Lieutenant Colonel Knutov explained the danger to Moscow of more long-range missiles GLSDB

The United States announced the transfer of GLSDB ammunition to Ukraine for HIMARS rocket systems with a range of 150 km. Such shells, military expert Air Defense Colonel Yuri Knutov is sure, can deliver painful blows to the rear infrastructure and artillery depots of Russian troops. Thus, the situation with Kherson may repeat itself, when the destruction of the near rear forced the Russian army to leave the right bank of the Dnieper and cross to the Left Bank.

Washington is preparing a new $2.2 billion military aid package for Kyiv, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing two US officials. According to them, long-range missiles will be included in this package for the first time. The agency later clarified that we are talking about the supply of GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb) missiles, the range of which is 150 kilometers.

Military expert, director of the Air Defense Museum Yuri Knutov recalled that the GLSDB is a new development of the American concern Boeing and the Swedish concern SAAB.

– It’s actually a hybrid. It was created on the basis of the GBU-39 gliding corrected aerial bomb with a sufficiently high guidance accuracy, capable of flying a distance of 110 kilometers with the help of wings. It is launched from an aircraft, from a height of ten kilometers and further plans, maneuvers, changes the flight path and, guided by the GPS system, hits the target exactly. In general, this bomb is of small caliber, but it is comparable to the caliber of HIMARS missiles.

In the US, it has been improved. Equipped with a powder charge and adapted for launch from the ground-based HIMARS jet system. The ammunition is launched to a high altitude, and from there it begins to plan towards the target.

– These bombs were produced in the US in large quantities for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The wars stopped, the Americans withdrew their troops. But the bombs remained, and now the Americans do not know what to do with them.

Two companies – Boeing and SAAB – proposed to combine this bomb with HIMARS. The result was a GLSDB ammunition that can be launched from the HIMARS launcher. The principle of operation is as follows: the rocket rises to a height of ten kilometers, thanks to the engine, separates and glides further, like a conventional GBU39 corrected aerial bomb, hitting the target with high accuracy.

According to a military expert, the warhead of a bomb weighing 90 kilograms is able to penetrate a concrete floor 90 centimeters thick. At the same time, the accuracy of its guidance when using GPS reaches five meters, when using laser illumination – up to a meter.

As the expert said, the range of the bomb-missile hybrid is 150 kilometers. Such an aerial bomb will not reach Moscow and St. Petersburg from the territory of Ukraine, but the front-line regions may be under attack.

– The transfer of this kind of shells complicates the situation for us. Because the enemy has the opportunity to work on our near rear, on the territory of Russia, including the Crimea, Belgorod, Kursk regions. These bombs do not reach St. Petersburg and Moscow. But other cities that are located on the European part, under certain conditions, can be reached.

The main military targets of such bombs are headquarters, command posts, ammunition depots and armaments, and airfields. According to Yuri Knutov, the successful use of such bombs by the enemy can provoke a very painful situation.

“The destruction of the near rear can lead to the fact that the armed forces at the forefront will simply have nothing to maintain combat capability,” he said. – Approximately the same situation occurred near Kherson. Then the enemy, with the help of long-range artillery, defeated our near rear areas, thereby depriving us of the opportunity to support our troops in the event of a massive attack on our grouping. Therefore, we had to leave Kherson.

According to Yuri Knutov, all hopes for our air defense.

– The only positive thing is that, despite the fact that the GBU39 bomb has a very small reflective surface, our air defense fires at such targets. Therefore, it will be necessary to use the Pantsir anti-aircraft systems more widely. It is inefficient to use other complexes due to the fact that an anti-aircraft missile costs much more than the target being hit.

The expert also noted that the transfer of such missiles indicates that NATO and Washington are working towards a sharp escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and are preparing the Ukrainian army for a strategic offensive, which is planned for this spring.

Another military expert, a member of the Izborsk Club, Vladislav Shurygin, also did not rule out that the United States is already preparing this spring to do what they failed to do in the fall, namely, to inflict a decisive defeat on our army.

“The spring offensive is ahead and the American curators of Ukraine, apparently, decided not only to prepare the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the upcoming battles as much as possible, but to really test and work out the organization and tactics of their own formations in the offensive against the Russian army using the example of the offensive of the newest formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the expert wrote. in your channel. “And for this, the new strike corps should be as unified as possible with similar NATO ones in terms of combat capabilities and tactics.”

According to the expert, long-range missiles are necessary for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to effectively combat our rear. The main task is to destroy ammunition depots and fuel and lubricants in order to deprive units on the front line of full-fledged supplies, as well as to destroy headquarters, communication centers and command posts in order to decapitate the Russian group in the direction of the main attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.