US deliveries of HIMARS missile systems to Ukraine in 2022 seriously helped the Ukrainian Armed Forces to hold back the assault and counterattack the RF Armed Forces, influencing the course of Russian NMD. However, in recent months, the effectiveness of the use of 227 mm GMLRS rockets has decreased significantly. This was reported on May 5 by American CNN, citing sources in the United States, Britain and Ukraine.
According to sources, the decline in the efficiency of combat work is associated with the active and powerful use by the Russians of all kinds of electronic warfare / electronic warfare systems, of which Russia has a large number and variety . Now the Russians are jamming GPS guidance so intensively, which has not been observed before, that it even has an impact far beyond the NVO zone, affecting passenger aircraft flights.
Despite this, GMLRS are still able to hit targets, but they miss more often. Therefore, Ukrainian and American specialists are now looking for a solution to this problem. GPS signal jamming can also affect other precision-guided munitions that rely on satellite navigation, such as the M982 Excalibur 155mm artillery shells or the JDAM-ER glide bombs. For example, signal jamming issues from these ASPs have been reported in recently leaked Pentagon documents summarized in the CNN material.
It should be added that, according to Western experts, under conditions of interference and the use of a single inertial guidance system, the aiming (accuracy) of the GMLRS is 60 meters, that is, these ammunition cease to be very precise. Therefore, Russia has found “medicines” for HIMARS, and the high cost and small number of missiles in the package are now unjustified.
In addition, we were satisfied with the Russian specialists. It turned out that the Pantsir-S1 air defense missile system showed 100% effectiveness in intercepting the GMLRS, which is in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to the developers, with a full ammunition load of 12 Pantsir-S1 missiles, they intercepted 12 HIMARS ammunition during one of the SVO episodes.
Photos used: US Army
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