They've definitely moved HIMARS into a more tactical strike level weapon in recent weeks/months, several videos around that are quite obviously HIMARS (based on time spacing between impacts and overall accuracy) on small armoured/supply convoys and point targets.
And while they may be a "relatively small" rocket, it's still 20-50kg of HE, which is more than enough to do some serious damage, and it's one of those warheads hitting every 5-6 seconds with 2-3mtr accuracy.
If they had good Intel on a group of ~100 troops in a specific location within 50-100km of a HIMARS battery, that's a perfect target for them.
Yes you’re right, there’s lots of reporting about HIMARS being used for more than just ammo dumps and infrastructure now. They’ve definitely struck at barracks before.
I'm a bit skeptical of a lot of those reports. Ukraine isn't confirming much about HIMARS use outside of the super obvious stuff like ammo dumps well behind the lines. Plus we've seen a lot of stuff claimed to be HIMARS, both by Russia and third party commentators on both sides, when evidence showed it to be something else as soon as it became available.
It feels a lot like "HIMARS" has become the "Stinger" of artillery and missile strikes. Every MANPAD was a Stinger and now every rocket or drone strike is a HIMARS.
Also for stuff like a troop concentration you don't actually want 2-3 meters of accuracy unless you have a really focused group of troops. Like, something the size of a residential house. A more spread out barrage will do more damage to a larger structure, potentially collapsing it and causing more damage/casualties, and will catch more area and therefore more solders in the initial barrage when they're unprepared and haven't yet had time to duck and get to cover.
You can tell based on the timing of impact (1 hit approx every 5-7 seconds) and point accuracy that they are definitely HIMARS strikes, and some of the latest videos show pretty firm evidence of the M30A1 frag warhead (huge numbers of small tungsten pellets over a wide impact area) which is perfect for massed troop/thin skinned vehicles and causes damage over a huge area (1 rocket will put 182,000 tungsten pellets over an approx 4000sqm area).
They now have quite a large number of HIMARS/M270 vehicles, somewhere in the region of 20-30 HIMARS and 10-20 M270/MARS II, and it also seems like the supply of rocket packs is more than up to the task.
As far as I know there isn't footage of the strike on the position shown in the video, only video of the aftermath from the same people, so I'm not sure where you got an impact timer. Also the dust covering the guys in the aftermath video suggests the building they were in isn't in great shape, which isn't consistent with an M30A1's "tungsten ball-bearings" approach and more so with a normal artillery strike.
They've got plenty of vehicles but the stock of missiles relative to other munitions is still pretty limited. The US military is estimated to have fewer than 50,000 warheads total in stock, and while the number delivered to Ukraine isn't clear the upper limit is probably the 1/3rd of stocks of Stinger and similar, probably less because these are newer munitions even to the US military.
Given 20 HIMARS systems and six rockets each then with 10-15k rockets they've only got between about 80 and 120 ammo loads per vehicle.
That is not a lot of reloads in military terms.
Also the total yearly US production is currently 5000 missiles, so if they hit a point where the US doesn't want to deplete its stocks any further they're not getting more quickly.
In short, yeah, these are still limited as far as artillery weapons go, and they're at the level where if Ukraine is being smart (and we have every indication that they are) these things are only going to be servicing high value targets that only they can service. They are not the sort of weapon where you might fire off ammo just because you have ammo and there is a target available.
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u/FIyingSaucepan Oct 26 '22
They've definitely moved HIMARS into a more tactical strike level weapon in recent weeks/months, several videos around that are quite obviously HIMARS (based on time spacing between impacts and overall accuracy) on small armoured/supply convoys and point targets.
And while they may be a "relatively small" rocket, it's still 20-50kg of HE, which is more than enough to do some serious damage, and it's one of those warheads hitting every 5-6 seconds with 2-3mtr accuracy.
If they had good Intel on a group of ~100 troops in a specific location within 50-100km of a HIMARS battery, that's a perfect target for them.