The U.S. Is Bringing The 'Big Guns' For The Assault On Mosul

Photo credit: U.S. Army

The Cable/Foreign Policy: A Look at the U.S. Rockets About to Rock ISIS in Mosul

American warplanes have dropped over 40,000 bombs on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since August 2014. And while the planes get all the credit for taking out an estimated 20,000 Islamic State fighters and helping Iraqi forces retake the cities of Ramadi, Hit, and Tikrit, two little-noticed U.S. precision rocket and artillery systems have also launched hundreds of strikes against terrorist positions — with more on the way.

Since March 2015, the U.S. Army’s Paladin self-propelled howitzer – think of a 155mm cannon on tracks — has fired nearly 300 times in Iraq. At the same time, the HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) has launched nearly 100 missions against the Islamic State since last September, according to the Pentagon. But don’t let that lower number fool you: Each HIMARS “mission” can mean multiple salvos from its six GPS-guided rocket tubes, meaning the HIMARS has probably launched hundreds of rockets at Islamic State fighters.

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