Ukraine Fires ATACMS Missile at Russian Forces for the First Time | WSJ

Wilshire@sopuli.xyz to Ukraine@sopuli.xyz – 101 points – WSJ News Exclusive | Ukraine Fires ATACMS Missile at Russian Forces for the First Time
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Ukraine launched ATACMS missiles at Russian forces on Tuesday, marking the first time that the U.S-provided weapons have been used in the conflict in Ukraine.

A small number of the missiles have been secretly sent to Ukraine in recent days, where they will augment Kyiv’s capability to carry out long-range strikes at Russian forces during an important stage of its counteroffensive, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ukraine has long sought ATACMS, a surface-to-surface missile that can strike well behind Russian lines and that can be fired by the Himars, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers, the U.S. has provided the country.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military’s communication department said on the Telegram messaging app that it “made well-aimed strikes on enemy airfields and helicopters near the temporarily occupied Luhansk and Berdyansk.”

The ATACMS models that were provided have a range of about 100 miles.

The U.S. decision to send the ATACMS, which stands for the Army Tactical Missile System, has been long in the making. Ukraine repeatedly said the missiles were essential to its war plan, giving it the range it needed to strike targets behind the front lines in Russian-held Ukrainian territory.

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I always read ATACMS as attack missiles. So it feels weird whenever I read "ATACMS missiles" because it's then "Attack missiles missiles". Actually, it officially stands for MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). So it's in fact ATAC Missile System missiles.

Hmm, I like to read it as attac’ems, like a little lethal snack attack.

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Given that those cost about a million each, I hope they hit some juicy targets. Ideally a meeting of top brass, or at least some of the Russian military’s least dispensable aircraft.

https://sopuli.xyz/post/4775539

In this video you can see several helicopters and an ammo warehouse burning

Why is Streamable so terrible on my phone? No fullscreen or am I just old? I get like one square inch of video.

That's smaller than it should be, but if you click on the video while it's playing, a fullscreen button should appear.

They probably spent about two million to destroy them 200 million worth of helicopters and other stuff. Exceptional ROI even before you consider that the Kremlin will struggle to replace these vehicles and personnel.

Honestly, at a million a pop, if they hit basically anything they’re a value add. Maybe I’m over-inflating the value of Russian equipment, but surely most combat vehicles are going to start around there and go up quickly.

from the wiki:

It carries the 500-pound (230 kg) WDU-18/B penetrating high explosive blast fragmentation warhead of the US Navy's Harpoon anti-ship missile

in addition to the great range on the missile, that warhead also has a nice broad scope of usefulness.. interesting that the first application was against an airfield..

This is the version they used

MGM-140A ATACMS Block I

Original model with 165 km range, inertial navigation and 950 M74 anti-personnel and anti-materiel (APAM) grenades.

that makes more sense, thank you.. i wonder if they have any of the M48s available.. i guess the Russian Navy will be the first to know..

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