![]() ![]() In practice, missileers need to get a clean shot without, you know, getting killed in the process. ![]() That’s thousands of missiles that, in theory, can take out any Russian tank. As a bonus, the Javelin also has a top-attack mode, where it arcs up then dives down to hit a tank where its armor is thinnest. Today all three of Ukraine’s main ATGMs-the Stugna-P, RK-3 Corsar and Javelin-boast tandem warheads. That began changing as Kiev plussed-up defense budgets in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its subsequent support of the Donbas separatists. The second warhead punches through the hull.ĭual-warhead ATGMs have been around for decades, but the cash-strapped, pre-war Ukrainian army couldn’t afford them. The first warhead triggers the tank’s reactive armor. This add-on armor explodes outward to destroy an incoming projectile.Ī dual-warhead missile can penetrate this special armor. Russian tanks as a rule sport reactive armor on top of their hulls and turrets. That was easier in the early years of the fighting in Donbas. The imperative, for Russian tank commanders, is to suppress or defeat ATGM strikes as battalions breach Ukraine’s earthworks. European Command, said of the Ukrainian troops and their Javelins in 2019. Army general Curtis Scaparotti, then the commander of U.S. “I've been impressed with their training and their preparation to utilize it,” U.S. The Ukrainians have been drilling hard with their new missiles. Ukrainian commanders clearly are counting on the American anti-tank missiles, as well as locally-made ATGMs such as the Stugna-P and RK-3 Corsar, to help front-line troops blunt a Russian attack. Of all the forms of military assistance the Ukrainian government has sought from sympathetic countries, one initiative has been uniquely urgent and controversial-Kiev’s acquisition of thousands of American-made Javelin ATGMs. There’s no reason to expect that will change if and when Russia escalates the conflict.īut it’s worth noting that officials in Kiev seem convinced that anti-tank guided missiles might play an outsize role in any future fighting. Still, the big guns so far have had a lot of luck finding and killing tanks in Ukraine. They survive enemy artillery by digging in or, better, being somewhere else when the shells rain down. It’s relatively less burdensome to add enough steel or composite armor to the vehicle’s front arc to defeat direct-fire weapons such as tank guns or rocket-propelled grenades. Armoring a vehicle against a top-down strike by a heavy shell would impose a serious weight penalty. Tanks are uniquely vulnerable to artillery. Artillery, including rockets and mortars, accounted for most of the losses. The Ukrainian army last year revealed that 440 of its tanks were destroyed or damaged in Donbas between April 2014 and June 2016. So in a clash of two Soviet-style armies, what kills tanks? Unsurprisingly considering the doctrine at work, artillery is the biggest threat. No, what matters is the ability of each side to deploy adequate number of tanks for offense or defense, as well as the ability of those tanks to overcome the likeliest enemy countermeasures. ![]()
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