[late]

"The United States last week secretly shipped a new long-range missile system to Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces immediately used the weapons to attack a Russian military airfield in Crimea last Wednesday and Russian troops in the country’s southeast overnight on Tuesday, according to a senior U.S. official.

But Ukraine has long coveted the system’s longer-range version, with a range of about 190 miles. That can reach deeper into occupied Ukraine, including Crimea, a hub of Russian air and ground forces, and supply nodes for Moscow’s forces in the country’s southeast."

Russia's greatest weakness may be in it's logistical limits. In the past, Russia has pulled things back out of the range of the 100 mile missiles. These new missiles will cover 190 miles.

This should slow down their ability to supply the army, partly just from having fuel and ammo depots pulled back 100 miles further. Russian advances are about to stop.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/us-ukraine-russia-missiles.html

[Rugoz]

Ukraine already has cruise missiles (Storm Shadow) with larger range.

I doubt ATACMS will be available in much larger quantities. Unlike Storm Shadow, there's a cluster warhead version of ATACMS though, which makes it useful against airfields.

Besides, HIMARS is substantially less effective now than it was at the beginning. Ukraine should have gotten all those weapons at the same time, 1-2 years ago. Instead, Russia had time to adjust to each of them.

[RealPolitic]

@Rugoz

Ukraine getting the ATACMS is a bigger deal than getting the Storm Shadow. Yes, the Storm Shadow is a very capable weapon. But they have to be fired from an airplane. ATACMS have a longer range than Storm Shadows. Plus, the ATACMS are far faster than the Storm Shadows so they can hit time sensitive targets whereas the Storm Shadow is a low flying cruise missile.

ATACMS can be fired from a mobile vehicle and retreat to avoid retaliatory strikes and can hide from in the woods and blend in with radar clutter which makes them hard to find. The fact that Storm Shadows have to be fired by air limits when and where the Ukrainians can use them. The ATACMS give the Ukrainians more flexibility and given that that they are longer range can hit vital Russian supplies in their rear.

That will force Russians to have very long supply lines and make it to where it takes much longer for vital supplies to reach their front lines. Such delays of getting supplies to the front lines can be costly and the Russians better not let those supplies stop and rest somewhere on the way to the front line given that the ATACMS are very fast and can hit time sensitive targets.