Army tactical missile systems cluster bombs and star streak missiles all these are weapons that Ukraine has been using since Russia invaded the country in early 2022 we break down Ukraine's Armory from the tech to its potential impact first we look at the $1 million Storm Shadow missile this is the Storm Shadow cruise missile the weapon that's providing Ukraine with the strike range it needs for its counter offensive these highly precise weapons have a range of over 155 mil three times that of the high Mars in Ukraine with that kind of range these weapons are forcing Moscow to rethink its Logistics here's how these long range deep strike missiles work and why the Storm Shadow is equipped to take out key Russian command and control centers the reach of a Storm Shadow it allows Ukraine to Target all of this territory you see here so if you look here at this map of the front lines that includes Crimea places like uh you know berans where there's a lot of command control with a miniaturized jet engine lightweight materials and autonomous navigation systems the Storm Shadow is able to travel far beyond the line of sight of the launching aircraft to complete its Mission the missile's 155 mile range is what helped Ukraine hit this bridge more than 100 miles from the front lines which Russian troops have relied on for supplies into the hon and zapara reg but the missile strength is not just its range its pre-programmed targeting is also highly precise it is what we call a fire and forget once you pre program it and you launch it it doesn't require any updates or communication from the operator compared to unguided artillery or rockets that may Target a general area like an Airbase the target for a Storm Shadow can be as precise as a specific hanger of that air base this is possible because the missile is equipped with with three different types of navigation ins GPS and terrain Contour matching the inertial navigation system is a collection of onboard motion sensors that tracks the orientation and velocity of the missile calculating its location without satellites but airs can creep into the system with longer missions so the Storm Shadow also gets periodic GPS updates obviously the most accurate way to do it would be if you just had the missile hooked up to GPS live stream and constantly getting updates but GPS can make the missile vulnerable to counterattacks so that's dangerous to do in in a combat environment because you have electronic warfare countermeasures some cases they can spoof a GPS signal so make it tell it it's somewhere where it's not the third type is terrain Contour matching using an altimeter to help establish its location the Storm Shadow measures changes in the elevation of the terrain below it and Compares it to its onboard database all the while the missile is flying at terrain hugging altitude one of many features helping the Storm Shadow evade radar detection making it difficult to shoot down when something is flying high you can see it from a long way away if something is flying very low it becomes hard to see because you don't have a clear line of sight experts say the Storm Shadow also appears to be outfitted with additional countermeasures that make it even harder to intercept though the exact type isn't publicly disclosed in general missiles countermeasures can include things like infrared decoys right flares right things that will divert um an infrared sinking inter ctor missile once the missile identifies and Strikes its Target experts say the storm Shadow's impact is comparably more lethal against hardened targets because of a feature called delayed detonation as the missile strikes its Target an initial smaller charge will detonate pushing through walls or reinforcement this will allow the main Warhead to penetrate deep inside the Target only then will that main Warhead detonate the delay is often milliseconds difference but even that small amount of time allows for devastating effects think of it like this if you have a firecracker on your hand and you light it and it explodes you know you'll end up with a nasty burn on your hand if you close that firecracker around your fist and it explodes you'll probably lose your hand these capabilities range precision and lethal impact have allowed Ukrainian forces to strike buildings across occupied parts of Ukraine one attack tied to the Storm Shadow was reportedly able to hit a hotel about 95 M behind the front lines killing a Russian general Lieutenant General soof this attack in June marks the highest ranking casualty among Russian forces so we can see the the Precision of the weapon at work there being able to hit the specific part of the building that you want to hit to to even go after targets as specific as individuals but the estimated cost of a Storm Shadow is more than $1 million per unit one of the most expensive strike Munitions that Ukraine currently possesses all of these features require high-end expensive technology so in many ways it has more in common with building an iPhone than it does an artillery shell and that cost leads to one of the biggest limitations Ukraine has with the Storm Shadow its number of units Britain hasn't released the number of storm Shadows sent before the war defense intelligence companies estimated that the UK had roughly 822 storm shadows in its Arsenal just one example of how shallow the Storm Shadow Supply is during the 2011 Libya intervention that brought down muamar Gaddafi the UK and France ran out of precision guided Munitions including storm Shadows only a small fraction of a already small pile is going to Ukraine it is broadly understood that Ukraine has far less storm Shadows than himar Rockets analysts say Ukraine should be strategic about how and when to use the storm shadows as a specialized piece of equipment they're not meant for Mass