Почему русские не смогли уничтожить хотя бы один хаймарс. Гугл переводчик поможет.
If Ukrainian-operated HIMARS are so effective, why didn't Russia destroy HIMARS with its warplanes?
To put it simply, the targeting of artillery is known as counter-battery. Counter-battery consists of using intelligence, technology, tactics; the combination of the three, to deter and destroy enemy artillery. This ranges from drones and aircraft that actively spot artillery and relay the positions to friendly artillery or air support to using artillery radar to locate the origin of incoming rounds to optimally destroy whatever and whoever is firing it, or to simply get close enough that they stop firing and withdraw.
Counter-battery is significantly harder with HIMARS though. Firstly, the range on the ammunition Ukraine received means that this thing can comfortably operate behind friendly lines under the protection of air defense and other assets. HIMARS is also wheeled. While you sacrifice the ability to traverse rougher terrain, motorized(wheels) artillery allows you to do what is called a Shoot and Scoot. It is self-explanatory, shoot, and use the wheels to haul ass quickly. You either reposition or withdraw entirely. Now, between the fact that they’re operating behind their own lines, the fact that they’re able to get away from the scene quickly, and that it’d be a long while until any artillery radar, if there’s even one in sufficient range, can pick up the projectiles, all means that HIMARS, when used properly, is untouchable. The Russians have tried scrambling jets, drones, and even examining the projectiles pulled from scenes following a HIMARS attack to try and figure out where they may be operating. All of this is to no avail, the HIMARS is able to flee the scene without a trace before any Russian ever gets remotely near it. That is if they’re even able to scramble these assets seeing as how, once again, they operate behind their own lines with protection in the air.
Of course, Shoot and Scoot and these other factors only really make you somewhat immune to responses, not initiatives. The Russians can still use intelligence to track down HIMARS launchers when they’re not being used. That is another area where Ukraine excels. They have been hush-hush on the use of HIMARS. Most of their uses aren’t documented, and the ones that are usually get released days/weeks after they’re used, making any geo-location attempts useless. They’re likely concealing them in transport, as with their ammunition carriers. They’re clearly transporting these things around the country in a smart, calculated manner. Good counter-intelligence, opsec and persec makes it vastly harder for Russian intelligence to find out anything useful about Ukraine’s HIMARS fleet. They’re struggling to locate them, to respond to them, to even shoot their projectiles down.
To put it shortly, if Russia could even get close to a HIMARS with one of their warplanes, there is absolutely no reason they wouldn’t have, they’ve been shredding their command posts, ammunition dumps and logistics infrastructure to shreds with scarily accurate results. Perhaps it is because the use of HIMARS by Ukraine is so effective that the Russians haven’t been able to destroy one so far… that is unless you watch Russian state television applauding the occasion of the week of destroying 20 gazillion HIMARS launchers in some warehouse lol
