Posts Tagged HIMARS

HIMARS rockets video footage: Afghani locals “talk with awe of a powerful new rocket”

Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 21/Oct/2010 19:40

Amazingly, just a few months after NATO and Afghan troops gradually stepped up operations in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, the insurgents have fled, with a return unlikely.

If pronouncements like “We broke their neck” from the Afghan police commander of Argandab district seem premature, consider this: The NATO general in charge of the area credits a new miracle rocket with helping turn the tide and it has been in Afghanistan for a while.

The Times‘ veteran Afghanistan correspondent Carlotta Gall writes that locals “talk with awe of a powerful new rocket” that NATO’s used to batter Taliban outposts in Panjwai “with remarkable accuracy.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/did-a-new-rocket-help-rout-the-taliban-depends-what-you-mean-by-new-and-rout/

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NATO general credits new miracle rocket with helping turn the tide in Afghanistan

Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 21/Oct/2010 19:37

“HIMARS use is tightly-regulated, precisely because it’s so powerful. Sitting on the back of a 5-ton truck, HIMARS is capable of firing a single, 13-foot ATACMS surface-to-surface missile 100 miles or more away.

Or, it can pound up to half-dozen GPS-guided rockets in a matter of seconds at at a single target more than 40 miles in the distance; that’s more than double the range of a traditional howitzer.

“The advantage of HIMARS is that is can put a lot of firepower downrange very, very quickly,” an Army fire support officer told Danger Room in February.

It’s so much firepower, in fact, that, for a while in Afghanistan, air strikes were easier to authorize than HIMARS. (At least the air assaults had overhead intelligence to back ‘em up.)”

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/did-a-new-rocket-help-rout-the-taliban-depends-what-you-mean-by-new-and-rout/#ixzz132kbR3YP

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