Which book is this??

I have not read a Harold Coyle book in years but just pulled out 10,000 to reread later this week..

Is it Gods Children??  I just found it on his web site.

Yes. It will disable a M1. It will destroy a Russian tank.

The LAW is obsolete against MBT's or even first line IFV's. Still popular in some areas because they are light and very good against bunkers, houses, and light AFVs.

What he might be refering to is the Lockheed/Martin Predator [url]http://www.missilesandfirecontrol.com/our_products/antiarmor/PREDATOR/product-PREDATOR.html[/url]

The "Land Warrior" system as a whole has been rejected as being too heavy and too dependant on batteries. The AN/PAS-13 thermal imager part has been used in Afghanistan, mostly as a crew served weapons sight, at least thats what it was doing in the pictures.

I have not seen anyone wearing monocle monitors, and have not heard of a standard type being chosen. But ALL AN/PAS-13's have a NTSC video output jack. They all can be hooked up to a TV or video monitors that uses standard connections, and there are a couple different kinds of "monicle monitor" on the civilian market available so the use for arround the corner shooting can't be ruled out.

The AN/PAS-13 can be mounted to a M-16 or M-4 but its awkward, every bit as large and heavy as a old first generation AN/PVS-2 Starlight Scope. And just as much a battery hog. [url]http://www.raytheon.com/es/esproducts/ses013/ses013.htm[/url]

[url]http://216.22.251.97/thermal-imaging-hughes-anpas2.htm[/url]

The Javelin is unusual in that you have to fire it into the air at about a 45-60 degree angle as the missile comes down from above and hits the turret of the tank. Supposed to be very effective as you are bypassing the heaviest armor of the tank but this is also a drawback as it is very heavy and more difficult to use. The SMAW and crew-served TOWs are much more popular. Alledgely the latest TOW II can take out any enemy MBT including a T90 (which will be up for export soon).


The M72 LAW is a Vietnam-era weapon that isn't very effective against modern tanks or APCs. It could probably deal with the old BMPs and T55s the Taliban had in Afghanistan though. The M136 is the standard disposable LAW in use now.

I was very amused in the movie Three Kings when one of the soldiers threatens to use the M72 against an Iraqi T72. If the situation was real it would be suicide but the best they could hope for was a mobility kill on the tracks.

Javelin:

[url]http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/javelin.htm[/url]

Dragon:

[url]http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m47-dragon.htm[/url]

TOW:

[url]http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/tow.htm[/url]

Scott

For a 4 mb mpeg of a Javelin being fired against a T-72, click this link. [url]http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/images/JavelinLiveFireVsT72.mpg[/url]

The TOW2 can destroy anything on the battlefield, including the M1.

I doubt it could take out a DU-armored M1A2.

The TOW2b has two top down shape charges designed to fly over and explode down on the top of a tank's turret(weakest point on any tank)The TOW2a has tandem shaped charges designed to defeat reactive armor. The TOW maximum effective range is 3750meters. The TOW2b would probably defeat a M1A2 but he would see your back blast smoke plume on the horizon and send 120mm heat round down on your ass before you could hold the cross hairs on him. "Gunner missile tank!"

Javelin "pops up" by itself, you don't have to fire it in the air. It also sits at a 15deg angle relative to the line of sight of the control units thermal imager. So if you center the control unit onto the target it will already be part way angled up. As soon as the front fins deploy it will rase its nose up before the rocket ignites. That is if top attack mode is selected. It also has a direct attack mode for use on helicopters.

Javelin is nastier than TOW, even with its shorter range, due to the fact it doesn't have a big firing signature, and can be fired indoors, as it needs only 1m safe distance between the tail pipe and anything else. And it can move as soon as the round is away, fire and forget, no wires. The TOW takes 17 seconds to reach its maximum range and that gives a tank pleanty of time to blow up the launcher with a heat round that will take only 1 sec to cover the same distance. And the TOW launcher cant move while its round is in flight, even ones that are mobile like on the Bradley and ITV cant move while guiding the missile to avoid breaking the guide wires.

There is a TOW3 in the works, it is a IIR equipped missile on the TOW airframe, the Army is very interested in this for the sake of keeping the Bradley equipped with a viable AT weapon for the rest of its life. The Marines on the other hand are very fond of Javelin and want to get rid of TOW entirely. They want a long range "streatched" version of the Javelin in the manner of the IDF's twin AT missiles Spike and Gil. Spike being a 4km range combined IIR and fiberoptic guided missile, while Gil is a 2km ranged weapon almost identical to Javelin-but it entered service several years earlier than Javelin.