bombardments like you might see with artill they're Precision surgical Battlefield instruments they go after high value targets time sensitive targets they can't just use them to go blast some random piece of Russian Artillery behind the lines and it's not just the number of missiles because it's an air launch missile Ukraine also needs to take stock of its aircraft Supply Ukrainian Air Force started the war with only about a 100 little over 100 combat aircraft and only a small portion of these are Sue 24s capable of firing Storm Shadow the Storm Shadow is equipping Ukraine with a critical capability at an important time in its counter offensive but the effort is moving slowly most of the supplies are coming up through here so by attacking the attacking the corridors that these supplies move through they can slow down and complicate the delivery of Munitions Williams said that in order for this strategy to be effective Ukraine will need more longrange options currently the UK and France are the only countries supplying Ukraine with these types of missiles like the Storm Shadow and the nearly identical scalp missile Germany so far has rejected a Ukrainian request for its tourist cruise missiles which has an even longer range of nearly 300 miles and the Biden Administration is still deliberating whether to send its equivalent Weaponry the Army tactical missile system or attacks with a range of some 190 Mi as a truck launched rocket the attachm offers more opportunities for use it requires a lot less logistical train you know you don't have to support a fighter aircraft you don't need bases that can be out in the field still these longrange missiles in Ukraine come with parameters when the UK defense secretary announced the country was supplying the Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine he said that the weapons will allow Ukraine to push back Russian forces based within Ukraine Sovereign territory implying a long-standing red line among the West to avoid targets inside Russia but even with just the Storm Shadow Ukraine has begun complicating the flow of supplies from Russia to the front lines the storm shatter missile has had a significant impact on the battlefield is my understanding its accuracy and its ability to deliver successfully the payload as sent and designed I think the key here is to recognize that if the Russians move out of range we must work together internationally to make sure that the equipment is given to make sure they're back in range Ukrainian forces have repeatedly asked the US for these they're the Army tactical missile system attack thems for short these missiles can come equipped with a 500lb class fragmentation Warhead and have a maximum range of about 190 M which could allow Ukrainian forces to reach further into Russian held territories inside Ukraine including Crimea in September us officials said they would send a small number of attack's missiles to Ukraine in coming weeks after debating the risk of escalating tensions with Russia and worrying about its small domestic stockpile we've been supplying Ukraine with items from our junk drawer as opposed to the high-end missile capability here's how these missiles could speed up Ukraine's counter offensive against Russia and why the US was initially hesitant to send them atacs is the army field artillery's Premier surfac to surface strike system it allows them to be mobile to disperse to hide in terrain and clutter uh and to be able to impose certain kinds of uncertainty upon the enemy about where they'll be coming from the attacks is designed to be launched from a ground vehicle like the US himars which is already in Ukraine once the missile is fired the ground vehicle can shoot and Scoot to avoid retaliatory attacks this could be a huge Advantage for Ukrainian forces which have been using a similar missile the UK's Storm Shadow that's fired from an Airborne jet it just offers one more level of flexibility for the counter offense of the other systems that require launching by air limit where and when the ukrainians can use them they need that Air Platform this essentially empowers Ground Forces to take these launchers anywhere they need them one of the interesting features of the high Mars launcher is that it doesn't reveal uh exactly what what missile it's carrying that's uh advantageous because assuming an enemy is surveiling you won't necessarily know what's inside and won't know whether is's a higher value a attachs as opposed to the shorter range stuff this gives ukrainians the added advantage of firing missiles from multiple types of domains including air and ground but the haar's mobility means that ukrainians could get closer to Russian territory further increasing the missiles reach aam's missiles can reach up to 190 Mi considerably farther than the storm Shadows top range of 155 miles there's just all kinds of operational advantages to that greater range that reach allows for instance uh Ukrainian forces to be able to fire from safer territory to not have to walk right up to the Russian lines to be able to hit something deeper back this additional range could force Moscow to move storage facilities and command centers more than 200 miles from the front and that could complicate efforts to supply troops with food and ammunition eaing ukrainians in their counter offensive plus this weapon could be useful for getting Ukrainian targeting inside some of these Russian hell territories specifically Crimea attacks can also move significant L faster than other missiles reaching a top speed of Mach 3 or around 2300 mph in contrast cruise missiles like the Storm Shadow or Russia's KH 101 for example have top speeds of only around 600 to 700 mph the speed of the atacs is simply a function of the fact that it's a ballistic missile with a big rocket engine single stage on the back