The copperhead is guided by a forward observer...just like conventional artillery is spotted by a forward observer. And it isn’t a missile.
The Javelin is fired by dismounts.
Both are fine weapons, but not at all comparable to exposing the front of a main battle tank for a ten count, to guide a missile. If you’ve got a big gun that fires shape charges...just use it.
And the ‘tool in the loader’s rack’ argument doesn’t hold water. Everything, and I mean everything, in tank design is a trade-off. That missile in the loader’s rack displaces a conventional round.
Many moons ago, I was a tanker...and back then the old timers would talk about the M60, favorably....and talk about the Sheridan, unfavorably. Their complaints centered about the gun tube/missile launcher and the maintenance of it. According to them, it was lousy and un-needed. I believe them.
I think the Soviet/Russian doctrine makes them believe this is a good idea. Defense in depth...on a national scale against Hitler’s army, all the way down to the regimental level. Instead of lightly armed scouts, who see and report, they anticipate combat recon patrols, with BMP’s and tanks paired together. They see the enemy, they take a shot. In this scenario, a missile makes sense...since they are firing from an un-seen position...and probably against a scout or small element. Still bad doctrine though.
And I can think of absolutely no scenario in which a tank would fire an anti-radiation missile. Ignoring for a minute that aircraft/drones could fire these...what purpose would it serve? If a tank can see something, it doesn’t need guidance, it will just kill it with a sabot or HEAT. If it can’t see it....we have artillery and mortars.
BTW, if you are BEHIND just about any tank in the world, you don’t need top attack, you don’t need belly attack. Just hit the rear grill with just about anything.
Back in the days when I was with DIVARTY 1AD, we had a Copperhead go unobserved.... Talk about SHTF. Graf was locked down for a few days until what was left of the round was found.
And I was one of them. I took my 11Echo AIT at Knox in the mid-1960s [in an an M48A2C] and went on to subsequent tours in USAREUR in a '60A1 [our battalion was the armor support for an Infantry division, so we were mostly equipped with early M60s in the line companies, but the HQ co tank section in which I served as driver, then gunner and finally as HQ63 TC was a trio of M60A1s. We must have been doing something right; in 1966 2/70 Armor posted the Table Eight High Tank Battalion gunnery score for USAREUR...and there was MUCH griping among the then-existing USAREUR tank division units when they got to spend their weekends pulling extra training trying to catch up to the standard we had set. In the meantime, I also pulled serveral tours on the 5KM zone along the East German/Czech border [check the towns of Rotz and Weiden on a map; not too far from Graf] watching and listening for signs that the Eighth Guards Tank Army might be coming a-visiting. Army helos were Just getting the [first generation] TOW around then; the Bundeswehr was developing Jagdpanzer Rakette with the HOT missile, later superceded by followon versions of the TOW with longer range and more precise guidance...though the 90mm gun-mounting Jagdpanzer Kanone [cannon] was very much in service. The T62 was our primary concern at that time, 1966-1968, and anything that could help us whittle down the expected 17-1 numbers facing us was very much considered helpful.
As things turned out, I fell among bad influnces and naughty companions at Bad Toelz and Lenggries, and they managed to successfully convince me to throw myself out of crapped-out Luftwaffe C-119 *dollar-nineteen* transports in the general area of the West German jump school at Altenstadt, whereupon I was presented with a very nice set of German jump wings with the *diving duck* abzeichen rather than the usual *foreigners* wings that most Americans got...but I was in a regular Fallschirmjaeger company training class conducted in the German Language and my last name is Germanic, and I think they took pity on the poor Ami: after qualifying I rather unhappily reported to the Seventh Army Parachute Delivery Detachment then trying to figure out how to air drop the M551 Sheridan AR/AAV [mustn't call it a light tank!] in places where they might do the most good. The Soviet VDV had airborne delivered PT76, ASU and very early BMP para support vehicles, which they dropped with crews inside, ready to go. Some brilliant staff officer seems to have figured out that we could do the same, which dream punctured after we'd seen what was left of one M551 on which one of the triple-canopy chutes failed to open. As it was, even a good landing flat on the tracks broke suspension torsion bars, and a couple that winds put the vehicle in a nose-down or tail-down position resulted in probable mobility kills at the very least. But as part of the process, I did qualify as a Sheridan crewman. Yes, the *caseless* M8 main gun rounds had their problems, one being cook-offs of reload rounds from the still-smouldering residue from a first shot. No, the Sheridan was not as accurate with conventional rounds as a M60A1; we proved that at Table 8 at Graf. But at 3 klicks, a first-round hit with the missile was pretty much a sure thing, if there was no WP smoke between us and them to burn away the guidance wires. WE only carried 20 rounds of conventional main gun rounds, and 9 missiles, not a real happy prospect when thinking about those 17-to-one odds I mentioned. Oh yeah: after the first round is fired, you have the loader dump a CO2 fire extinguisher shot into the open main gun breech to prevent a cookoff of the Burst On Target round....
Problems with the gun/missile launcher may or may not have been equally true with the M60A3 with the launcher; I'm pretty sure they carried more rounds, at least, though they weren't even close to being swim-capable. Which was part of why we got a pair of AVLB *scissors bridges* mounted atop old M48 chassis. Though supposedly armed with only a .50M2 and a pair of M3 greaseguns inside, in fact our two AVLBs had more firepower than every other vehicle in the battalion combined. Not bad for a couple of single-shots....
Their complaints centered about the gun tube/missile launcher and the maintenance of it. According to them, it was lousy and un-needed.
The 11th Cav Blackhorse Sheridan outfits in Vietnam seemed to do pretty well with them, though that may have had a lot to do with the M625 canister rounds for the M8/M8E1 guns. The nylon *bag charge* ammo had a horrible habit of catching fire if a mine or B40/RPG penetrated the hull, and there was absolutely no way that the rate of fire of an M48 or M60 could be achieved: fifteen rounds a minute was possible with even a rookie driver with the M68 main gun, and a good Sheridan/M60A3 crew could get off two, maybe three on a really good day...if they had enough fire extinguishers. Having one M551 or M60E3 along with a conventional tank platoon [now four tanks instead of five] or with a HQ co tank section, yes; but instead of the *real* tanks? Oh no. On the other hand, the M551 was pretty good about not tossing tracks or high centering in mud...at least until they up-armored the hulls to cut down on mine losses. Tradeoffs? You betcha....
I think too that the use of the M551 by the 82nd Airborne during Panama was more a result of*anything is better than nothing* but that 152mm round makes a real nice door-knocker [Patton's Third Army tankers often took along a 105 howitzer-equipped Sherman when cities/towns couldn't be bypassed...and sometimes, a 155mm self-propelled howitzer.] Of the 14 M551s used in Panama by the 82nd, 4 were brought in by C-5 Galaxys after the airport had been secured, and 10 others were dropped by air 2 of which were destroyed when they landed; should have LAPESed or LVADed 'em in instead, I expect. Oh, one other neat Sheridan feature appreciated in Vietnam and Panama: the TC could take his turret control *Cadillac* outside the turret and *shoot from the hip* while riding on top, handy if you have concerns about mines setting off all your main gun rounds at once.
If a tank can see something, it doesn’t need guidance, it will just kill it with a sabot or HEAT. If it can’t see it....we have artillery and mortars.
So do the other people. Which is why a *fire-and-forget* missile that would home in on a forward observer that the TC and Gunner can't see could be a real useful thing.
Ever get a main gun kill on another tank? I have. Ever get a AFV kill with an ATGM? I have....[Nope, wasn't with a TOW or MGM-51 Shillelagh....]