Preface
Ukraine has received over $360 billion in total aid. Yet $1.7 billion worth of rockets would allow Ukraine to rapidly win the war by forcibly asserting pre-2014 borders.
What’s the explanation for this paradox? A conspiracy? Basically yes. I believe that if I were a Bezos or Musk type centi-billionaire and offered Trump $10 billion to give $1.7 billion worth of rockets to Ukraine, he would say no. The pro-Russian forces within his circle would prevent any deal like that even though it’s free money. There would also be neutral/passively pro-Ukraine forces who would fear monger about nuclear war.
GMLRS Rockets
They’re made by Lockheed Martin. The U.S. Army has over 75,000 of them. They cost $168,000 each (domestic price, not export). They are fired by either the M270 launcher or the HIMARS launcher. They are often incorrectly referred to as “HIMARS rockets.” An M270 launcher launches up to 12 GMLRS rockets at the same time while a HIMARS launcher launches 6 rockets. Each one is set to its own coordinates.
The rocket itself travels and descends at speeds of over 1,900 miles per hour (3,000+ km/hr). The range of the standard non-extended variant is 43 miles (70 km). Each rocket has a 200 pound HE warhead. For reference the Javelin missile which destroys T-90 and M1 Abrams tanks only packs an 18.6 pound HE warhead. Each one has the explosive power of over 10 Javelins. They’re very accurate with a Circular Error Probable of 5 meters or 10 meters depending on conditions. Reliability rate exceeds 98%.
Logistics and Transport
Ukraine already has enough launchers. They have 40 HIMARS launchers and 12 M270 launchers, which is enough to launch 384 GMLRS rockets simultaneously. Each rocket only spends 1-2 minutes in the air before slamming into its target. For HIMARS you’re looking at 3-5 minutes to reload the 6 rockets and for M270 you’re looking at 8-10 minutes to reload the 12 rockets. Let’s say 5 minutes and 10 minutes to be cautious. That’s over 3,700 rockets launched per hour. Let’s again be cautious and say a flat 3 hours of rocket launching. This barrage would only take one night.
Transporting the rockets is easy. Each C-5 Galaxy can carry over 300 GMLRS rockets. Let’s say 35 flights to be safe. The U.S. Air Force has 52 C-5 Galaxy planes. It would be an easy task to send 10,000 rockets to Ukraine within 48 hours. They can fly into Poland using both US and Polish airbases and then make their way throughout Ukraine on trucks and trains.
There are no mechanical, technical, or logistical problems with any of this.
Storytime
About 600 recently mobilized young men from Russia’s Saratov Oblast were housed by their officers in an old Soviet trade school in eastern Ukraine. On November 15th, 2022, 4 GMLRS rockets fired from a Ukrainian HIMARS demolished the building and detonated the ammunition stores in the basement. Ukrainian government claimed 400+ dead and 10 vehicles destroyed. Russian government claimed 89 dead. Western sources said only 139 named individuals can be confirmed dead. Igor Girkin, the retired Russian Army colonel and FSB officer who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 back in 2014, stated angrily in a 2023 Telegram post that “many hundreds remained beneath the rubble.”
The Barrage
A 3-hour barrage of 10,000 rockets would swiftly end the war.
Russia has 4,700 artillery pieces deployed at the frontline. In just the first 2 years of the war, Russia fired roughly 15 million artillery shells. Artillery is the backbone of the Russian military. Ukrainian losses at cities like Bakhmut were fundamentally about Russian artillery dominance. These conventional artillery pieces don’t shoot very far. Like 15-30 km range at max vs 70 km range of GMLRS rocket. All actively engaged Russian conventional artillery pieces are in range. And they’re surrounded by explosive shells which make them easy to blow up. Let’s say a 1:2 ratio, and let’s say 2,500 rockets to be safe. 2,500 rockets to destroy all Russian conventional artillery pieces deployed in Ukraine.
At this point the war would already be over. Without artillery there’s not much the Russians can do. Artillery fire accounts for about 70-80% of the combat deaths in this war which roughly matches the European theater of WW2. Ukraine can forward deploy their artillery after Russia’s artillery is evaporated and fire on Russian positions with total dominance.
Next, take 2,500 rockets and fire them at the Russian logistical network in occupied Ukraine. Take out power plants, power substations, fuel storage sites, supply depots, gas pipelines, supply trucks, fuel trucks, ammunition storage sites, broadcast towers, rail hubs, rail lines, and every other type of vital logistical site. Obliterate them all within 70 km of the frontline in all directions.
