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