Yaroslav Trofimov
The Excalibur artillery round performed wonders when it was introduced into the Ukrainian battlefield in the summer of 2022. Guided by GPS, the shells hit Russian tanks and artillery with surgical precision, as drones overhead filmed the resulting fireballs.
That didn’t last.
Within weeks, the Russian army started to adapt, using its formidable electronic warfare capabilities. It managed to interfere with the GPS guidance and fuzes, so that the shells would either go astray, fail to detonate, or both. By the middle of last year, the M982 Excalibur munitions, developed by RTX and BAE Systems, became essentially useless and are no longer employed, Ukrainian commanders say.
Several other weapons that showcased the West’s technological superiority have encountered a similar fate. Russian electronic countermeasures have significantly reduced the precision of GPS-guided missiles fired by Himars systems, the weapon credited for reversing the momentum of the war in Ukraine’s favor in the summer of 2022, Ukrainian military officials say.
A brand-new system, the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb munition, manufactured by Boeing and Sweden’s Saab, has failed altogether after its introduction in recent months, in part because of Russian electronic warfare, Ukrainian and Western officials say. It is no longer in use in Ukraine pending an overhaul.
No comments:
Post a Comment