For the final 5,000, I would use them all for killing Russian troops. There are over 700,000 Russian troops in Ukraine. They all sleep somewhere. It’s not a secret where they are in the age of satellites. The goal would be to focus on combat troops, but any Russian military members count for the total. A fair ratio would be to expect each GMLRS rocket to deliver 50 Russian military KIA or severely maimed.
When thousands of Russian troops advance into a Ukrainian city, they aren’t sleeping in reinforced concrete bunkers. Their barracks are often schools and hotels. The vast majority of them are vulnerable. Even for bunkers and military bases, it will just be a matter of quantity of rockets. So let’s say 50 on average but a wide variety of personnel-focused strikes against all ranks that totals up to 250,000 KIA at the end of the 3-hour barrage. This barrage would be at nighttime so that as many as possible are in bed.
Killing 250,000 Russian troops in a few hours would be unthinkable in real life only due to cowardice among western leaders, the actual math works out. The rockets really are that powerful.
Russia’s most vital and irreplaceable military asset is ethnically Russian young men. Groups like Siberian minorities, middle-aged convicts, Chechens, Somalis, Indians, and North Koreans only function as minority auxiliaries. The army’s core must be ethnically Russian young men and there’s a finite supply. They can’t be manufactured or imported. Additionally, killing Russian troops is the best use of these remaining rockets because it helps to guarantee Europe’s medium-term security. We don’t want to see these 250,000 Russian troops march into the Baltics as battle-hardened veterans in 2030. We want to see them rotting underground.
After this 3-hour barrage we would see the total collapse of the Russian frontline in all directions. With Ukraine’s artillery dominance and Russia’s sudden frontline manpower depletion and lack of air superiority, there would be no contest. Not to mention the huge logistical disruptions. It would pretty much just be Ukrainians rolling in and accepting Russians as POWs as pre-2014 borders are swiftly restored.
”But what about air defense?”
Firstly, these rockets aren’t like those shitty Russian cruise missiles with jet engines and jet fuel that glide at 500 miles per hour and can be shot down by Stingers, WW2 AA guns, or even a machine gunner on the back of a jeep. These are rockets powered by rocket fuel traveling at 1,900 miles per hour. It takes a $1-2 million anti-air missile to reliably intercept one. A horrible ratio against a $170k rocket. An interception is still a massive win financially + it depletes Russia’s supply of advanced AA missiles.
Secondly, the quantity is just too large. Russia doesn’t have enough advanced AA missiles in active launchers deployed on the frontline to intercept any meaningful number of the 10,000 rockets launched. And even if they were to intercept 500 rockets, 95% would still get through.
Conclusion
In conclusion, my view is that the U.S. sending 10,000 GMLRS rockets ($1.7 billion) to Ukraine would rapidly bring about total Ukrainian victory.
To change my view you have to argue on a technical level that this wouldn’t work. Basically you have to argue that Russia would still be winning after this 10,000 GMLRS rocket barrage.
It's worth asking yourself why, if we could have ended this war in total victory for a rounding error on the defense budget, we haven't. The most likely reason is that it won't work.
In all likelihood, we've already given them more than 10000. It hasn't decided the conflict. If anyone in the know thought it would, they would long ago have crimped the hose until they had a sizable reserve, then gone all out. Not only have they not done this, nobody floats it as a serious plan.
What your analysis misses is...essentially every real world complication that makes actual warfare not play out like a board game. You think you're being "generous," but the margins you're building are infinitesimal. Munitions have defects. You lack adequate targeting intelligence. The enemy uses one of its munitions to blow up many of yours or to target your launch platforms. The enemy doesn't position his troops or assets in conveniently bombable kill zones - there's a reason the trade school thing happened once. The enemy displays a high tolerance for losses that absorbs the damage you inflict.
The Air Force has 52 C-5s...some of which are always down for maintenance, and all of which have existing commitments. "No logistics problems" except the massive ones for the US military. And like...you think the Russians aren't going to notice when a sky train full of missiles shows up?
Right...except as soon as you fire the first time Russian counterbattery radar noted your exact location and will be firing back or directing loitering munitions at you, meaning you have to move like...right now. HIMARS crews drill for this and it's standard practice in Ukraine now. You have to reposition before you fire again - and once you fire, the enemy knows the area you're in and starts sending drones that can at least knock you out of action if they find you. And it's very easy to find you when you're shooting fire into the air constantly.
