After action review on HIMARS destruction

For the first time in the third year of the full-scale war, a video of the Russian occupiers destroying the Ukrainian M142 HIMARS artillery rocket system was released.

For years, the Russian General Staff has been claiming that dozens of HIMARS have been hit, but there has never been any confirmation.

But what do we see in the video from the Russian drone?

A Russian drone detected and observed the HIMARS drive to a combat position at a distance of approximately 40 km from the front line.
"The HIMARS stopped and waited for the command to operate, and stayed at the position without opening fire.
This gave the Russians time to get a fix on its position, prepare data for firing, and strike with a long-range guided missile.

Conclusions:

It was not a lying-in-wait or a data leak. Russia has rapidly increased the number of long-range drones that monitor the communications of Ukrainian troops over a considerable distance.
Ukrainian air defense does not have enough assets to cover the rear and shoot down all Russian drones.
A delay of even half an hour in a position can allow the enemy to strike even at such a great depth.
During the use of the HIMARS missile systems, the Ukrainian command did not provide the HIMARS manning details with information about the presence of a Russian drone in the area of the launch positions. We need to find out why. Either radars and electronic intelligence systems were not working at that moment, or there was no interaction and transmission of information. In any case, the movement of valuable military equipment and personnel even at a distance of 40-50 km without air defense cover, without being informed of the presence of Russian drones, is a serious tactical miscalculation, and the reason is partly due to the lack of air defense equipment, partly to the organization of the air defense system, and partly to the underestimation of the risk by the command of the missile and artillery troops in the area. This is because an alert in unconcealed positions is extremely risky, and if there is no command to launch, the position must be changed anyway. "The HIMARS is a highly mobile system, and it takes seconds to get to a new launch point, so you can't just stand there and wait. In principle, all artillerymen understand this perfectly well, so why they had to stand there, we have to find out.
Air defense missile systems and HIMARS are priority targets, and their use without at least passive means of reconnaissance and detection of drones in the air is a very high risk. Such detectors are produced by our industry, they are used by the army, video signals from enemy drones are clearly visible and it is not a problem to identify them and inform our troops in certain areas. Planning operations without controlling the air situation is absolutely unacceptable.

I hope that conclusions will be drawn by military leaders in more detail, and further losses will be avoided. The Russians are trying to do everything to disrupt the highly effective work of HIMARS, which constantly inflicts killing strikes on the enemy.

Yurii Butusov, Censor.NET