As reported by The Washington Post citing several Ukrainian and US military sources, the Russians used expensive Kalibr cruise missiles to “destroy” wooden mock-ups of HIMARS. And it seems that the destruction of these targets was reported to their leadership and Russian media.
According to The Washington Post, the Ukrainian military produced wooden models, “decoys”, recognized by Russian UAVs as HIMARS MLRS. The drones transmitted the coordinates of the HIMARS to the ships armed with Kalibrs in the Black Sea, which made a senseless and rather expensive strike on the decoys.
False targets are not a new tactic, they were used quite widely during the First and Second World Wars. Sometimes even fake models of entire cities and districts were created. Now the military usually uses inflatable “bait”.
According to The Washington Post, the decoys helped waste at least 10 Kalibr cruise missiles in a few weeks. Considering that the supply of high-precision missiles in Russia is coming to an end, and new arrivals are in great question, this is a very, very good result. Especially considering the comparable cost of the wooden model and the Kalibr missile. In addition, this means that these missiles will no longer be used for other military purposes and in the cities of Ukraine.
Regarding the Russians’ almost daily reports of downed HIMARS, as one American diplomat put it: “They claimed to have hit more HIMARS than we even sent.” The same situation was with the destruction of 100,500 UAVs Bayraktar TB2, with documented 2-3 defeats, and the destruction of the entire aviation of Ukraine in the first days of the war. As we see in numerous videos, the Air Forces of Ukraine are alive and well and are preparing new “presents” for the occupiers.
As for HIMARS, according to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, on August 26, 2022, none of the HIMARS, M270, or MARS were destroyed.
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