Prof. ST Hsieh
Director, US-China Energy Industry Forum
626-376-7460
July 16, 2023
The proxy war in Ukraine is in a stalemate with no end in sight. It is public information that military equipment and ammunition supplies provided or pledged by the US led allies are facing challenges.
- Ukraine seems to use extra amounts of ammunitions. It could be that these ammunitions were not as effective against Russian equipment. It also could be a flaw in Ukraine’s military strategy. It is a serious challenge for the allies to provide supplies without endangering their own defense readiness. Recently, the US committed to provide controversy cluster bomb to Ukraine is a clear sign of supply urgence.
- Russian military performed badly in the early phase of the ground war. But Russian aerial offenses are still major challenges to Ukraine defense. It means that Ukraine will not be able to push Russians out of eastern Ukraine. Zelenskky’s demand of recovering Crema is not realistic at all.
Some US readers’ response to the news report that US is transferring Hawk missiles from Taiwan to Ukraine are attached.
Borrowing money from China so we can buy weapons from Taiwan to give them to Ukraine… What an absolute disgrace.
Translation…The USA is scrapping the bottom of the barrel for old equipment & munitions to send to Ukraine.
We laugh when we say Russia is using old equipment…then turn around and crow as if we were sending new stuff.
How nice of the US taxpayers to buy something to give to Ukraine.
US buying decommissioned Hawk missiles from Taiwan for Ukraine – media
Ukrainska Pravda
Fri, July 14, 2023 at 6:33 AM PDT
The US is rebuying decommissioned MIM-23 Hawk missile systems sold to Taiwan to provide them to Ukraine as part of a military aid package.
Source: China Times, referring to the source; Taiwan News; Military
Details: The source of the newspaper states that it is about the Phase III MIM-23 Hawk, decommissioned in June. The purchase agreement was preceded by consultations between the US and Taiwanese governments. SAMs [surface-to-air missiles – ed.] will be transferred to the Ukrainian army to combat Russian drones and low-altitude aircraft.
For reference: The MIM-23 HAWK is an American medium-range anti-aircraft missile system developed by Raytheon. It entered service in 1960 and has undergone several modernisation programmes since then. It has three generations: Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III.
Initially, the system was developed to destroy aircraft, but later it was modified to intercept missiles. They were in service with a large number of European countries, including Greece, the Netherlands, France, Germany and others.
Forbes Staff
AA Hundred Ex-Taiwanese Missile Launchers Could Transform Ukraine’s Air-Defenses
Jul 15, 2023,07:47pm EDT
The American-made HAWK surface-to-air missile system is more than 60 years old. But if reports are true, it’s about to become Ukraine’s main SAM. The backbone of the country’s air-defense network.
It’s not a terrible outcome for Kyiv. The 1960s-vintage Raytheon MIM-23 Homing All-the-Way Killer is simple, reliable, highly-mobile, easy to upgrade and works just fine against slower drones, cruise missiles and manned aircraft.
As a bonus, the HAWK could be compatible with another, more modern SAM system that Ukraine uses: the U.S.-Norwegian National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS.
The news broke on Friday that U.S. officials were negotiating with their counterparts in Taiwan to buy back from Taipei the dozen or so HAWK batteries—with around a hundred launchers—that Taiwanese forces began retiring back in 2015 and replacing with locally-designed SAMs.
Reportedly, the plan is for the United States to donate to Ukraine the hundred or so HAWK launchers plus missiles and associated equipment, including radars. The ex-Taiwanese launchers would complement the single large HAWK battery—six or more launchers plus a radar—that the United States and Spain already have pledged to the Ukrainian war effort.
A big consignment of HAWKs would help Kyiv to resolve a looming crisis: the imminent depletion of missile stocks for its ex-Soviet S-300 and Buk SAMs. Around 50 batteries of S-300s and Buks—in all, several hundred launchers—represented the main Ukrainian air-defenses on Feb. 24, 2022, the day Russia widened its war on Ukraine.
In 17 months of hard fighting, the Ukrainians have lost around 60 S-300 launchers and 15 or so Buk launchers to Russian missiles and artillery. But launcher-attrition isn’t the biggest threat to Ukraine’s air-defense system. The real crisis is that the Ukrainian air force fires dozens of missiles every day in order to hold at bay Russian warplanes, drones and ballistic and cruise missiles.
Ukrainian industry doesn’t produce missiles for the S-300 and Buk batteries. And there aren’t a lot of these missiles in the inventories of Kyiv’s foreign allies. It’s for that reason that NATO countries have pledged to Ukraine all the SAM systems they can spare: IRIS-Ts, Crotales, NASAMS, Patriots and others—nearly 20 batteries, in all.
Besides being more reliable, farther-firing, more accurate and more resistant to jamming than equivalent Soviet systems are, these Western air-defenses are sustainable. Kyiv can tap a steady supply of replacement missiles from factories and stockpiles in friendly countries.
Earlier SAM pledges have displaced around 20 of Ukraine’s 50 pre-war Soviet-vintage batteries. The challenge now is for Ukraine to replace the other 30. An American-brokered donation of a dozen or more ex-Taiwanese HAWK batteries would go a long way toward solving this problem.