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Javelin, the super weapon


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I discovered Javelin as a "wunderwaffe" in Normandy mission when we have to assault in hadgeraw country WITHOUT arty support. I used my all available Javelin to soften up my way to the objective.

After this mission I alwayes used this cuties...

...but!

I have a question: in real life is it available so easy for troops as in SF? I mean, every Stryker squad have a lot of rockets and they can use it so free as I used it in SF? I don't think so... When I used it - it was fun - but I felt myself as a cheater.

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Originally posted by bardosy:

I have a question: in real life is it available so easy for troops as in SF? I mean, every Stryker squad have a lot of rockets and they can use it so free as I used it in SF? I don't think so... When I used it - it was fun - but I felt myself as a cheater.

Apparently, the UK Royal Marines fired their entire war stock of Javelin in Helmand province and ever once at an AFV. It's become their fire support weapon of choice.
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Javelin, if only 1 of 10 of these great waepons could avoid a man on ground, the costs are noting you should worry about.

Ingame in the Normandy mission me get really hard fights with a significant number of wounded or even dead. After a replay with it, the end was a nerly 0 w / 0 d win (ok, few wounded by shots throu terrain, have to play in low terrain details with my 8800 gts).

[ August 27, 2007, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Andro ]

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Originally posted by AdamL:

The reason the Javelin is becoming the "fire support weapon of choice" or whatever is because we have severely neglected the other branches meant to provide quick fire support, cheaply, accurately, to infantry at the front line.

Curious to know what branches you're speaking of. The US still has plenty of mortars of various flavors on the TOE, as well as AFVs, Attack Helicopters and F/Bs. What else did you have in mind?

Seems to me that the Javelin's use as a fire support weapon has more to do with the limitations of these "traditional" support systems have in the dense civilian population, low-intensity, counter-insurgency stuff that the US is stuck in right now. Simply put, I think the US military is more than happy to blow buck on firing off javelins, in exchange for a dramatically reduced chance of US and/or civilian casualties.

But I do think there is an understanding that there's a need for a cheaper, platoon-level HE chucker. IIRC, the US Military is looking at a cheaper shoulder-launched guided missile system, that would give the footsoldier instant HE kick, but at a much lower cost than the Javelin. Basically, a guided RPG.

But, if fielded, a cheap guided man-portable *guided* HE chucker at he platoon level would be a completely new weapon capability, not an "old branch" that's been "severely neglected".

Cheers,

YD

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Originally posted by YankeeDog:

the US Military is looking at a cheaper shoulder-launched guided missile system, that would give the footsoldier instant HE kick, but at a much lower cost than the Javelin. Basically, a guided RPG.

A lot the force development proffessionals have been looking at the M47 Dragon, in terms of capability. The problem is, this is the weapon Javelin replaces so there is a good deal of cognative dissonance kicking in.
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1600 Javelins have been expended in Iraq. A bit over 500 by the USMC, the rest by army. (Brits also have them, I am not counting those). The unit cost is $75,000, so that comes to $120 million worth of them fired. Peanuts compared to the ongoing cost of the war, but the number used is low for the force size and time involved. But it is a very effective weapon and clearly they are willing to use them on infantry building targets.

There were some occasions in Afghanistan where forces got into trouble through lack of heavy weapons, because they left Javelins behind as too heavy to manpack over mountain terrain. Especially early in the war in AQ hunts in the highlands, the men often left anything heavier than squad SAWs, AT4, or 60mm mortars at static base camps - Javelins, 81s, 50 cals, auto grenade launchers, sometimes even 7.62mm MMGs. This left them with a severe disadvantage in reach, that on call air could not readily cover.

That is evidence that a still-lighter handheld guided weapon would be useful in addition to Javelin, if one could be developed. It is also evidence that tactical practice veered too far away from heavy weapons overwatch tactics. (In other words, bring the stuff we do have and the weight be darned).

In CMSF, the blast effect of the Javelin - all ATGMs really - seems overmodeled (warhead weight looks more like explosive weight, which would overstate explosive power by a factor of 3) and the resilence of buildings to HE of all kinds is definitely on the low side of reality. This encourages their use. They are also the Stryker force type's main heavy weapon, whereas e.g. heavy forces have more gun firepower from M-1s and Bradleys.

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I personally think that the reason we are gamey with javelins is that we are not getting enough of the actual fire support we should be getting (ala. mortars and arty) Save the serious CAS for the Marines. That is were the real firepower is.

Side note yes IMHO they are also a little to powerful on the explosive side.

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I think Javelins are also overpowered because of the way the game works:

-you can take out entire buildings or floors, including all the enemy troops in them, although in RL the structural damage to buildings should be less, resulting in less enemy KIA;

-you can take out bunkers in one shot, since they are shown and presumably modeled as a stand-alone "building", whereas in RL, a bunker would often be a more heavily fortified trench, harder to take out with just one shot;

-you can take out most of an enemy infantry squad with one shot since they tend to bunch up, although regular infantry would spread out and seek cover making them harder to take out with one shot;

-there is no penalty for always carrying around a Javelin. Apparently, there is supposed to be a "fatigue" penalty for carrying a Javelin. However in game, I have not noticed a practical effect.

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

YankeeDog,

Back in the late 1980s, I remember reading that the IDF was working on something similar. Picket was supposed to use a cheap strap-down inertial platform to greatly extend the effective range of light antitank rockets. No idea what happened thereafter, though.

Regards,

John Kettler

Actually, I do know that, as of a few years ago, the US Military was looking at the Israeli SPIKE missile system as a cheaper man-portable missile system to complement the Javelin. The short-range (800m), shoulder fired version of the SPIKE is a fair bit lighter, and the per-unit cost less than 1/10 of what a Javelin costs, IIRC. I could see this eventually replacing AT4s in the US TOE.

I never heard what became of the SPIKE evaluation program, though. In typical Pentagon fashion, they probably dropped the perfectly good foreign-designed system, and instead have contracted a US defense firm develop a new system that will (a) take years of development before it reaches deployment, and (B) cost twice as much. :rolleyes:

Cheers,

YD

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I'm not a military expert, I'm just a gamer. So I'm amazed about this discussion and it's very interesing!

The non-CMSF stuffs also interesting, but I want refer to the game-related things.

1., In the v1.0 the Javelin was more effective. You said: one shot - one enemy squad. Or one shot - one bunker. But after the 1.02 the developer decrase the effectiveness: I tried the Normandy mission yesterday with Javelin and I couldn't finish the syrian squads in their trench (not bunker!) with one shot.

2., First time I avoid to use Javelin, because I affraid from the penelty (fatigue). But there is no any penelty in CMSF, so when I niticed this, I usually use Javelin as I said in the first post.

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