TOW II is still wire guided. The usual countermeasure is for artillery and battalion support mortar fire to lay screens of white phosphorous smoke preceeding a tank attack, which burns through the command guidance wires.
I'm trying to imagine where you might be able to get a TOW that wasn't copped from a government ammo shed. That sorta precludes legitimate ownership, IMHO.
But I do have a question...
20 years ago when I was ROTC we got to load and 'launch' a dummy TOW. The TOW is not small enough for one person to deploy; the one we used was jeep-mounted and quite cumbersome. I'm curious if the old fly-by-wire is now laser guided...
I don't think you can. UNLESS you can buy it from some of the overseas customers who will sell back to you what the US Gov sold to them. (There's probably laws against bringing them back into the country.....my point was that entrapping weapons collectors with FBI agents peddling Tow missiles is a violation of my 2nd amendment rights. Since I have a right to buy weapons, they shouldn't be enticing me with ones that they ALREADY know to be illegal. I don't mind them stinging gangs, terrorists, crime syndicates. I mind them setting up some poor yahoo who collects exotic weapons.)
The tow is cumbersome. But they really did intend it to be deployable by one guy (and his hummer.) Don't know about laser versus wire.
Have you seen the new javelin? It is a "soldier-carried" anti-tank, fire-and-forget missile. Awesome. Aim, pull the trigger, and run like hades. It will change the battlefield.
TOW II is still wire guided. The usual countermeasure is for artillery and battalion support mortar fire to lay screens of white phosphorous smoke preceeding a tank attack, which burns through the command guidance wires.