And hey...where are those missiles stored while this barrage is kicking off? You have each launcher firing a small warehouse worth of missiles...so is the plan to just stack em up next to the HIMARS and start dumping? Do you think that might be detected? Do you think once you start firing, maybe some Russian loitering munitions might be tasked with blowing up these massive stockpiles of high explosives and rocket fuel?
You try this in the real world, the lion's share of those GMLRS rockets aren't making it off the ground. They're getting hit by Russian fire and knocked out or destroyed. It would be a massive Russian victory.
EDIT for pet peeve.
This is meaningless. A Javelin can sometimes kill a tank because it uses a shaped charge in a particular way that damages tanks. You can fire one at an open field target and do surprisingly little damage, or you can hit a tank the wrong way and it keeps on trucking.
A 200 lb HE warhead guarantees that you'll cause varying degrees of damage roughly in concentric circles around the impact point, and that radius is smaller than you might imagine. The reason the trade school hit worked was because A) it hit a building that collapsed, and B) the building had munitions that cooked off. That is exceptional. In all likelihood, not a single rocket in this barrage - assuming every rocket were fired without interruption and intelligence was comprehensive and perfect - would have a similar effect.
Yeah this entire post reads as somebody who plays too much EU5 or Civ and thinks the problem can be solved with "bigger number does biggerer damage"
The Russian Zoopark-1 counter-battery radar system only has a range of 50 km for detecting ground-to-air rocket launches. GMLRS outranges it at 70 km. Can you name some specific Russian counter-battery radar systems deployed in Ukraine that exceed 70 km in detection?
These launchers would be evenly spread out throughout the frontline, not bunched together. They would have supply truck escorts that are equally as mobile. I don’t see what Russia can do if at nighttime a HIMARS launcher fires at a Russian frontline position from 70 km away and drives 1 mile in a random direction after firing.
If you are firing from 70 km from the front line, you can't hit anything beyond the front line. Russia keeps most of its important stuff 30+ km behind the front line. This means the Himars will need to be <40 km from the front, within range of the radar and subsequent counter attacks.
Also, moving after every shot will slow down your rate of fire significantly. Good luck with your 3 hour timeline.
It gives you ~20 km of wiggle room. Most conventional artillery pieces fire from within 20 km of the frontline. So that’s enough for hitting the conventional artillery.
If they move about 1 km in a random direction after firing then that should be less than a minute of driving from the last launch site. With 26 launches that’s not much extra time added.
Even if they do fire within the counter-battery radar range, I’m not really seeing a problem with the shoot-and-scoot strategy.
The Russians don't keep their artillery stored close by the front. The only guns close to the front are actively firing, moving, or on counter battery duty. The rest are stored well away from the front.
Why are the Ukrainians allowed to use shoot-and-scoot in your scenario, but not the Russians? Why aren't they moving their artillery 1 km in a random direction?
Conventional towed artillery has to stay put and fire shells for minutes to get a good barrage out. Whereas a HIMARS launcher fires all of its rockets and can start moving immediately. It’s inherent to the mechanisms.
I'm sure Ukraine will be glad to hear that Russia lost all of its MLRSs and SPGs.
I specified conventional artillery in my post so that’s just off topic.
SPGs even though they’re self-propelled still must spend a long time stationary in order to fire a good barrage because they fire shells instead of rockets. They can’t shoot-and-scoot because shooting takes too long.
It's cool that you're googling these specs, but it helps to know how the systems work. Counterbattery radar doesn't need to detect the launch site, it needs to detect projectile trajectory to determine where the launch site is. Even if it doesn't detect exactly, it can establish a general area that can be surveyed/attacked by drones and/or subjected to probing fire with any munitions available.
Meaning: when counterbattery radar or air defense radar - which in some cases can be even better in detecting the site of missile launches - sees the first rocket, it already narrows down launcher location to a few square miles max. You then get a cheap drone with thermal optics in that area, look for heat blooms, and it's done. The drone itself can carry a payload capable of disabling an MLRS system, or another drone or loitering weapon can be directed on target.
You're in the comments thinking it's really important that traditional artillery would have difficulty engaging...but the future is now and the future has a lot of drones in it.
Right...because Russian assets worth targeting are evenly spread out, right?
