the USMC 90mm Heavy AA Battalion SCR-584 radars saw quite a few of the Japanese Balloon Radar Decoys at Okinawa in/near Hagushi Beach, Yonton & Kadena air fields.
The Marine AA troops didn't know what they were, but their descriptions match known aerodynamic templates for them.
The balloon decoy tended to fall through different levels of wind direction & updrafts. So the decoy often went in different directions than the ground wind. 2/
The 1st Marine Provisional Anti-Aircraft Group Hqtrs saw the radar decoy balloons most often when the Japanese engaged in a night time tactic they referred to as "Ice-Tong attacks."
Pairs of Japanese planes established themselves in orbits just outside effective 90mm gun
The one of the previous drawing is of a captured decoy from Roi island in March 1944.
Roi was subject to several IJN air raids using this decoy, as USS New Mexico reported its effects 14 Feb 1944, later reported in a Section 22 Current Statement dated 3 April 1944. 2/
Somehow the report in General Douglas MacArthur's Section 22 radar hunters current statement was scrubbed from all the Feb-March 1944 period after action reports and war diaries of USS New Mexico I've checked.
There is an tragi-comic story behind this Russian foreign ministry claim.
The Russian use the term "direct participation" because of a lie by Chancellor Scholz a year ago when he claimed the computer system used to program the Taurus missiles... 1/