Correct, but a good TOW gunner engages targets in the 7 to 11 Sec range. Rare is the tanker who can:
1. even realize he has been shot at
2. figure out where the missile is comming from
3. get that info to the gunner
4. sucessfully engage that very small target
all in 7 to 11 secs.

additionally Anti-tank teams work in pairs and while the TOW missile is heading down range the tank is getting hit with a steady stream of 50 cal from the M2 or 40mm from the Mk19, which destroys things like fire control components, radio mast, view ports, ect. a buttoned up tanker is slow to respond to a TOW threat.

BTW:
In Tank school when they thell the tanker the M1A2 can "survive" this or "survive" that. they are not talking about the crew. they mean the tank can be put back to service after they wash your blood out of it and perfom some depot level maint. Tankers coveralls have a drag handle in the back for a reason. Its easier to pull your body out the way for the mechanics.

BTW: I was 1rst Tank Bn USMC
April 90 - June 92

Right, if it's attached to the tripod though I believe you can also fire it over your shoulder like a Stinger which would require a manual elevation, otherwise the shooter is quite dead.

I was really surprised to see that the TOW2 was still a wire-guided missile. If the Bradley is hit while the missile is on its way that might screw up the shot. Not that any Iraqi tank could see any Bradley before it was destroyed, but still. IR is the only way to go (though it would be good to have wire as a fallback if possible).

Unless you're infantry only without armored or air support dealing with serious tank armor in the T80-T90 class, other systems such as the SMAW and M136 would probably be a better deal.

Kronagon,

[img]http://www.ndu.edu/nwc/nwcCLIPART/US_ARMY/Equipment/Weapons/Javelin/JavelinATMissile1.jpg[/img]

This is a Javelin system. It has no tripod, its allways fired from the shoulder.

Sitting here on a flat table, you can see the 15deg angle up that the missile has when clipped to the launcher, compared to the "eye" of the control unit.

If you look at the live fire MPEG, you can see how the missiles tail seems to drop after ejection and then the rocket motor fires, allowing it to assume the arching profile for the top attack. The guidence unit never moves from its focus on the target to angle the missile higher for launch.

The missile can make it to top attack mode from any of the four shooting positions. Only outside obsticles pose a difficulty. You cant use top attack when firing from underneath trees. You can use top attack from a building or from a covered fighting hole only if you crawl up to the window or firing aperture and make sure the launch tube mouth is clear of the surrounding structure before you fire. Both restrictions are simply so it doesn't bang into anything hard at launch.

By all accounts: [url]http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Mar1998/a19980326javelin1.html[/url]
They are a ball to shoot, but a pain in the ass to hump.

There is a small tripod that comes with the Javelin, it looks very similar to the type that are used with a cameras.  The angle the missile has on the sight unit is determined by if the missile will be used in a direct flight or top attack. It is angled up for top attack and strait for direct attack.

The SMAW itself is not a primary AT weapon.  The HEAA, anti-tank round is not normally carried and the DP round would have no effect on a tank.

I thought modern Russian/Ukrainian armor was equipped (don't know about western gear)with a sorta radar alerted scattergun defense against top attacking missles?

I don't have any idea if these countermeasures have any real effectivness or not.

Well it would seem a better buy to use a 1400 dollar M136 instead of a $75,000 Javelin to blow up a cave or a mud hut. And they do try, but sometimes its a matter of how close you can get to the target without taking severe casualties. There were a couple engagements during Anaconda where our troops got pinned down by HMG's, recoilless guns, and mortars in caves and rock fortifications. They couldn't get within the few hundred meter range of a M136 and only were able to advance because of air strikes or because heicopter gunships came in and fired equally expensive Hellfires into the positions. Was that really a cost savings over expending a half dozen or so Javelins?

The nice thing to have around again would be the old 106mm recoilless guns, a number of which still reside in storage.

Really? I thought the 15deg angle was perminant. Its allways shown in pictures angled up. I assumed that in direct mode, the missle just corrected itself after it left the tube and the fins deployed. The text descriptions say "selectable direct or top-attack engagement modes" but they left out this one little detail about how that actually worked..[:I]

The only page I had seen a Javelin on a tripod was on the Airborn Equipment Shop page, and I the way I read the article alongside it, I beleved it was something they wanted added and it didn't yet have. They are not shown on the manufacturer pages very often on tripods, in favor of action shots of it being carried or fired off the shoulder.