Except they're not. They're unevenly concentrated, meaning your launchers have to be distributed unevenly. Not that that matters, but it is wrong.
To reload MLRS systems, you need a crane and a special vehicle. That vehicle is not highly mobile when heavily loaded. It can carry four of the 35 salvos you want to fire, which means the other 31 need to be waiting somewhere.
This is tactical thought of 80's or 90's vintage when only America had low light optics in general issue. We're at a point now where fairly cheap drones on both sides have thermal or hybrid optics. What that means is an MLRS system firing at night is extremely detectable and trackable.
And like...do you seriously think Russia isn't aware of Ukrainian TTPs? They know they're going to shoot and scoot. They're not going to get to the site and quit when they don't find it right there - they expect that. They 're going to hold or begin an area search until they see it fire again (see: white hot rocket against cold night sky on IR), at which point the game is up. Little Russian drone jockeys dream of a scenario like that.
If the night's going to screw with anyone, it's folks on the ground. Vehicle accidents, reload fuckups, some dumbass dropping a couple tons on a driver having a cigarette - that's what happens in low light even with optics.
Again: take a moment to consider why nobody who knows what they're talking about is advocating this strategy or has at any point in this war.
Why do you think this attack would even work in the first place? Why is it destined to succeed? This falls apart and on so many levels.
Easiest point where this plan falls apart. You think they could fire 10,000 GMLRS in 3 hours? With 384 rocket tubes? That is 26 reloads. And do this all without a counter battery attack? Russia would be throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the launchers.
And you appear to want them to reload in the field, bringing their ammo with them. Fire then immediately reloads no displacement. I can't imagine how else they'd be able to pull off 26 reloads in 3 hours. Sounds like a fantastic idea! Shoot and Scoot exist for a reason!
Except that's is not the case and you would know that had you actually looked it up instead of assuming. The average age of the Russian army is 50. These aren't young men dying. The Average age for Ukraine's army is 40.
According to what data? Wishful thinking?
This entire scenario hinges on Russia being completely passive and not reacting to Ukraine's actions at all
Each unit can have a supply truck escort that’s equally as mobile. They can shoot and scoot a small distance at nighttime. How is Russia going to get accurate coordinate data on where the vehicles 70 km away went at nighttime after they drove 1 mile in a random direction after firing? These launchers would be spread evenly in all directions throughout the entire frontline and would not be grouped together.
Also Russia’s Zoopark-1 counter-battery radar only detects ground-to-air rocket launches 50 km away while these GMLRS rockets will be fired from 70 km away. So if you’re gonna bring up counter-battery radar you need to cite which specific Russian systems can detect 70+ km away and how many of these systems are deployed in Ukraine.
80% of Russian military are non-combatants, and how many of those are stationed within Russia? What’s the average age of a frontline infantryman stationed in Ukraine? Much younger than 50 I’m betting.
Problem is you've created such a target rich environment that any counter attack is going to score a lot of kills regardless of how they do it
It’s not a target rich environment because they would be spread very far apart. 52 launchers spread throughout Europe’s 2nd largest country. The total frontline length is 2,500 km. These launchers will be far from one another.
Linked to suitable firing locations, with their supplies and escorts, moving regularly, they're not going to be all that subtle
And they’re tracking this movement at 70 km away at nighttime how?
Well they are regularly launching rockets to highlight their position....
They can move 1 km or 1 mile after firing to find their next position. It will take about 1 minute.
Satellites?
After firing they’ll be driving with no lights at nighttime. Satellites can’t track that in real time. You can see the next launch right after it happens but you’re not going to catch the launcher as it’s reloading.
How fast can they drive? Can they drive off road. A satellite will spot them firing, and a SAR satellite can see at night and can see through tree cover to some extent.
The first barrage may hit its target, but the entire Russian Air Force would scramble and probably take out a good number of HIMARS that were anywhere near the front line.
And once they’ve fired, wouldn’t the Russian forces just pull back? Or spread thin? If the HIMAS start pushing forward and leave the air defence net of Ukraine, they might as well blow themselves up and save some CO2 emissions from the Su-24s
HIMARS is 50 mph and drives very well off-road.
Russia has very few SAR satellites and there’s no guarantee that any of them will be orbiting this specific part of the planet at the time. There will be massive blind spots, Russia won’t have anything near real-time tracking using SAR satellites.
