The U.S. Is Now Using Rocket Artillery In Its War Against The Islamic State

A rocket is fired from an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System of the 1st Battalion, 182nd Field Artillery Regiment, during the eXportable Combat Training Capability exercise at Camp Graying Joint Maneuver Training Center, July 15, 2014. (Staff Sgt. Kimberly Bratic, Michigan National Guard/U.S. Army)

Washington Post: How the U.S. campaign in Iraq has escalated with a new weapon: rocket artillery

Last week, close watchers of the many-sided war in Iraq and Syria learned from an apparently inadvertent Russian state television disclosure that Russia has upped the ante in its eight-week-old war in Syria, apparently adding ground-based artillery to the array of attack jets, strategic bombers, and helicopter gunships that have been pounding Islamic State terrorists and U.S.-backed rebels alike in the country.

Without fanfare, the U.S.-led coalition has escalated its involvement in the conflict in a similar way in recent weeks, adding artillery raids of its own to the steady thrum of air strikes against the Islamic State. In the U.S. case, the weapons involved are long-range, satellite-guided rockets, not howitzers, and the targets are in Iraq, not Syria.

Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Steve Warren first acknowledged the use of the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS—a staple of U.S. operations in Afghanistan—during a briefing last month. Since then, Inherent Resolve press releases have noted the use of rocket artillery on eight more days, most recently Sunday, when “rocket artillery” accounted for an unspecified number of 19 coalition strikes in Iraq.

Update: The U.S. Army Hurls Hundreds of Rockets at Islamic State (War Is Boring)

WNU Editor: I never understood why the focus was always on air strikes when artillery could (and would) do the same thing. It should also be noted that these weapon platforms are cheaper to operate than maintaining aircraft in the sky.