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But the new stuff is better, by a lot?

I can’t tell you much except that the newest stuff is fire and forget so the attacking soldier does not have to steer the missile to the target (wire or laser guided). This allows the soldier to fire the missile and run. Once the soldier fires the missile he has shown the battlefield where he is, so better run. If he has to guide the missile he can’t run until the missile has hit the target.

The TOW attacks from the top where the armor is thinnest and there unlikely to be stand off armor.

I have to imagine that there is in development a missile with a double charge. The first charge would detonate reactive armor (such as the M1 tank has) and the second would penetrate the layered armor underneath.

Anyone hoping to defeat the M1 today has to fire at least two missiles. The first to detonate the reactive armor (the top layer explodes outward to deflect the missile). The second missile the must hit the same spot to penetrate (maybe) the M1’s further layers of armor.

Need to update your armor defeat database: the new TOW uses what's called a "self-forging" projectile. As the missile flies over its target, the proximity sensor triggers an explosive charge which forms and shoots a tantalum slug at very high velocity through the armor like a knife through butter. The energy of that penetration and the spall from the armor sprays superhot metal throughout the tank interior and as in the photo, ignites the tank's ammo.

Chicken wire or spaced armor or anything else will not affect this warhead.

An earlier poster wants to send a warning to jihadis that we have that kind of weapon. Unfortunately, the terrorists already have it: one of the more effective IEDs we faced in Iraq and are facing in Afghanistan is exactly this type of warhead, fired laterally from a roadside. Thanks to the Iranians, enemy forces have lots of these things, usually triggered by an IR beam, just like the one we use in stores to signal that a customer has entered.

You guys need to stay current.