Russia’s Declining Satellite Reconnaissance Capabilities and Its Implications for Security and International Stability (2024)
As for why Russian forces won’t pull back, the logistics side of the strikes will take out electricity, broadcast towers, and satellite dishes within range. To cut them off from higher-ranked officers telling them to move and to keep them in the dark about the extent of the strikes. Once the civilian cell towers lose power and there’s no cell service or mobile internet, that’s when the information shortage will really hit.
Yes, I’m sure its not a 35 minute redeployment process or anything
Correct. A trained HIMARS crew reloads in 3-5 minutes.
Thats the ‘shooting’. Now add the ‘scooting’.
Move 1 mile in a random direction. With the HIMARS launcher driving at over 50 mph that should take about a minute.
If the HIMARS is 70KM away that means they are exclusively hitting the front lines and they cannot reach any of the important back line locations.
Correct,the average age is 40.
It means 20 km of space against a 50 km system. Most conventional artillery pieces fire from within that range. How many of Russia’s frontline infantrymen sleep within 20 km of the frontline? I’m guessing a lot of them.
That’s about Ukraine. I was challenging your claim that the average age in the Russian Army is 50 years old. Even if that’s true, that’s not the same as the average Russian frontline infantryman deployed in Ukraine being 50 years old.
What are your 10 000 GMLRS rockets gonna say to one single nuke in the heart of Kyiv?
What if Putin gets pushed into a corner by the USA, and Putins snappy fingers happen across the launch codes for some of his own stuff?
Your entire post is 98% technical, 2% Orange man bad, and 0% geopolitical.
Edit: at the end you state that we need to be discussing why russia would be winning despite 10 000 rockets, but in the beginning you dismiss the very real and horrifying reality that Putin has nukes by waving your hands at would-be naysayers by claiming anybody bringing that very real fact up is a "fearmongerer who is neutral or passively pro-ukraine"? Sorry mate this isn't a fucking videogame, this is reality. Putin has nukes. That's the geopolitical reality no matter who or what you align with.
And for the record fuck Putin, fuck the russian orcs and Slava Ukraini. I hope Putin rots in hell when his time comes, and that the best possible outcome imaginable is reached for the brave Ukrainians defending their soil.
Unrelated to the CMV but can I just say I think people overstate nukes
1 unless they are cobalt or similar salted bombs the radiation is effectively gone after 3-6 months
2 while they have a high casualty rate I don't really see the big deal about losing 200,000 people in a day vs in 2 or 3 months (think ww2 firebombing) from a strategic view unless you just wanna argue effects on Moral
3 the response from China, India and Pakistan (Russia's biggest trade partners ATM) would be to treat Russia as a paria because all three of them have a VERY strong geopolitical reasons for enforcing the nuclear taboo
3.5 in a larger response then a limited strike on Ukraine it basicly insures a nuclear bunker buster 20 minutes later at the Kremlin and where ever Putin happens to be and I think he might trust his propagandists more then his post nuke launch life expectancy
I wanna say I don't think OPs plan would work (it would help though) this is just addressing the whole "but Russia has nukes"
Nukes basicly work if your leader is either fanatical enough in their belief or plain crazy enough if they reasonably have more to live for then nukes aren't a huge concern
The fear of nukes isn't from one single one going off, it never really has been. The fear of nukes is the mutually assured destruction doctrine that keeps anybody from using them in the first place.
And as I said somewhere else in this post; do you really think Putin would be sound of mind and act in a reasonable manner after witnessing the biggest defeat in modern russian military history?
Given MAD would also kill everyone around him (generals, oligarchs, guards ect) how likely are any of them to let him do it vs killing him as fast as possible if they get any impression he will actually nuke everyone?
Ukrainians, who are the only people who would actually be getting nuked, are consistently the most enthusiastic about Ukraine receiving the proper arms and defeating Russia. We should follow their lead.
This aint Civ V where Ghandi nukes you and only you because you refuse a trade deal.
So theyre going to nuke multiple European countries if Ukraine gets more GMLRS rockets? No they’re not. All they’re gonna do is leave the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.
You are under the assumption that every single human involved in this would be rational.
How rational will Putin be after facing the most massive military defeat in modern russian history, do you think?
How rational of a response would the western world have to Putin launching a nuke? How rational would Putin be to that response?
I think if Ukraine gets nuked it means pretty much the whole of Europe gets nuked?! It's not like the stuff respects national borders
Nuclear weapons don't actually generate nearly the amount of fallout you seem to think they do lol
Russia kinda already nuked Ukraine a few years back a la chernobyl
Kyiv is much closer to Belarus and Russia than to Poland or anywhere else.
