Posted on 03/01/2022 5:27:15 AM PST by blam
Ukraine is a highly devout country – about 87% of its 41 million citizens practice Christianity. So it’s notable that, to many Ukrainians, Mary Magdalene now has a new moniker: St. Javelin.
St Javelin (left), Ukrainian Defense Ministry / AP (right) via Euronews
The viral meme (shown above) recasting the “Apostle of the apostles” is in reverence to a device that knows no religion: the FGM-148 Javelin portable fire-and-forget anti-tank missile. Since the start of Putin’s dastardly invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian freedom fighters have extensively utilized the American-made weapon system – co-produced by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon – to rain destruction down upon the Russian military’s armored vehicles. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry estimates that 102 tanks and 536 armored vehicles had been destroyed as of February 26th. The Javelin likely factored heavily into that rousing combat success.
“This weapon allows a single soldier to target and destroy even the most heavily armored main battle tank with an almost guaranteed kill rate, at great range and with minimal risk,” Army Capt. Vincent Delany wrote of the Javelin for West Point’s Modern War Institute.
So how does this ‘holy’ piece of military machinery work? Laypersons might be envisioning a bazooka-like operation, but anti-tank weapons have evolved considerably since that quintessential rocket launcher was deployed in World War II. With the Javelin, a soldier using the portable, reusable Command Launch Unit (CLU) looks through an infrared sight to locate a target up to an incredible 2.5 miles away. When the user spots a target, he operates a cursor to set a square around it, almost like cropping an image. This is then sent to the onboard guidance computer on the missile itself, which has a sophisticated algorithmic tracking system coupled with an infrared imaging device. When the missile locks on to the target, the operator can launch the self-guided weapon and quickly relocate or reload to fire another missile at a different target.
Stuart A Hill AMS
The Javelin originally debuted in 1996, bearing a couple remarkable innovations. For one, it offers a “soft launch.” David Qi Zhang of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute explained what that means in his Master of Engineering thesis on the Javelin.
“The first motor… produces enough thrust to launch the missile out of the tube and a safe distance away, but is completely burned before the nozzle left the tube, leaving no exhaust to hit the operator. The flight motor then ignites to propel the [missile] along its attack path,” he wrote.
A second innovation of the Javelin is that it strikes from above. The missile rises high into the air, up to 490 feet, then blasts down on its target from a steep angle, striking the top of an armored vehicle or tank, where the armor is typically weakest.
(Please go to the site to view a video)
Russian tanks are not helpless against the Javelin. Most are equipped with explosive reactive armor. When struck by a penetrating weapon like a missile, the armor detonates, blasting a metal plate outwards to damage the missile’s penetrator and prevent it from piercing the tank’s main armor. The Javelin overcomes this by having tandem warheads, one to deal with the reactive armor plate, and the second to impact the tank’s armor itself. Modern Russian tanks are also equipped with a radar system called Arena, which detects incoming missiles and automatically fires a wide burst of projectiles to destroy or redirect them. But here, again, the Javelin reigns supreme, Delany says.
“The Javelin can defeat Arena while in top-attack mode, due to the missile descending from too steep an angle for the system to engage properly,” he wrote.
Ukraine had been shipped roughly 77 launchers and 740 missiles before Putin invaded. Many, many more of each are now on the way courtesy of the U.S. and European allies. May the Ukrainians put them to good use. Slava Ukraini!
Convenient, no? Yesterday an American in Uke strolled through Kiev with his cell phone. No explosions. No bodies. And he hates the Uke government.
The beautiful women there would make any man cheat to get ahead.
And if Russia is neutralized, Turkey will take their place as the next baddie we’re going to have to deal with.
Yes and all the Ukes that came to Brighton Beach Brooklyn were either Fake non-Jew Jews or russian mafia.
Javelins are not a panacea for Ukraine. They are an infantry weapon with relatively short range though there are longer range versions possibly available. They can certainly destroy tanks but the infantry themselves are vulnerable to an enemy that controls the air and has sufficient numbers of infantry and IFVs to counteract them. The best way to kill armor is still aircraft and other armor.
CNN, right?
/s
I made almost that same comment the other day.
They’re calling this the first social media war.
Very, very selective & deceptive imagery coming out of Ukraine.
Very, very telling...
Exactly my thought.
You can't even have a brawl at a Waffle House without it going viral hours later. Yet here we are in "WW3" and it's like March 1942.
Do I have to go to a movie house to see a newsreel?
Agree. There might be one other explanation. The Ukrainians know the terrain. They may be allowing the Russians to move in until they reach a point where the column could be be ambushed and the tanks could not manuveur. could be reminiscent of how the Russians lured Napoleon further and further closer to Moscow, then had the definitive battle at Borodino crippling the Grand Armee forever and ultimately resulting in its annihilation. Perhaps that is why the Russians have not moved much further. Not likely they can deploy effectively from where they currently sit.Yet it does seem very strange that this column does not appear to have been harassed in some manner.
“What am I missing here? Ukraine is corrupt as the day is long.”
And your point is???
Is the invasion of Ukraine by Putin justified due to the corruption of the government?
Is the Kremlin less corrupt than Ukraine?
Is the entire population of Ukraine corrupt?
Do all those hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the country deserve what is happening to them?
The Biden family is corrupt. Does that make this whole country corrupt?
Hey Vladimir! Don’t you have enough on your plate without posting at FR?
And also, like Russia is not corrupt? The president is the world’s richest man.
Ukrainians will fight until the last Russian leaves Ukraine.
No No No. The narrative being pushed by the left and media is that Trump and Putin are joined at the hip. Just the other day Trump called Putin smart. Countless masses of the low information/low IQ types actually believe this.
Don't forget the MRE's that Barack sent.
And the Ruskies know that terrain too.
The answer to every one of your questions is probably either a Bob Dylan song or a Johnny Prine song. Stuff is getting old we’re just chucking Faadle...
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