so this speed is useful for time critical targets things that may move that need to be hit very promptly the attack's guidance system combines inertial navigation with GPS this creates highly accurate targeting preventing electronic jamming and interference and minimizing collateral damage on impact attacks are also designed with features Adept at hitting multiple types of targets these missiles are highly maneuverable in the air allowing them to hit targets from a variety of angles simple ballistic missile is going to travel on a ballistic trajectory it's going to just follow gra uh gravity's rainbow uh something that's very predictable uh and curved the benefit of maneuverability is that you can interrupt that rainbow you can come down in a different way you can maneuver to be more uh On Target you can go after perhaps a moving Target and correct for for errors and yes you can come down uh vertically uh if you'd like so that vertical impact may be useful to come right over top of Target and just make it that much harder for it to see it coming or to hit the vulnerable spot on an armored vehicle attack missiles can contain one of two types of warheads unary or submunition a unitary Warhead is just what it sounds like it is one big explosive it's in one piece submunitions or bomblets are likewise what they sound like uh lots of little things that spread out there's advantages to both depending on what you're targeting inside an attack them submunition Warhead are hundreds of steelc cased balls filled with incendiary pellets which could be likened crudely to a shotgun blast where it has a large spray of explosive impact on the Target and then there's a unitary Warhead which would be crudely like into a single bullet out of a pistol unary Warheads are better at targeting specific single targets while some munition Warheads are highly effective against moving personnel and Equipment the unitary and the submunitions are admittedly tailored for different things but both of them uh can go after lots of different targets so we don't know is what what variant they would provide or what combination of variants they would provide to the ukrainians despite Ukraine's requests the US was hesitant to send attacks until now there was concerns about uh escalating the conflict with the Russians there's concerns that the ukrainians could use these attacks which have this long range and Target uh inside Russian territory but we're also at a point in the counter offensive which it's gone a lot slower than anybody expected and so uh the US may be digging deeper into its pockets and greenlighting other Weapons Systems that it didn't want to provide before given kind of the time constraints the Biden Administration faced increased pressure from Ukraine and Congress to send attachs missiles last June Congress signed a bipartisan resolution in favor of sending attachs to Ukraine and the Administration has reversed course on weapons before like with the Abrams tank but officials have also expressed con concerned about the US's domestic attack on stockpile us is really trying to balance you know its own National Security needs with those of Ukraine and Europe at large and the United States just doesn't have a whole lot of these lying around they've been out of production to some extent uh for some time this recent reversal comes shortly after a US Army official said that the replacement missile for the attacks the prism will be out of production and entering Us stockpiles in the near future the prism or Precision strike missile can reach over 300 mil which is significantly farther than the attacks that may also mitigate some of the impact on the US inventory to provide the attacks that's kind of opening the door for potentially providing them now this star streak missile travels over three times the speed of sound and following a decades long Hiatus it's going into reproduction after the UK sent stockpiles of the Cold War era weapon to Ukraine this lightweight Man portable air defense system is a short- range missile that can travel approximately 4.3 miles and shoot down aircraft like drones figh or ground attack planes and helicopters that's why the star streak may be most useful along the front lines Ukrainian soldiers leave the bubble of protection provided from long-range missiles as they advance but they can carry the lightweight star streak missiles with them or equip them on tanks like the British Alvis Stormer here's how the missile works and how it can uniquely equip Ukraine's air defense at roughly 2300 mph the star streak travels 100 mph faster than the Stinger a similar US missile at that speed targets likely don't have enough time to react and evade the missile making the star streak potentially more lethal targets also have to withstand being hit by not just one Warhead but three unlike the stinger and other missiles in this class the star streak releases three tungsten darts toward the target after its launch having three darts accounts for Warhead failure even if one Dart is defective there are still two others once the darts reach the target they embed themselves into it and explode this maximizes the chance the target will be destroyed but the key distinguishing factor between the star streak and other man portable missiles is its guidance system most including the Stinger are heat seeking meaning they use infrared systems to track the target but heat seeking missiles are susceptible to counter measures like flares because these other missiles track the hottest object sitting off flares can guide the missile away from the heat of the aircraft's engine and towards the flare instead but the star streak is not heat seeking it's laser guided after launching the missile the gunman projects a laser beam onto the target for the three darts to follow this laser guided system is