I don't know for sure if your military analysis is 100% right or laughably wrong. But for the sake of argument, let's speculate that there's some stockpile of weapon that we can give Ukraine to tip the scales of this war. Why not give it to them?
Have you given any thought to what happens when Putin is faced with deciding that he has to declare defeat? In this case he's a dead man walking in Russia. He has no realistic exit strategy in this war other than being able to declare some kind of victory. A cornered, wounded, desperate animal is always the most dangerous. So long as he commands a nuclear arsenal of thousands of warheads, anything that actually causes Russia to risk losing the war gives him a real chance of picking up the phone and telling his generals, "you need to get nukes flying right now." Any purely military victory that doesn't give Russia some way to declare victory causes a gargantuan risk for humanity. What I'm saying here is basic art of war strategy: always give your enemy a bridge to retreat across.
He wouldn’t be a dead man walking. He can just say that Russia’s goals have been achieved and then withdraw. Ordinary Russians will just be happy the war is over. Look at Russia in Afghanistan or America in Vietnam/Afghanistan. Didn’t gain anything from those wars but people were just happy they were over.
Nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty and say for sure what any other human will do. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong.
But Putin is famously highly distrusting and arguably paranoid. (Using long tables far from his staff for meetings, having food tasters, motorcade decoys, much more).
You'd arguably be banking the fate of the world on this personality type deciding that his life wasn't at risk if he had to end the war in a less than favorable circumstance. Personally, I don't like those odds.
How are you expecting 52 vehicle crews serve 10 000 targets during a single night?
How are younexpecting 52 vwhicöe crews to process that amount lf information in that time?
Who has a 10 000 target excel spreadsheet ready to drop at moments notice for this mega broadside?
How you acquire a new target every 2 minutes for whole night? You evee tried to find a camouflaged human being trying to hide from you?
This post is giving off strong r/nomcredibledefence vibes xD
Kinda like saying A-10 can wipe out half of talkban on a cas sortie if it hits 10 people with every round in its invemtory
Coordinates would be sorted out beforehand. As in, this hotel has been used as a Russian HQ for the past 5 months or there’s a 6-piece artillery battery set up right here.
How long you think it takes to obtain 10k targets?
How many of them move during that time?
These missiles have been around for awhile. The launchers have been there. If this would have solved the problem and you think that it is because of Trump that this isn't happening, why didn't Biden do this?
Fear of nuclear war.
So really the cause for Trump or Biden not do to this is nuclear retaliation from Russia. Say that is true, is the war actually over or does Russia actually launch nuclear weapons and where at? Do they destroy all of Ukraine? Do they go after the US and Europe? How does everyone else respond?
I guess you could say that it wouldn't be over with 10k missiles given your own opinion of nuclear war.
Targeting. How on Earth are the Ukrainians targeting every Russian artillery piece at once? You seem to think satellites are the answer. They are not.
When a satellite passes over an area, it photographs everything. It then needs to transmit the images. The files are large, so this takes time. Analysts then need to pour over the images and look for targets. This takes time. Then they need to get the coordinates to the soldiers. This takes time. By the time this is all done, many of the targets will have moved. They will definitely start moving when the barrage starts. How many Russians do you think will just stand there for the entirety of your 3 hour barrage?
While serious quantities of aid would indeed allow a Ukrainian victory something shared by many analyisis, but we are talking at a minimum of tens of billions in military aid more used for a vast variety of equipment. The closest thing to a silver bullet in this war are drones (an entire category of munitions and platforms) and even that isnt a silver bullet
This is extra. Not replacing all the current aid.
Still insufficient and too concentrated on a single munition, albeit an important one.
If you want tomorrow morning I can look again at the comment better with fresh eyes, until then Good night
During Vietnam, the US dropped more than 8 million tons of bombs, 400,000 tons of napalm, and an additional 20 million artillery shells, we had a few dozen 8" batteries whose shells carry 200# of HE. We dropped nearly a million tons of bombs during Rolling Thunder alone.
We dropped many hundreds of percent more tonnage of explosives than were dropped in all of WWII. And yet, we didn't easily end the war, we ended up getting routed.
Don't get me wrong, better and more weapons would certainly pressure Russia to end the war. But no weapon system is a magic bullet. Your plan isn't feasible for a number of reasons, you have grossly underestimated the logistical problems and tactical issues that must be considered. You have grossly overestimated how much damage those rockets will do to hardened targets.
