Why isn't Russia able to destroy the Ukrainian rocket launchers?
There is a secret feature that prevents Russian cannon from hitting it.
Western defense experts don't think so. Russian incompetence is the most probable reason.
In September, Avia wrote about the reasons why the Russian army has not been able to destroy the Ukrainian M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which have wreaked havoc on Russian targets.
Russia's huge arsenal of howitzers and multiple-launch rocket systems should be able to destroy HIMARS by using counter-battery radar to track the trajectory of the rockets they fire.
Ah, but those clever Americans have a way of fooling counter-battery radars with their rockets.
"This can be seen from the missile's flight path, which, in fact, shifts the coordinates set by counter battery means of combat, making it impossible to deliver accurate strikes," the post says.
"Experts draw attention to video footage published by the Ukrainian military, which shows that after launch, the rocket changes its flight path almost immediately," the post said.
This distinguishes American systems from other systems that use multiple launch rocket systems. The exact location of the coordinates of the launchers can't be established with a high degree of certainty.
In the same way that NASA rockets pivot their engines to change course during their ascent to the moon, do HIMARS rockets do the same thing?
The US Army was deferred comment to by the manufacturer of the HIMARS. The US Army said that the missile reached the target.
Even under the best of circumstances, counter-battery fire is difficult. The Russian counter-battery capabilities are not good.
Samuel Cranny-Evans, a land-warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told Insider that the article was grasping at straws.
Russia's Zoo park-1 counter-battery radar can detect rockets at a range of 9 to 13 miles, but the HIMARS rockets have a range of 50 miles.
Cranny-Evans said that the radar needs to pick up the projectile as it is launched to try and predict its trajectory and plot its likely approach. It can't give a targeting solution if it doesn't pick the rocket up from its launch point.
Counter-battery radars are used to detect incoming shells and rockets at a specific height.
Cranny-Evans said the radar wouldn't detect a launch unless it was looking in the right place. Even if the Russians could get within range of the rockets, they wouldn't be able to provide persistent monitoring because they wouldn't have enough counter-battery radars.
The location of the firing battery is given by the counter-battery radar. It's not accurate enough for a precise shot and may be good enough to lay down a general barrage.
This is especially true for armored howitzers that use "shoot and scoot" tactics to fire a volley and move quickly.
Russia's command structure has been too slow to launch counter-battery fire, which is required by that tactic.
Cranny-Evans said that the Russians seem to have a very slow targeting process that is often unable to take account of moving targets. They won't be able to engage if they don't fire on the suspected HIMARS location or if the fire mission is allocated a low priority.
Russian defense blogs have links to the Russian government and military and can be quite illuminating.
There is a depth of Russian frustration with the new weapons supplied by the West. When Russian forces invaded in February, they used more modern weaponry. The shoe is not on the floor.
Someone in Moscow is looking for scapegoats, according to the article. They find it more convenient to blame defeat on enemy secret weapons. People don't like sour grapes.
His work has been published in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He has a masters degree in political science. You can follow him on social networking sites.
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