precise and means the star streak can't be jammed or decoyed but compared to Fire and forget missiles like the Stinger the star streak requires more training to use and puts a greater burden on the operator and this manual tracking means it's more effective for slower moving targets as long as Russia believes Ukraine has star streak missiles it may be less willing to fly into Ukraine's airspace for fear of getting shot down and the star streak is uniquely equipped to handle the newer tactics deployed on the front lines including drones because of their low heat signature drones can evade heat scking missiles but they're easily taken down by star streak missiles if operators can spot them yet training soldiers on the star streak isn't the greatest obstacle for Ukraine the main issue is simply Supply the star streak was designed by the arms maker short Brothers in the 1980s for the British government during the Cold War it didn't see active service until 2003 in the Iraq War then in 2012 it went out of mass production but that same year soldiers in London were equipped with star streak missiles to protect the city in case of an attack during the Olympics experts believe production C stopped because the Man portable missiles like star streak and Stinger missiles were thought to be less crucial for the defense needs of the UK and the us at the time but Britain retained its stockpile after the UK and US denied Ukraine's request to create a no-fly zone over the country the UK sent these missiles to help keep Ukraine's airspace clear from Russian aircraft so in response to Ukrainian requests the government has taken the decision to explore the donation of star streak High Velocity Man portable anti uh missiles this renewed demand has led the French weapons manufacturer Talis to renew its production of star streak missiles but like many weapons manufacturers Talis has supply chain issues these complications mean relaunching the star streak could take over a year since last March the UK has sent numerous air defense systems and over 10,000 missiles though the exact number of star streak missiles is unknown it's also unclear how many star streak missiles Ukraine has left or when it will get more but experts say that the country is strategically quiet about its air defense systems star streak missiles are just one kind of man portable missile which is just one type of short-range missile which is just one method of air defense experts say it's best practice to have multiple options to solve the same problem which is why Ukraine has asked for a variety of weapons Contra offensive best control of best P analysts have called this bm21 rocket launcher the AK47 of artillery because it's been used in almost every armed conflict since 1969 and right now both Ukraine and Russia are using the Soviet era weapon experts say it was technologically outdated in the 9s so why is this 60-year-old rocket launcher everywhere in this war the the bm21 can fire up to 40 unguided rockets in 20 seconds the Rockets are nearly 10 ft tall and are most commonly armed with high explosive fragmentation Warheads when all 40 rain down they can cover an area almost as large as 10 football fields this heavy and indiscriminate bombardment is what gave the bm21 the nickname grad Russian for Hail it's what makes the grad effective even today the grad is often used to suppress fire a tactic to provide cover for forces and weaken the enemy before another attack most of the 122 mm Rockets have a range of 12 Mi though some can reach up to 25 so Ukraine has used it mostly along the front lines to hit Russian Artillery batteries and infantry while Russia has fired it into cities like hon where a grad rocket strike killed five people and harff get in here get in get in experts say the grad's main flaw is the defining part of its design that it has no guidance system after loading the Rockets an operator calculates the coordinates of the Target and gives them to the gunman who adjusts the launcher an operator sets the number of rockets and fires them the results are not precise here you can see that the chance a grad rocket directly hits a human adult Target is highest up to 32 ft Away by 328 ft it's almost guaranteed to miss however an explosive grad Warhead has a lethal area radius of about 50 ft and it can still severely maim someone within 100 ft but this lack of accuracy is why it needs so many Rockets to be truly effective and that's a problem for Ukraine because analysts believe the country's original stockpile is already [Music] gone the US said it has supplied Ukraine with 60 th000 grad Rockets but on the ground in August some brigades in Ukraine drove around with empty launchers and others said they were conserving ammo by choosing targets more selectively some Ukrainian soldiers have also taken the rocket launchers and fit them into the back of pickup trucks creating a mini grad these fire at a shorter distance and use just three rockets at a time but analysts say these measures may not be worth it since the grad rocket is unguided soldiers risk missing their target entire effectively wasting their limited supply of ammunition the weapon has multiplied across the globe and into the arsenals of more than 50 countries with variants like the Chinese type 81 and Czech rm70 but according to action on armed violence a British human rights organization Russia is still the largest producer of the grad's 122 mm Rockets Ukraine on the other hand is largely at the whim of other countries to replenish its Supply and without missile the trucks they're mounted on offer few other benefits especially considering that the original Euro 375d Truck has absolutely no armor the windows aren't reinforced with any special type of glass they're basically just truck windows from the' 60s and70s even the newer Vehicles offer little