Watch: Meet the Weapon That Rained Down Hellfire on ISIS

The terrorist group that bills itself as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria may not be the most sophisticated enemy in the world, but it is certainly ruthless.

Its violence and destruction is so barbaric that almost everyone — from Republicans to Democrats, the White House to the Kremlin — agrees that the group needs to be wiped out, fast.

That sounds like a job for U.S. ground troops, and one of the most effective mobile weapons on the battlefield today: The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Called the “HIMARS” for short, the M142 has been used with great effect in the fight against Islamic State group militants. It’s capable of launching either six rockets or one surface-to-air missile at ranges up to several hundred miles.

“The purpose of HIMARS is to engage and defeat artillery, air defence concentrations, trucks, light armour and personnel carriers, as well as support troop and supply concentrations,” stated the Army Technology blog.

“HIMARS launches its weapons and moves away from the area at high speed before enemy forces locate the launch site.”

In simple terms, being able to target the enemy from a distance means that fewer American troops are put in harm’s way — and the fighting capability of the Army and Marine Corps forces using it is amplified.

“HIMARS has been widely used in the ongoing US military support for Iraqi Security Forces attacking ISIS; it enables fire support from forward-positioned fire bases without immersing US troops in close-up, front line combat,” stated Business Insider.

“While HIMARS would indeed have uses in large-scale force-on-force major power warfare, the weapons’ mobility and long-range precision is well suited for attacks on ISIS by offering substantial support to advancing ground forces attacking fast-maneuvering groups of enemy fighters.”

In terms of military equipment, the HIMARS system is actually somewhat new. The M142 was not used in combat until 2007, when it was deployed to the Al Anbar province of Iraq.

Ten years is a relatively short period of time for military gear, which often goes unchanged for decades or longer. For example, the venerable A-10 “Warthog” ground-attack aircraft has been in service since the 1970s, and is still being used in the war on terror.

There are larger rocket launch systems available for the U.S. Army to use, but HIMARS is designed to be fairly lightweight and portable. This allows troops who are first on the ground to quickly dominate the battlefield without waiting for a large infrastructure to be set up.

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“Early entry forces like HIMARS because it is C-130 transportable,” Becky Withrow, a director for Army Special Ops and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin, told Business Insider.

Several months ago, American troops deployed the HIMARS to the southern region of Syria for the first time, in order to start taking the fight more directly to so-called “Islamic State” forces.

According to CNN, HIMARS systems are also used in Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq as part of coalition missions to strike against militants.

“We have increased our combat power in that area (of southern Syria),” Col. Ryan Dillon stated earlier this year at the Pentagon, according to CNN. The more aggressive deployment kept American troops “prepared for any threat that is presented by the pro-regime forces,” Dillon said.

At the end of the day, the training and dedication of American troops is what gives our military its true edge… but a few long-range rocket systems certainly don’t hurt.

H/T We Are The Mighty

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