Army Fields HIMARS to Fourth Battalion

Army Fields HIMARS to Fourth Battalion
Military.com | Rachel Young | November 26, 2007

FORT LEWIS, Wash. - The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System is now being fielded to the 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery at Fort Lewis' Yakima Training Center -- the fourth unit Armywide to receive the rocket system mounted on a five-ton truck chasis.

The HIMARS can fire the same family of munitions as the Multiple Launch Rocket System, but HIMARS carries only one pod of six rockets instead of the MLRS' two pods or twelve rockets. The HIMARS wheeled vehicle is also lighter than the MLRS tracked vehicle.

The three battalions who already have the system are the 3rd Bn., 27th Infantry Regt., at Fort Bragg, N.C., which was the first to receive the HIMARS in 2005; the 1st Bn., 181st Field Artillery of the Tennessee National Guard and the 1st Bn., 158th Field Artillery of the Oklahoma National Guard. Both Guard units were fielded with HIMARS in 2006.

The new system can be moved by rail or air and was specifically built to be carried on the C-130 aircraft. In support of special operations, HIMARS can be rolled off an aircraft, fired and then be reloaded onto the aircraft in a matter of minutes, said Maj. Rich Amadon of the 3rd Field Artillery.

"This is a brand new weapons system for the battalion," said Lt. Col. Matt Hergenroeder, commander of the 5th Bn., 3rd FA.

"The battalion has a long history, and the motto is 'the First Round Battalion,'" he said. The battalion fired the first round for the Union Army in the Civil War and the first round at the Battle of San Juan Hill. "This is going to be our first round here, so it's a historic moment for the battalion," he said about the unit's first live-fire of the HIMAR Oct. 30.

Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,156976,00.html



uhc commet: Meet the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System made by Lockheed Martin

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/himars/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Mobility_Artillery_rocket_system



The 2006 cost for a HIMARS is somewhere between $2,300,000 to $2,866,000 a pop -->
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Lockheed_Martin_Marine_Corps_High_Mobility_Artillery_Rocket_System.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M270_Multiple_Launch_Rocket_System

HIMARS has been a long time coming. It's a highly-deployable ATACMS-capable wheeled vehicle that will give expeditionary forces a helluva lot more indirect fire than they currently have at the DS level.