The US has sent nearly $30 billion dollars worth of aid to Ukraine, with a significant
chunk of that being military equipment. The equipment has directed support the nation's
stunning counterattack, with US equipment taking center stage in shaping the battle before it was
even launched. Russia is now finding out why the US doesn't have free healthcare,
but what equipment has the US sent and why does it seem like Russia is helpless against it?
Javelin
A week after Russia's invasion of Ukraine there was one name the Russian army,
and the rest of the world, had become very familiar with:
Javelin. This premier American anti-tank system first entered service in 1996 when
it replaced the M47 Dragon, and has proven absolutely lethal against Russian armor.
This is the weapon US infantry would have used themselves in a war with Russia,
and its effectiveness is nothing sort of terrifying. The weapon consists of two components,
the Launch Tube Assembly and the reusable Command Launch Unit. The CLU (clue) is the
brains of the system, and features 4 times magnification at both day and night with its
thermal sight. This allows US infantry to no longer be reliant on supporting heavy vehicles
for target identification, and the CLU can be used by itself even when no more missiles
are available to provide infantry with a portable and very capable thermal sight.
A 12 times magnification narrow field of view option allows gunners to effectively zoom in on
a target and properly identify it. When the gunner is ready to fire, he switches to a Seeker FOV mode
at 9 times magnification- this is effectively now being fed to the missile's guidance unit. With a
target selected, the gunner squeezes a second button and the missile is on its way to deliver
19 pounds (8.4 kg) of supersonic tandem-charge high explosive American freedom to its target.
In order to defeat modern reactive armor, the Javelin missile features two warheads
that detonate in rapid succession. The first is a smaller charge which is meant
to blow away explosive reactive armor panels being fired up at the missile in an attempt
to disrupt it. The second, shaped charge creates a narrow stream of molten metal
that penetrates through tank armor to deliver an extremely emotional event to the crew inside.
When targeting armored vehicles the Javelin switches to top-attack mode,
in which the missile flies straight up into the air and then comes down directly on the tank's
thinner top armor. You've probably seen pictures of Russian tanks with what were quickly termed
'cope cages'. These metal cages were being welded onto Russian tanks at the start of the invasion
to protect from anti-tank missiles, and in some cases could actually be effective. However against
modern anti-tank weapons, the cages were simply wasted labor, and as St. Javelin took a horrible
toll on Russian tanks, the Russian ministry of defense quickly sought out a new solution.
Nowadays you're probably not seeing many of these cages on Russian tanks,
because A) most Russian tanks are now Ukrainian tanks and B)
they didn't work. So why are Javelins so effective against Russian armor?
The truth is that modern anti-tank missiles of the quality being supplied to Ukraine are frankly
terrifyingly effective. Even western tanks would be hard put to defend themselves against them,
which is why the US is gradually adding the TROPHY protection system to its own tanks. This anti,
anti-tank missile system fires explosive charges at incoming missiles that are
more effective at disrupting the weapon than explosive reactive armor panels.
However, the real reason why Javelins are pounding Russian armor into scrap metal is
that Russia has very poor military doctrine and uses tanks improperly. Tanks are not
meant to operate on their own, but rather are meant to be directly supported by infantry.
Supporting infantry forces are responsible for keeping enemy hunter-killer teams at bay,
yet the Russian military has routinely shown that it does not operate armor and infantry together
well at all. Often, Russian armor is simply left to fend for itself with predictable results.
Kamikaze Drones
Odds are you've by now become familiar with the names Phoenix Ghost or Switchblade.
Russian infantry is not only aware of the names, but actively fears them.
The Phoenix Ghost drone is a loitering munition developed
under the US military's Big Safari weapons program. This acquisitions program is meant
to rapidly deliver new weapons to meet unexpected or evolving threats,
allowing the US military to quickly counter enemy capabilities using pre-existing
technology rather than going through a whole development and testing cycle of new tech.
To date the US has sent around 700 of these weapons to Ukraine, with a significant impact
on the battlefield. The loitering munitions can hover over an area for six hours and conduct
surveillance at both night and day thanks to its infrared sensors. Once a target has been detected,
the drone kamikazes down onto its head with an explosive finale. The drone is great for
taking out entrenched infantry or even lightly armored vehicles such as trucks.