I have seen that. Wierd kit. This radar on a short mast that looks like a giant lantern on the back of the turret. And then panels around the turret and hull that look like reactive panels but are actually miniature claymores. I take it they don't expect to cooperate closely with infantry.

I havent seen many other pictures of it and it may just have been a experiment. Not only would it have problems with damaging friendly infantry and vehicles, it has the big flaw of being usable only once at a given angle untill a new charge is fitted. If the radar actually worked at detecting and tracking incoming missiles, they would have been better served by fitting a pair of small gatling guns on mechanical mounts. Less indiscrminate.

Meanwhile, this is what Boeing is working on:
[url]http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/missiles/slid/slid.htm[/url]

The Shtora anti-missile system detects an incoming missile and ejects a panel towards the missile.  A control wire detonates the panel, sending ball bearing-like projectiles at the missile.  After a panel has been used, the onboard computers will automatically slew the turret so that a fresh panel is presented to the next incoming missile.  

Sounds like a lot going on there, doesn't it?  Apparantly some German electronics company (or was it French?) is collaborating with the Russians on perfecting the electronics.

I've seen pictures of our guys using it with a tripod. It was probably deployed defensively to protect a temporary base or something.

I've also seen pictures of it being handled without the control unit. Not sure if you can fire other types of "dumb" rounds in this fashion.

Of course. Fires like an air-to-air or air-to-surface missile, then takes off like a Tomahawk cruise missile.

Yeah. Portable but definitely not manportable.

The people we are fighting and will likely have to fight in the future are still using T55s mostly, that are stopped by 30 year old M72 LAWs. The sheikdom that has oil (like Iraq) might have some T72s for their elite tank corps but that's it. A Javelin against a T72 is overkill unless, as ArmdLbrl pointed out, range is an issue.

Not sure how it would perform against the T72 package with reactive armor but I'll bet the crew would be dead from the concussion if the tank was still intact.

Uhhh, no. The new M1 armor is impervious to shaped charges, i.e. anti-tank missles. To bust it you will neet a tungsten sobot round.

Why do you think we switched from heat to sobot?

Did you read any of this thread before you posted?

The Chobham boxes are only on the turret and hull front. There is some spaced armor protection on the hull sides if the screens are fitted. The rest is just rolled steel armor. And its the roof and hull top that new missiles attack, and shape charges will penetrate there.

Why would what we use for armor dictate what we use for ammunition?  

Plus, we use the DU sabot KEP, not tungsten carbide.


Also, unless you have been completely oblivious to weapons development for..... all of history, you will note that as soon as an armor system is developped, a weapons system that can defeat it quickly follows.

The M1 is far from invulnerable.  It can and has been knocked out in combat.

Just so you know, thats what my Sergeant told me that at tanker school. Humm, I guess you would even say a K-pot aint bulletproof[BD]

i regress

Oh yeah, its carried by infantry. Its our lowest level true anti-tank weapon. Its just that it heavy when combined with the soldiers pack and existing gear. When soldiers can ditch their pack and carry only the launcher and rounds, then its quite portable. Even at 54 pounds complete launcher with round attached. Its just when it has to be carried [i]on top of[/i] 70 pounds of other material that it becomes a burden.

We have played with issuing handcarts for Javelin crews in light units, and also they get dibs on the limited number of John Deer and Poliaris ATVs in the inventory. This allows them to carry more rounds and help keeps the AT gunners from dropping out on marches from extreme fatigue.

The average issue is 6 launchers per company, but there is some variation between different types of unit. Airborne, Air Assault, and "regular" foot infantry have two Javelins in each rifle platoon. [url]http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-8/figA-2.gif[/url]
[url]http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-8/figA-3.gif[/url]
[url]http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-8/figA-4.gif[/url]

Light Infantry companies have a dedicated Anti Tank Squad as part of their company headquarters.
[url]http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-10/fig1-1.gif[/url]
Sections from this squad are allocated to the individual platoons as needeed.

Mechanized Infantry platoons have one Javelin with each dismounting squad. They can do that because they have vheicles to keep their packs in.

I am not sure where the Marines keep theirs, they may keep them in their infantry battalion heavy weapons companies, since the company weapons platoons already have a LOT of weapons to deal with already with the SMAW, light mortars, and GPMGs.