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Unfortunately, a lot of the videos and foreign media sources that documented it have gone down the memory hole. Often due to YouTube's puritanical purge of any violent coverage not posted by their US media allies. There were multiple rebel videos of Javelins being fired and getting Arena'd prior to impact.

The Arena system can fire upwards in a limited arc from the launcher station. A true top down (as in perpendicular to the surface) attack will get through on any Arena system... but Javelin doesn't *have* a true perpendicular attack. From US Army FM 3-22.37 "JAVELIN MEDIUM ANTIARMOR WEAPON SYSTEM", this is the 'top down' attack profile of a Javelin:

Note that the Jav is noted to come in at about a 45-odd degree angle. Arena 1 and 2 is generally specced as being able to only protect to +15 degrees above the launcher with Arena 3 being quoted as being +20 or more, so a solo tank with Arena is going to be hard pressed to protect itself against a turret-top targeted Javelin - but Arena does have a "buddy protect" mode where a tank in a formation with a better angle can fire and blast a top down attack missile attacking a neighbor tank - so the weakness of the older Arena systems is often mitigated in the field. (This was noted by the South Koreans who were looking to buy an APS for their tanks and were trialing Arena among other systems - they decided their use case required a solo tank be able to defend itself against top down and bought another system.) To be fair, Syria was actually pretty much ideal for this coverage as there was often more than enough room and little enough buildup that Arena-equipped tanks often had more than enough room to employ 'scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' systems like this. I will cheerfully concede that this is likely to not be the case in the more urbanized Ukraine. One thing of note is that Arena is heavy and prior to Arena 3 (in 2013), could *not* be installed on a vehicle that did not sport heavy armor due to how it worked. None of the Arena systems are infantry-safe either. So until recently, only their MBTs were Javelin resistant and even now the vast supermajority of their non-MBT armor is hideously vulnerable to a Javelin.

OK. I truly get where you are coming from. I will debate it no further. I’m far from a military “expert” but I am a fan of military equipment and history and know much more than the average civilian. My family has an extensive military memberhship history also.

All I know is what I’ve read. Janovsky reported seeing Russia’s tanks destroyed by BOTH TOW and Javelin missiles. He does say that some didn’t quite do the job.

As for me, I don’t think any weapon is always foolproof. That clearly includes our tanks and missile “defenses” too. Russia still possesses a lot of potentially deadly weapons that can certainly kill.

One thing is very clear though, Russia frightened of Javelin as much as the West is of Kornet.

Good night. Thanks for the interesting debate. I could go all night but won’t. LOL

You can see their promo videos featuring Arena on BMPs back to 1993. The promos stipulated the modification capable to defeat top attack munitions already back then. It is not that hard, given that Javelin is a very slow missile. Early APS developed for the Afghan war lacked the angle of protection because top attack wasn’t a threat at the time. That’s ‘Drozd’ on T-55AD with the 60 degree protection arc, primarily geared against RPG/recoilless rifles. It was about 80% effective in field. Arena is obviously more capable.