The switchblade is the name most people are familiar with, and has sort of stolen the Phoenix
Ghost's thunder. This weapon was conceived by the US Air Force Special Operations Command as a way
of rapidly giving infantry a way to provide their own air support in Afghanistan. Traditional air
support may not always be available or take time to respond, plus it can cause serious
collateral damage. The Switchblade 300 however can be carried by individual soldiers and used
for both reconnaissance and attack, dropping down from above directly on an enemy's head.
When the weapon was first sent to Afghanistan it was on a test case
basis and in limited numbers. In 2012 US soldiers received 75 Switchblades
to try out in real world conditions. The results of that test remain classified,
but very shortly afterwards the US Army made a request that the weapon be immediately made
available in far greater numbers. Insurgents soon feared it, and US soldiers loved it.
Soon after its debut in Afghanistan, the Switchblade was tested from the open bay
of an Osprey transport, successfully tracking and impacting its target. This
paved the way for a new development between Switchblade manufacturer AeroVironment and
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions for a high speed, long range unmanned combat air vehicle
that could act as a mothership to a host of Switchblade drones. The UCV would be designed
to rapidly deploy an overwhelming number of switchblades in order to overcome enemy defenses.
The US has provided over 1,000 of both the anti-personnel and anti-armor version of the
Switchblade drone, which Ukraine has used to devastating effectiveness. In
response to the overwhelming success of the Switchblade,
Russia has announced development of its own loitering munition, the LAOP 500,
which it boasts is “twice as powerful” as the Switchblade. Given the fact that Russia
is bringing T-62s out of museums to fight in Ukraine, take that boast with a grain of salt.
So why can't Russia stop these American drones?
The easiest answer is that Russia simply wasn't prepared for modern warfare. Despite
its many pre-invasion boasts of being able to take on even the military forces of the US,
Russia has proven that it simply has no idea how to fight a modern war. It has failed to
conduct large scale combined arms operations and displayed time and again a complete disregard for
electronic and signals security. The devastation delivered by western-provided smart munitions
proves that it fundamentally was unprepared for the consequences of a smart battlefield.
The hard answer however is that nobody is really prepared for the loitering munition threat posed
by modern drone forces. There is simply no way of providing adequate protection to infantry
forces from loitering munitions, though the US has been working at the problem for a few
years now. Electronic warfare capabilities meant to disrupt drone signals or even shoot
them down with electromagnetic pulse weapons are now being seen as integral to the very
structure of the traditional American infantry platoon. So the next time big,
tough US infantrymen go to war, expect to see Geek Squad fighting right alongside
them- because without Electronic Warfare support, infantry is too vulnerable in future conflicts.
Stinger
At the start of the war, Russian air forces operated in large numbers across
the country. By now Russian rotary aviation is conspicuously absent from the front lines. The
reason is the US made FIM-92 Stinger and similar platforms provided by other western countries.
Russian aviation is having traumatic flashbacks to the Afghanistan war, when its helicopters were
mauled by US supplied stingers. Today the weapon system has been updated,
but remains relatively the same as when it was liberating communist aviators from
their earthly troubles in 1985. The Stinger is a shoulder-fired man-portable air defense weapon,
or MANPAD, that can engage targets up to 3,800 meters away, making it perfect for taking out
low flying aircraft such as helicopters. Its smart seeker head can differentiate between the exhaust
plume of an enemy aircraft and its engines, helping it home in for a successful kill.
To fire the weapon a battery coolant unit, or BCU, is inserted into the gripstock,
this delivers a supply of high-pressure argon gas which cryogenically cools the
seeker to operating temperature. This causes the seeker to be very sensitive to heat sources,
thus allowing it to lock in on enemy vehicles with great precision. Once fired,
a small ejection motor pops the missile clear of the operator and to safe range,
where the main rocket motor is activated sending the missile on its way. The warhead
is relatively small, only about 2.26 lbs (1.02 kg) of HTA-3 explosive, a mix of HMX,
TNT, and aluminum powder. However, the weapon is designed to directly impact a vehicle's engines,
which can be easily damaged or destroyed even with a small amount of explosives.
So why is the Stinger once more violently reuniting Russian aircraft with the ground?
