The United States has quietly delivered the long-range ballistic missiles that Ukraine said it urgently needed and that President Joe Biden promised last month, U.S. officials said Tuesday, and Ukraine has already begun using them on the battlefield against Russia for the first time.

The missiles arrived in Ukraine within the last few days, one of the officials said. Their delivery to the warfront gives Ukraine a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter before an official announcement and spoke Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.

The delivery of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, was shrouded in secrecy, with the expectation that the first public acknowledgement would come when the missiles were used on the battlefield. That intense secrecy is a marked change from previous U.S. weapons sent by the Biden administration. In nearly all other cases, the U.S. has publicly announced its decision prior to the weapons and equipment being shipped overseas.

  • Triple_B@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    Everything in the military that is an initialism still gets pronounced like it’s an acronym, so I wonder if ATACMS comes out to “attack 'ems”?

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The designers that name things seem to be at war with people that need to refer to them.

      Perfect example: The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV).

      That seems like a name some designer laughed at when they thought “good luck pronouncing that!” Someone eventually called it a Humvee or just a Hummer.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s because people insist on pronouncing acronyms unnecessarily. Or better yet, just go with whatever the creator put out for pronunciation

        Just say S-Q-L, not ‘Sequel’. Just say G-U-I not ‘Gooey’ (This one just fills me with disgust…)

      • Triple_B@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        True. Occasionally stuff breaks through that’s just easy. ADCAP, TEER, AN/UYK-43… wait, maybe not that one.

    • SuperJetShoes@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Came here to write exactly that! .

      One exception would be the “MOAB”, which officially stands for “Massive Ordnance Air Blast”, but is surely unofficially the “Mother Of All Bombs” - a poker at Saddam Hussein’s statement that he would unleash the “Mother of All Wars”.