The U.S. will send Ukraine another $1 billion in weapons to fight Russia, including more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl announced Monday.
Kahl also said that the 16 HIMARS already sent by the Biden administration was “quite a lot” in terms of Pentagon assessments of Ukrainian territorial defense needs.
“Our assessment actually is that the Ukrainians are doing pretty well in terms of the numbers of systems, and really the priority right now is making sure that they have a steady stream of these GMLRS,” he said, referring to the Lockheed Martin precision munitions fired from both the HIMARS and the MLRS M270 family of launchers provided to Ukraine by British forces.
GMLRS postures as a battle-tested, long-range munition and is available to Army division and corps commanders, swiftly delivering a precision strike capability against critical, time-sensitive threats.
The current GMLRS family of munitions consists of three fielded variants: Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) and the Alternative Warhead (AW) variants to service area targets; and the Unitary variant with a single 200-pound-class high-explosive charge to service point targets with low collateral damage.
GMLRS is employed with the M270A1 Multiple Launch Rocket System and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers.
GMLRS rockets were utilized extensively in Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom and continue to provide field artillery support in Overseas Contingency Operations.