I spent a good portion of my career with mobile artillery, I am aware of these systems' operational capabilities, what damage they cause in realistic scenarios, what tactical considerations are required for successful operation and survival, etc. You're assumptions aren't valid.
But that doesn't matter. History shows you to be mistaken. Aside from the handwaving (such as how to exactly achieve the fire rate you propose when it would exceed the capability of the systems) the idea that a 2 million tons of explosives would end the war is disproven by historical data from WWII, Korea, Vietnam . . . If Russia wants to keep fighting, they'd keep fighting.
I think this plan would work... but this doesn't take into account geopolitics on a global level. It's quite obvious that nobody cares for Ukraine to actually win the war, as you stated in your post. The only real end to this war will come diplomatically to allow for Putin and Trump to get their political wins. Unfortunately, it's obvious the world does not care about Ukraine.
Europe should care and could also easily arm Ukraine to curb stomp Russia.
[deleted]
Basically Russia's going to keep pushing westward and trying to "reclaim" it's former Soviet bloc states. We're already seeing a lot of provocative actions in Estonia near their border crossings, and earlier they tried to stage a coup in Moldova.
They also have a nasty habit of saying their Russian population abroad is being harassed or persecuted by the local government (it's one of the primary excuses used for their war in Ukraine - nevermind that they're doing the exact same thing with the Ukrainians and their society) and using that as a casus belli to use military force or sabotage governments.
The argument mostly comes down to land grabs tend to go on until stopped hard by some other force therefore if the EU wants to avoid Russian little green men in their yard killing their army in Ukraine (rather then Poland, the Baltic's or Hungary) is the best bet for a safer Europe
Winning the war in Ukraine like this would be awesome but it's not really possible.
10000 is a lot. You will have duds, you will have misfires and those missiles are not light. The battlefield is filled with drones and with that amount of ammo laying around you'll get some blown up.
The other fact is that you can shell a guy in a hole until exhaustion and the guy can survive.
3 hours of sustained fire within reach of the Russians, 70km out.
It would be awesome, and suicidal.
Now, let's add some planes to the mix and now we're talking.
I already addressed duds and misfires by mentioning the 98% reliability rate.
This is probably the dumbest armchair general tactics i ever read on reddit.
You are trying to solve a strategic problem with tactical strikes. Even if that many GMLRSs and their launchers could be acquired and deployed, you are never going to be able to win the war quickly in that manner. The effect you want is only possible with a strategic bombing campaign, destroying Russian production, logistics economic and command infrastructure.
No we actually can win the war quickly in this manner. It can be forced through a large enough quantity and this is enough.
No, you can't.
Most of the equipment in the front is in a way written off. Orcs? Useful slaves but he has them in abundance.
70km sounds like a lot, but you need to strike deep into Russia.
A Seal with a Barret would be even cheaper and environmentally friendly.
You don’t need to strike deep into Russia. Take out all their artillery and kill 250,000 of them and do a bunch of logistical damage within 70 km. It’s over.
The problem is, you won't get those numbers. Even with such a huge saturation attack, the orcs won't lay down in the floor for you to bomb them. Himars is an awesome weapon but, it's not a silver bullet.
Which Russian counter-battery radar system deployed in Ukraine can detect ground-to-air rocket launches from 70 km away? Zoopark-1 can only do 50 km and Yastreb-AV only does 40 km.
Your argument has 2 problems, one, it requires to mobilize a lot of assets in a few hours. That doesn't sounds plausible.
You're treating the HIMARS as a silver bullet, firing 100 rockets in a night raid would be extreme. Imagine 100 times that.
Perhaps their A-50 Mainstays.
And what experience do you have that makes you believe this would all work?
You're partially right, but not entirely.
At the beginning of the second offensive, Ukraine successfully repelled the attacks and maintained a frozen front line, at times managing to push the enemy back on short lines.
The truth is, that at that point, there was no need to send them anything more. The weapons they possessed at the time, and the initial advantage they had gained by developing autonomous drone technology as firsts, were sufficient to push Russians back.
The problem was that the generous aid in the form of modern weaponry from the US had a catch. The Ukrainians could not use these weapons for offensive attacks deep into Russian territory, which would allowed them to gradually force the Russians to withdraw from their positions.
