US, UK and France allowed Ukraine to use their weapons to strike military sites deep in Russia. The Ukrainian army has already taken advantage of this opportunity. What can these rockets do?
The US, the UK and France have authorized Ukraine to strike military sites on Russian territory. And Kyiv has even already benefited. Germany has so far refused to do the same for its TAURUS missiles. What can all these western missiles do?
What ATACMS missiles can do
ATACMS is a ballistic missile system manufactured by the American defense company Lockheed Martin. The missiles, which are four meters long, 610 mm in diameter and weigh more than a ton and a half, can carry both individual warheads and cluster charges. ATACMS missiles belong to the class of short-range ballistic missiles.
In its longest-range version, this missile can hit targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers. Its first models were delivered to the US Armed Forces in 1990. ATACMS were used by the Americans, notably in the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Since then, they have been repeatedly refined and improved. The price of one rocket is up to 1.7 million. dollar. According to the online magazine The Warzone, the Ukrainian military first used ATACMS in the fall of 2023 to strike Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
What Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG can do
The British Storm Shadow and its French variant SCALP-EG are air-based cruise missiles with a range of up to 400 km, developed since 1994 by Matra and British Aerospace. Unlike ballistic missiles, which follow a predetermined trajectory, cruise missiles move parallel to the target area at a low altitude (less than 50 meters), guided by GPS and a terrain map. Their advantage is that they are difficult to detect by radars. These missiles, which have been in service since 2002, are produced by the European consortium MBDA. The price of such a cruise missile is about 1.1 million euros.
Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG were used during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in the enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 and in combat operations against the terrorist organization "Islamic State". The United Kingdom and France delivered these cruise missiles to Kiev as early as 2023, and they were launched by Ukrainian Su-24 bombers. Like the US ATACMS, the Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG was until recently also only used for strikes against Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The cruise missiles delivered to Ukraine have a range of 250 km.
What we need to know about TAURUS
The German-Swedish TAURUS missile is also a long-range cruise missile - up to 500 km. It is designed to deliver precision strikes without the carrier aircraft having to enter the enemy's air defense zone. TAURUS operational-tactical missiles fly very low above the ground and have a combined guidance system that allows them to move without GPS support. One such missile costs about one million euros, and possible targets for the TAURUS are heavily defended bunkers or command centers from where enemy commanders can direct operations.
TAURUS can penetrate even several thick reinforced concrete walls. To do this, the missile ascends steeply shortly before the target and then descends vertically to deliver a high kinetic energy impact.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far refused to deliver TAURUS to Ukraine, fearing that otherwise Germany would be drawn into a war with Russia. The leadership of the Green Party, which remained in Scholz's government after the collapse of the ruling coalition, as well as the opposition conservative CDU/CSU bloc, are in favor of providing these weapons to Kiev and allowing them to strike deep into Russian territory.