HISTORY

Air war

over Ukraine

Fifth month

Text: Miro Barič

Debris of buildings and wreckage of vehicles left after the Russian retreat from Snake Island.

The Ukrainian conflict has lasted five months already and the

number of casualties is rising. The period covered by this article

( from June 16 to July 16) only confirms the trend that the air

war has transformed to the missile one. The aircraft on both sides are used primarily as the missiles‘ launching platforms from

the safe distance and also the AA equipment is primarily used

against the rockets.

The Ukrainian armed forces continued to

destroy the ammunition and fuel dumps and

the command centers on the Russian side of

the front. Listing all of the hit target would

make for the whole new article so let’s

mention the most important ones. Ukraine

deploys all available means of attack – from

155mm caliber artillery to the drones. The

most important one however are the M142

HIMARS missile systems. It’s a highly mobile rocket launcher mounted on wheels.

In June Ukraine received 12 of them an their

impact was immediate. HIMARS is capable

of launching the rockets with the range as

long as 300 km but Ukraine received only

227 mm caliber M30/M31 rockets with the

70 km range. One M142 rocket launcher can

fire six of them at the same time. Their great

advantage is the accuracy – at the final flight

stage they are guided by GPS. According to

20

INFO Eduard

the Ukrainian claims 50 of them were fired

in a week and all of them hit the target. Not

single one missed! That’s a big difference

compared to the Russian carpet shelling

when the target area is deluged with the

large number of projectiles hoping at least

one hits something of the military importance.

HIMARS rocket launchers are able to overcome the AA defense which the Russians

largely relocated to the vicinity of the front

lines and in that manner limited the Ukrainian drones deployment (about that later).

Their tactics depend on the intelligence - if

the location of these AA systems is known

or not. In the first case the M142 rocket salvo aims at the AA battery first. AA is able

to shot down couple of rockets but not all

of them and in the end it is eliminated. After

its destruction HIMARS fires more missiles

at the primary target (an ammunition depot for example) and retreats at high speed

from the point of release. If the Russian AA

battery location is not know the Ukrainians

fire several rockets Tochka-U (maximum

three) first. The Russian defense reacts to

these, reveleas its location and the previous

case scenario repeats itself – HIMARS overpowers and destroys AA system and consequently the main target as well.

Out of many targets hit by these rockets

let’s just mention some of them. On Friday

June 24 the Russian armed forces 20th army

command post in Donbas was destroyed.

It was located in a school building and several officers were killed. On Monday July 11

another command post in Kherson was destroyed. Mostly officers from 20th motorized

division lost their lives. They used to have

daily meetings there at 18:00 sharp so there

was no problem for the Ukrainians to target

them with rockets. The Russians keep making the same mistakes which cost them the

Black Sea Fleet flaship. The cruiser Moscow

used to patrol on the same route on the regular basis and the Ukrainians just waited

for the right moment to attack it in April with

missiles and sink it. Out of many successful

attacks on the ammunition dumps let’s mention New Kakhowka near Kherson where on

July 11 the great explosion took place. According to the Russian propaganda the Ukrai-

August 2022