Both US administrations - Biden and Trump - imposed restrictions on the Ukrainians, allowing them to use missiles and high tek only for defensive purposes. Both presidents feared that, forced to retreat, the Russians would opt for escalation in the form of tactical nuclear weapon strike.
I live in Poland and have heard this repeatedly from refugees arriving in my country: "The US is blocking our ability to defend ourselves by attacking behind enemy lines" "we won't win this way", "they betrayed us, better don't trust USA yourself". At first I didn't believe it, but their accounts were consistent and, after some time, were confirmed by Polish independent correspondents who went to the front line to report on the course of the war.
Yes, indeed, USA policy is truly cynical and cruel. From start they robbed Ukraine from chance to win by denying them the right to strike strategic targets in enemy territory, and at the very end, they wish to be compensated for that, forcing ruined state to pay by seizing 50% of the country's raw materials and natural resources.
Furthermore, the recent anti-Zalensky propaganda coming from the US is simply a despicable attempt to replace him with a puppet administrator subservient to the US. Despite his mistakes, his compatriots still consider him a statesman. and his policies have great support.
Poland has had a difficult history, as well. I can't say that Poland's leaders in WW2 demonstrated Zalesky's level of courage. Already in the first days of the war, our politicians cowardly fled the country to form a theatrical "government in exile" instead of managing and organizing the defense on the ground. I believe that if even a single politician bqck then stood like Zalesky is, Hitler's offensive would not have gone so smoothly, because at the beginning of the war, German forces did not have a such devastating advantage over the Polish military.
Yet in US not-knowing-geography-people call him a traitor and an undemocratic dictator. Apparently, Americans have their own propaganda pulp, just like the Russians.
US is unique state with superior values for sure.
is this written by AI? are here even 10,000 gmlrs in existence?
[removed]
Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 3:
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
the west could easily do more to end this war quickly, it would save so much money and so many lives that it's insane that we continue to drip feed them supplies and equipment.
The war is over. Ukraine lost. A bunch of wasted money, and more importantly human lives. War was totally pointless on all sides and avoidable. The military industrial complex loved it, of course. The Ukrainian oligarchs are the real winners I guess.
Op, come join us: r/NonCredibleDefense
The USA doesn’t want the Ukraine war to end. As long as the war is continuing, Russia is getting weaker by the day and sending resources towards the war.
If the war ends, Ukraine doesn’t take over Russia — they just stop getting attacked. This will allow Russia to focus on rebuilding their economy which the USA wants to delay as long as possible.
Also, there is still the perceived threat from our military of a nuclear response if the US gets too involved in the war.
The Ukraine war is a proxy war that the USA wanted from the start. Russia said “we will invade Ukraine if we get NATO military bases at our border. The USA called their bluff and are using it to the wests advantage.
Each HIMARS in this situation needs to carry 26 missiles. Is that really practical?
Would the Russians not figure out what’s going on? And once the HIMARS fires, its location is exposed.
Are the HIMARS placed on the front line? Cos if so, they could be picked off easily.. it’s probably not hard to see the HIMARS with a supply chain carrying 26 missiles behind it via satellite.
Are they far back? Cos if so, their range is dramatically reduced.
And what about Russian air power. For this to work, these HIMARS would be very exposed to Su-24 and Su-34s.
Mind you, each HIMARS lost is multiple missiles lost. It’s not really distributed lethality.
>10,000 GMLRS rockets ($1.7 billion) to Ukraine and the war is over.
>In conclusion, my view is that the U.S. sending 10,000 GMLRS rockets ($1.7 billion) to Ukraine would rapidly bring about total Ukrainian victory.
>Basically you have to argue that Russia would still be winning after this 10,000 GMLRS rocket barrage.
These are all different. Which one(s) is your actual view?
There isn't 10,000 targets Ukraine could hit. Russia would adapt. There isn't a world where Russian forces collapse to pre-2014 borders.
10,000 GMLRS would alleviate pressure on Ukraine, absolutely. It wouldn't necessarily translate to a forward momentum on the front line. Russia would still have the ability to inflict intolerable losses on a bullish Ukrainian offensive.
There are two big problems here, even if everything else worked.
One, the rocket is not an anti-armor or penetration rocket. Tanks will be perfectly fine, as will be many fortified positions, especially bunkers.
Two, you will run out of known targets very fast, and you will still face a large number of unknown targets while trying to advance.
Ukraine war over. World War 3 just beginning…