protection just enough to protect from small arms like guns and soldiers have said that if the grad were to run over an anti-tank mine everyone in the vehicle would die lacking protection means that it's important to pack up and leave immediately after firing which can take up to 3 minutes for the grad this tactic is called the shoot and Scoot because once you've launched the Rockets the target can calculate where they came from and fire back the bm21 is outdated and has been effectively obsolete for decades as a Ukrainian Soldier said it is better to ask what has not broken the vehicle is prone to breaking down and soldiers aren't always able to get the parts to fix it its successors like the Russ Russian BM 27 EUR Aon and Czech rm70 often have improved ranges or some armor to protect the vehicle but they still lack the Precision and range of modern systems like us High Mars even though it's a flawed weapon Russia may still have an advantage because it has deeper reserves analysts say ultimately the reason Ukraine still deploys the grad is just because it already has the system in place it's simple but it works that's why despite all the problems the bm21 has stuck around for another War these are cluster Munitions a type of weapon that the US plans to send to Ukraine the controversial bombs are prohibited by multiple countries but they are part of an $800 million Aid package the Biden Administration says will strengthen Ukraine's offensive against Russian forces Russia has already spread tens of millions of these bomblets across Ukrainian territory here's a breakdown of how the cluster munition works and why the United States plans on sending them despite humanitarian concerns us cluster Munitions also known as Dual Purpose improved conventional munition are a type of weapon that spreads small bomblets over a wide area what dpicm bring to a battlefield is anti- armor and anti-personnel capability a common type of cluster munition is fired in artillery shells which is what the US is expected to give Ukraine they can also be in the form of Rockets or dropped from a plane the weapon opens midair to release tens or hundreds of smaller explosive Munitions or submunitions these submunitions can be loaded with charges that can penetrate armor or Munitions that can strike multiple human targets across an area as large as several football fields clearly a capability that would be useful in any type of offensive operations in Ukraine Russia has used these Munitions as far far back as the first days of the invasion according to Human Rights Watch the group said one attack struck residential areas in harke killing at least three civilians specifically they say Russia has used 9 m55 K smirch Rockets those are composed of submunition containers that have a tail finin and a fuse and sit at the front of the rocket the submunitions are designed to attack both people and Equipment behind those is the propellant after the rocket is launched the container ejects the submunitions commonly by combining an explosive charge and a spin mechanism when the fuse of each submunition is triggered on the ground or in the air it explodes but some of them can also fail to detonate these are referred to as Duds a common issue with cluster Munitions Duds can cause long-term hazards as they may detonate after conflicts end and harm civilians human rights groups say the first significant use of cluster weapons was by German and Soviet forces in World War II the Munitions released by German planes were commonly called Butterfly bombs with an attack on the British Port of grimby killing almost as many people after the raid as during it this bomb may go off as soon as it's even lightly touched it may also go off by itself up to half an hour after it landed the US made extensive use of cluster Munitions during the Vietnam war also dropping them in neighboring LA and since then unexploded bombs dropped by American planes have killed or maimed thousands of Le oceans more recently during the war in Iraq the US showered more than 1 million bomblets during a 3-we period of major combat since 2008 more than 110 countries have signed an International Convention on cluster Munitions that prohibits all use transfer production and stockpiling of cluster bombs Russia and Ukraine have not signed the agreement and the US is among several other NATO countries that are also not signatories the dpicm ammunition we are delivering to Ukraine will consist only of those with a dud rate less than 2.35% compare that to Russia which has been using cluster Munitions across Ukraine with dud rates of between 30 and 40% cluster Munitions are already being used by both sides in the war in Ukraine the difference is that Russia is using clust amunition to attack to invade Ukraine Ukraine is using cluster munition to protect itself against an aggressor according to Human Rights Watch Ukraine inherited a stockpile of cluster Munitions after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Biden Administration decided to provide us cluster Munitions after written assurances that the weapons wouldn't be used in civilian areas even allies who were signatories to the Oslo convention while they cannot formally support something that they've signed up to a convention against have indicated both privately and many of them publicly over the course of today that they understand our decision the Pentagon says the cluster Munitions could be effective when used against Russian armored formations and trench lines and US officials have defended the decision to supply the weapons as necessary to prevent Ukraine from running low on artillery ammunition at a critical stage in the conflict by providing Ukraine with dpicm artillery ammunition we will ensure that the Ukrainian military has sufficient artillery ammunition for many months to [Music] come