Once more it comes down to doctrine- Russian forces are doing a poor job of integrating
air power with ground forces, leaving low flying Russian aircraft at great threat from manportable
weapons. However, the real culprit is Russia's basic lack of precision targeting- most of its
ground attack aircraft lack targeting pods, meaning that they have to come in low for any
attack to have a large degree of precision. This puts them directly under threat of the Stinger.
HIMARS
We couldn't possibly do an episode on US weapons
Russia is having a very bad day with and not mention the vaunted HIMARS system.
This thing is not very impressive on paper. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System
is at first glance, underpowered rocket artillery. Unlike its more capable cousin,
the M270 MLRS, the HIMARS system has half the number of munitions available to it-
six GMLRS rockets. It's basically just a truck with a single pod of missiles on its
back- so why in the world has this weapon single handedly changed the face of the Ukrainian war?
In the early 1990s, the US Army was retooling itself from fighting World War III against
the Soviet Union and its allies, to the expected bush wars of the future which
would feature low-intensity conflict. This meant the Army needed to slim down and start
providing weapons that were mobile and flexible, something traditional rocket artillery is not.
HIMARS was developed to meet the need of a light footprint force such as US paratroopers or a
small contingent of overseas troops fighting a conflict requiring precision rather than
overwhelming firepower. Mounted on a truck, the system has far greater mobility and speed than
any of its tracked cousins, and this was a huge draw for a future low intensity conflict. However,
it was exactly this capability that would make HIMARS so valuable to Ukrainian forces.
Faced with overwhelming numbers, Ukraine needed a platform that could rapidly deliver a fire
mission and then flee before enemy counterbattery fire or air support could respond. Traditional
tube artillery would be based around areas ukraine could enact some form of air defense,
which protected them but made them very inflexible weapons. HIMARS however could
quickly drive to a launch site, pop off its missiles, and drive away in minutes,
allowing the weapon system to be anywhere it needed to be with short notice.
But it's HIMARS' precision and range that makes it truly deadly. Each of the six GLMRS rockets
have a range of 57 miles (92 km), and are armed with precision warheads. This gives Ukraine the
ability to punch behind enemy lines at targets out of range of traditional tube artillery which
has a range of around a dozen or so miles. But it's the precision that really matters,
because each rocket can be programmed to hit a specific target, or to double up and defeat enemy
fortifications, striking exactly at their weakest point. The error radius of HIMARS is classified,
but believed to be no more than a few meters at most and is likely far,
far less than that given the history of US smart weapons.
With just a dozen of these weapons at the start of summer, Ukraine began to
batter Russian command posts and logistics nodes, leading to an immediate effect on the
battlefield as Russian forces were slowed to a crawl as they contended with the chaos
being wreaked behind their lines. Russia quickly moved to neutralize the weapon,
dedicating large amounts of air power and special operations forces to locating and destroying these
mobile rocket launchers. Within weeks of the deployment of HIMARS to Ukraine, Russia claimed
it had destroyed all of them, yet the US confirmed that not a single HIMARS had been lost in combat.
Was Russia lying? Normally the answer to that question would be yes, but in this case they
actually might have been telling the truth- at least from their own point of view. Because
the weapon is mounted on a generic heavy duty truck frame, Ukraine created multiple HIMARS
decoys using trucks painted green. Other decoys were mere mockups made of wood,
and it's confirmed that Russia has destroyed at least ten of these decoys with Kalibr cruise
missiles. Russia took the bait and expended significant effort and resources better used
elsewhere to find and destroy these fake HIMARS, leaving the real HIMARS safe from attack.
The US quickly agreed to supply Ukraine with more HIMARS, and the nation now has just under
two dozen of these platforms with plans for more to be delivered. As of September 8th,
Ukraine had struck 400 Russian targets with the weapons, making it the hardest
working weapon in the Ukraine war, and one that has forced Russia to radically rethink
how it deploys its forces. No longer safe behind the front lines, Russian command and
control nodes and logistics hubs have been forced out of HIMARS range, which means the
rate of the offensive has slowed to a crawl as units have to wait even longer for resupply.
Russia has threatened to retaliate against the United States for further deliveries
of the weapon system, but given that it can't handle 16 of these and the US Army is equipped
with over 400, it seems Russia's mouth is cashing checks its military can't cash.
Now go check out What's Wrong With Russia's Military, or click this other link instead!