Russian Roman Saponkov claims to have witnessed HIMARS strike which made an impression. He shared his thoughts on his 25k+ telegram channel. The source can be found here.
As it happened yesterday I observed the strike of HIMARS at Chernobayevka, Kherson, almost in front of my eyes. I’ve been under shelling many times, but what struck me was that the whole pack, 5 or 6 rockets, landed almost into a penny. Usually MLRS fall over large areas, and at maximum distance scatter in a fan-like manner. It makes quite an impression, can’t argue with that. Especially when later that day on a trip along our way we saw cluster “Uragan’s” fall around 500m from us. It scatted over a large area, unexploded missiles remained stuck in the fields. After the Americans this doesn’t look serious. The area was later shelled with howitzers, also missed. If it was HIMARS, it would have been covered completely from the first go. So this thing is good.
I see an unhealthy panic in social media following the results of the first strikes. Obviously, this is just the beginning. They will hit Kherson and other border cities. Belgorod included. They will shell all checkpoints and military facilities, data on which have been collected over the past 4 months. But I am sure response measures will be taken, for instance with the constant duty of AWACS aircraft, I hope they can detect something. There is no single wunderwaffe that allows to win a war. For example, try remembering the stories about the wonderful electronic warfare tool which, if all of our media was to be believed, shut down all systems of USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea, and American sailors shat their pants. However, the reality turned out to be somewhat different.
Decently influential Russian commentator Dmitriyev (100k+ telegram followers) on why suggested solutions to Ukrainian missile strikes are fruitless. He believes “decentralisation” of powers that comes with distributing ammunitions is contrary to Russia’s army and gov-t nature.
The source can be found here.
Another thing regarding the effectiveness of Ukrainian rocket strikes. Many write about how to minimise losses from them. Aside from strengthening air defence it is suggested to disperse ammunition storages, avoid bringing armoured vehicles to one base, avoid lining up helicopters in one line, and decentralise everything in general. But you see what the problem is – you can decentralise, but this will be a completely different army, not the Russian-Soviet army. Decentralisation is contrary to the structure of not just the army itself but the whole state structure in general. Indeed, along with distribution of ammunitions to different stockpiles, along with moving vehicles to various forests, also the powers must be transferred down – to these forests and stockpiles. But these powers for hundreds of years have been carefully focused in one location. And that is how the authority preserved itself. But here – decentralisation. This is worse than military losses.
