Bill LaPlante, the deputy head of the US Department of Defence for Procurement and Supply, admitted that some long-range weapons transferred to Ukraine have proved ineffective on the battlefield.
Which of the US transferred weapons to Ukraine did not work on the battlefield
According to the publication's journalists, we are talking, in particular, about the ground variant of air-to-surface air bombs GLSDB.
LaPlante noted that one defence company decided to implement a very cool idea taking an air-to-surface weapon and making a ground version, thus creating a long-range weapon.
It would allow the Ukrainian military to strike targets of the occupation army of the Russian Federation at a distance of up to 140 km.
However, the deputy head of the Pentagon emphasised that these weapons proved ineffective on the battlefield in Ukraine.
It just didn't work. And what happens when you send something to people who are fighting for their lives and it doesn't work—they try it three times and then they just throw it away. Well, it happened, LaPlante emphasised.
What is known about Ukraine's receipt of experimental GLSDB bombs
This weapon is currently not in service with the US military, and Ukraine became the first to test it in difficult battlefield conditions.
The transfer of this weapon was announced at the beginning of 2023 in one of the defense aid packages worth more than 2.17 billion dollars, since then the deadlines for the delivery of GLSDB to Ukraine have been shifted several times, and already in 2024, the Russian Federation showed the fragments of this weapon.
Despite the fact that this story really looks unpleasant, it is still worth noting that so far there are no official comments from the Pentagon or the Ukrainian side, nor any more detailed data on the use of GLSDB to draw any more concrete conclusions. At the same time, the combat experience of operating this weapon can be an impetus both for its further improvement and for the search for new options for more effective use of GLSDB on the battlefield, the publication says.
