Posted on 01/28/2020 8:50:35 PM PST by Rabin
Javelin is a US-made, man-portable fire-and-forget anti-tank missile. It destroys bunkers, tank, trucks and low flying helicopters. When the gunner determines the target, coordinates are sent to the logic gob, which locks on the target. After launch and during flight the crew run like hell from the firing position. The missile is equipped with imaging infrared seeker to deliver an 8.4 kg tandem shaped charge. A precursor warhead detonates any ablative armor, then the primary warhead penetrates the base armor. Javelin is capable of destroying any main battle tank in the world today.
(Excerpt) Read more at military-today.com ...
Funny y’all should both post this, one after the other.
I worked for Hertz Rent a Car just out of high school. They had one of these down at the holding lot. And, it had the BIG engine. I was sent down to get it for a customer. Yes...I kicked it coming back up to the terminal. Scared the crap out of me, flat planted me back in the cushioned seat.
Because...
The tank crew you just pissed off is gonna put a heat roud up your ass as you think you are "running away".
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Javelin has one hell of a launch signature (hence why the crew runs like hell after firing) *and* is exactly one of the threats the Russian Arena active protection system was designed to defeat. The Ukrainian tanks also have a relatively recent version of Arena, so they know how it works. The latest versions of Arena will snap the turret around to have the main gun bear on the launcher even as the countermeasures blow the Jav out of the sky, all while alerting the crew to the threat, cuing up the target and asking the gunner if it is okay to fire (assuming the commander has enabled the latter.)
Javelin has several shortcomings in modern tank warfare, starting with the fact that you need significant vertical clearance to launch the missile, the fact that the system isn’t rapidly man-portable, and it’s minimum distance makes it difficult to deploy in urban combat. Further, you’re going to have to fire at least *six* if not more simultaneously in order to have any expectation of a hit on an Arena protected tank.
It’s understandable why the Ukrainians haven’t fired any - the Russians aren’t advancing in the open across cleared country where the Jav would have the best chance.
LOL !!! Only in one of Our M1A1/2 or maybe an Israeli Merkiva (sp) ?
The Ruskis don’t have a T-700 yet do they ?
What good does a HEAT round do against dismounted infantry?
Hosing the firing position with coax or firing HE, WP or cannister I can see.
Back before Javelins I was a Dragon gunner. The only tank I got to destroy was a Bundeswehr M113 with an Iron Cross on the side of it. It felt really good to watch it disappear in that ball of fire.
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I was a Dragon gunner in the Marines. Never got to fire one. Only one I ever saw fired went wild weasel due to a guide wire break.
Hated the Dragon. None of us trusted it.
“FIRE and adjust. Crew. caliber .50!”
I did armor Basic and AIT for the M60A1 at Ft Knox, lived in Disney Barracks, Nov ‘79 - Mar ‘80.
I do remember they taught SOP was to ride with a sabot or HEAT round in the tube and just fire it “battle sight” at any target or threat and then load whatever the TC wanted for a follow up shot.
Never saw a live heat round go off, didn’t know it set fires.
Gun week at Knox was all blue tip, clanging and sparks!
Tanks in Germany carried one or two beehive rounds aboard, cannister came in with the 120mm gun on the Abrams I believe.
Went to 3rd AD and was assigned to a Scout plt and never served on a tank, that’s the Army for you.
After OJT-ing I had 19D added to my MOSs, made E-5 and got to TC an ITV my last 8 months of a three year hitch.
Got home and enlisted in a Reserve 8” arty bn and became an FDC computer, wouldn’t have missed it, had a blast at all of it.
I got to fire a TOW one time and one of the guidance wires broke as soon as the flight motor kicked on and it took off at right angles to the target.
Apparently that happened a fair bit, we used up a lot of old war stocks munitions that year.
My first Scout squad ldr was an old Sheridan crewman.
He said the Shillelagh missile was worse and the 152 gun was no picnic, bad breach seals would vent gases and bits of smouldering propellant into the turret.
He had some funny tales of watching one get air dropped too.
Any ways, in ‘82 the tankers were shooting off live ammo on their ranges like crazy instead of the inert blue tip stuff, with FTXs right around the calendar, no sooner get back and do recovery than the bn was heading out again, Graf, Wildflecken, Hohenfels, REFORGER.
Money from Pres. Reagan’s build up was really flowing and suddenly we had lots of everything; fuel for maneuver training, ammo for the ranges, demo stuff, spare parts, new vehicles, school allocations.
We even ate better, no more chili mac, lol.
The HE part of the HEAT round will do more than firing sabot at them will...
The Russians have Arena fitted to all their frontline stuff now, since second Chechnya. Recent demonstrations in Syria against Leopard 2A4/2A5s has sent the US Army in a (justified if belated) panic to get an APS for our tanks.
I’m trying to remember the different 105 rounds we had for the M-60s.
HEP was, if I remember right, what we were supposed to use against bunkers and Infantry at a distance.
Really hard to hit with a HEP round. It used to curl up and right I think.
They taught us to use the telescope instead of the main sight.
I did run into a guy who shot down a moving helicopter with a HEP round.
I shook his hand. That would be a tough shot.
And we did have the beehive round.
The current M1 can track and hit attack helis with the 120mm gun with a decent gunner.
The Russian Arena system has been demonstrated as being able to identify a helicopter that’s launched a missile at it, overdrive the turret motors to bring the main gun to bear onto the chopper, and fire at it, causing the wire guided missile to go astray before the Arena system has to fire a countermeasure at the missile. It’s ridiculously fast and it’s been demonstrated to work in Syria as well as Second Chechnya. It didn’t do so well in the first Chechen war, though.
There’s no reason why Our Troops should be without APS !!!
The Army was justifying it as “We’re going to wait for Raytheon to make the QuickKill APS, there’s no real rush, for now our armor is good enough.” This was a common attitude among NATO nations, only with the name of the contractor and system changing.
And then came Syria, where everyone (and I mean everyone, because videos of these fights showed up on YouTube) suddenly found out that yes, the Russian Konkurs and Kornet missiles really *did* work exactly as advertised and would cheerfully shred front line NATO tank armor. NATO thought the capabilities of Konkurs and Kornet were overblown (just like a lot of not terribly bright Freepers think about any foreign weapon system) despite the Indians and the Israelis telling them (and us) otherwise.
The US Army got a nasty wakeup call that they couldn’t hit the snooze button on any more and in 2018 placed the first of a series of rush orders with the Israelis to retrofit the Israeli Trophy APS to our M1s.
The reason our troops didn’t have APS earlier? Stupidity, parochialism/Not Invented Here syndrome and unfounded feelings of superiority.
That’s de rigeur for heavy ATGMs these days. In the case of a tandem warhead ATGM, they do that *after* bypassing the ERA layer.
Kinda makes you wonder why it took the slaughter of Leopard 2A4s/2A5s in Syria by Russian heavy ATGMs to get NATO to wake up to the threat - and the fact that no practical amount of armor is going to keep ATGMs out of your fighting compartment. NATO is now hastily buying tank Active Protection Systems of the type that the Israelis have been making for decades and the Russians have had for about as long.
HEAT still goes boom and generates some shrapnel. It’s not ideal against infantry but it works a lot better than APFSDS against them.
That’s what tandem warheads are for.
They are technically correct in the case of Explosive Reactive Armor. They are detonating the ERA before it can diffuse the impact of the main cutting jet.
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