“Foreseen in advance”: a month before the start of the NMD, the United States prepared HIMARS rocket launchers for use in Ukraine

As RT reported earlier, Ukrainian servicemen have begun training on the first four HIMARS multiple rocket launchers.

Earlier, the United States announced the delivery of cars until the end of June. 

Installations must be promptly maintained, repaired and provided with shells - and this requires almost more machines than the number of installations themselves.

This was written by the American edition of Politico.

RT found a government tender indicating that the US urgently needed two hundred support vehicles for HIMARS.

The tender was announced in January 2022, a month before the start of the special military operation. 

At the request of the Marines

On January 6, 2022, a call for proposals appeared on the US Government Procurement Portal (SAM) to convert conventional military trucks into "reload vehicles" for HIMARS. 

“The U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command is requesting information to identify interested vendors with the technical capability to convert up to 223 MTVR trucks into Highly Mobility Rocket Artillery System Reloading Vehicles (HIMARS RSV),” the tender description on the public procurement portal says. 

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The cost of the contract is not indicated in the document, since the document itself is a request for quotations, that is, the state customer is waiting for proposals from contractors, from which he will choose the most profitable one. 

HIMARS RSV is a system that has already entered service, the authors of the document clarify, thereby emphasizing that the Marine Corps decided that it would be more expedient to take existing MTVR trucks and convert them into HIMARS RSV vehicles, instead of ordering new ones. 

The MTVR army truck is one of the most popular and has been in service since 2000.

The reloading machine looks like a crane with a flat platform, where the ammunition container is located. 

Responses to the Marine Corps request were due by March 11, 2022. 

Preparing for the inevitable

According to military experts, the installations were probably specially prepared for deliveries to Ukraine, and this was done in advance. 

“This may indicate that the States were preparing Ukraine for active operations in the Donbass.

Which once again confirms the need for preventive actions on the part of Russia, says Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“If Russia had not launched a special military operation, there would have been a tragedy.”

Military historian Yuri Knutov, who studied at the Leningrad Air Defense School and graduated from the rank of lieutenant colonel, said in an interview with RT that multiple launch rocket systems require a significant number of accompanying vehicles, including reloading vehicles. 

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“They don't load each missile individually.

The shells on these installations are located in containers.

Reloading occurs by replacing the entire container that has been fired,” he explained.

“I think every HIMARS needs at least one escort vehicle.” 

Budgeted

Knutov, who now works as the director of the air defense museum in Balashikha near Moscow, believes that the cost of HIMARS was included in the US budget at least six months before deliveries. 

“The Pentagon draws up the military budget for next year in the spring, in March-April.

He submits his wishes on the budget to Congress, which adopts the budget in October, Knutov notes.

— That is, the budget for 2022 was adopted in October 2021.

This all indicates that US intervention in the conflict in Ukraine was budgeted for last year.” 

An analysis of financial documents shows that the US was preparing for a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine, Knutov says. 

“Changes to the budget were made in advance and provided for,” the expert is sure.

In any case, the US would have provoked the conflict.

Either they would make Ukraine attack, or they would force us to launch a preemptive strike.

And part of that plan was the supply of heavy weapons.” 

Earlier, RT published a number of materials proving that the United States was preparing Ukraine for military action.

Thus, instructors from the US and the UK have been training Ukrainian infantry since 2017.

And since 2014, the United States has increased military assistance to Kyiv: in just eight years, Washington sent $3.3 billion to Ukraine. 

Four HIMARS units, according to media reports, have already arrived in Ukraine.

Four more US promised to deliver in the near future.

Earlier, the US Department of Defense announced that Washington intends to transfer intelligence information to Kyiv to strike HIMARS.

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Weapons for "non-use"

HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems (M142) entered service with the US Army in 2005, as of 2016, there were 417 of them. 

The delivery of HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems to the Ukrainian army was publicly announced on June 1 by US President Joe Biden.

The transfer will be carried out as part of the 11th military assistance package with a total value of $700 million. The maximum firing range of this MLRS is 500 km, but Kyiv will receive ammunition capable of hitting targets within 80 km.

The Pentagon claims that the United States is not interested in a conflict with Moscow, and focuses on the fact that the supply of HIMARS to the Kyiv regime is carried out on the condition that these systems are not used on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Formally, Kyiv agreed with this. 

The Russian Defense Ministry believes that the Ukrainian leadership will use the MLRS to strike at Russian regions.