Javelin, the super weapon

[Bradley Dick]

Fire and forget is the way to go if you're a dismount. No doubt about it.

You're still probably going to get hosed by the enemy after you fire, but at least you scored a kill. And that's the idea, right? Trade a missle that costs tens of thousands of dollars and one troop for an aircraft or tank. Hell, maybe your soldier will even get away without being killed.

[Truppenfuhrung]

Just to be able to compare the price of the javelin...

What's the price of a Hellfire ?

[B00M$LANG]

Originally posted by Bradley Dick:

Fire and forget is the way to go if you're a dismount. No doubt about it.

You're still probably going to get hosed by the enemy after you fire, but at least you scored a kill. And that's the idea, right? Trade a missle that costs tens of thousands of dollars and one troop for an aircraft or tank. Hell, maybe your soldier will even get away without being killed.

I disagree...the whole point of the Javelin as a FaF missile (Fire and Forget) is that it gives the gunner and assistant time to displace and hide after firing. I disagree...the whole point of the Javelin as a FaF missile (Fire and Forget) is that it gives the gunner and assistant time to displace and hide after firing, BEFORE their location is pinned-down by the enemy.

Only if the people using the Javelin are retarded will they remain exposed long enough to get "hosed" by the enemy. In other words, they would deserve it.

Only if the people using the Javelin are retarded will they remain exposed long enough to get "hosed" by the enemy. In other words, they would deserve it.

[Uberpickle]

Originally posted by Truppenfuhrung:

Just to be able to compare the price of the javelin...

What's the price of a Hellfire ?

http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/systems/HELLFIRE.html

Originally written by the DoD

The cost per missile is about $58,000.

Now the Javelin....

Javelin is a portable antitank weapon. It is shoulder-fired and can also be installed on vehicles.

Contractor: Raytheon/Lockheed Martin JAVELIN Joint Venture.

Unit Cost: Approximately $100,000

[Truppenfuhrung]

I wonder if they try to install javelins on the predator.

Much more expensive than the Hellfire but it's also lighter.

[Bradley Dick]

Originally posted by B00M$LANG:

Only if the people using the Javelin are retarded will they remain exposed long enough to get "hosed" by the enemy. In other words, they would deserve it.

You can't outrun a tank's machine gun or main gun rounds. You're not always going to have a nice slick place with cover that stops main gun rounds from a tank. And they can see alot further than you can. Firing a missle at a tank at all, in my opinion, is an action deserving of a good hosing with the coax.

[snake_eye]

So the Javelin is expensive and heavy to carry around for a while, that's in real life!. in the game we don't have to care about the cost. since it works well, I usually take the CLU and 3 javelins while in the track.

The track, at first,stays sligthly at rear. As soon as the leading strykers found the ennemy and pick up their emplacements, I bring over the stryker and its squad with Javelins. They dismount and I target from the tanks,armored cars down to the MMG, bunkers....

The squad then re-mount in the track and advance.

I have found however in CMSF that the squad does not move as fast as required with 3 Javelins. That why, I fire them to known targets and keep eventually one of them for later action, removing what seems a weight factor to the squad.

(Have you notice it ?)

I have not used the Javelin as an area fire weapon, or against houses as a preemptive recon by fire.

Ok, some might say that it is cheating a bit to use it too such an extent, but after all it is a game and in a real conflict we don't have the opportunity to use them so freely. Platoon and their squads have to rely on light mortar most of the time during quick encounter(the artillery support takes time)and to go easy with the rounds. specially if dismounted.

[John Kettler]

snake_eye,

I hear the 1.04 patch will introduce THX 1138 style real time cost accounting, with your actual allowable budget known but faintly to you and handled via fuzzy logic. Blow your budget and your force is frozen in place for the rest of the game. Worse, doing so may trigger an automatic retreat from combat. Should tame such profligate resource expenditures!

Regards,

John Kettler

[snake_eye]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

snake_eye,

I hear the 1.04 patch will introduce THX 1138 style real time cost accounting

Well, John, that's real good news. I won't have the feeling to cheat by a Javelin abuse. however, I shall miss a bit the splendid impact effect of the missile.

That game is amazing and if I have been startled at the time by the preceeding CM X1, that one comes really to life and in real time, you almost duck under your desk or stay paralysed not knowing to do, when you are losing your awareness

regards

[kipanderson]

Hi,

No doubt others have mentioned this… but do remember that hard-kill defensive systems have been available, and certainly could have been available some years ago.

Because for the last fifteen years no First World nations have been squared off against each other… end of the Cold War and such… many of the upgrades that heavy armour would have undergone were put on hold. One of these is the deployment of missile defence systems that destroy incoming ATGMs.

Have click round here..

http://www.defense-update.com/

As early a ’97 the Russian Arena system was demonstrated internationally and found to work as advertised. These systems are not science fiction and if the Cold War had continued would have been deployed some years ago. They would have taken the sting out of the Javelin and the AT14.

BTW… you do not need the ultra expensive Javelin. As the RPG29 and its 105mm tandem warhead illustrate if you have a shoulder launched system that can penetrate the side armour of any MBT, and it has a range in the 500m class, attacking armour are anyway in a very vulnerable position.

The Javelin does not achieve anything that far cheaper systems cannot do just as well. But of course, it is a very fine weapon…as is the Israelis Spike… but over priced. Set the Syrian Republican Guards units to Excellent equipment in the unit editor, give them a few Special Forces AT platoons with their AT14s, and the anti-armour defence is easily good enough at a fraction of the cost of Javelin equipped troops.

All interesting stuff,

All the best,

Kip.

[John Kettler]

snake_eye,

You do realize I'm joking, don't you? As for CMSF, I've yet to play it, my 867 MHz lampshade iMac being utterly incapable of running a game I don't yet own.

Unfortunately, the long expected new computer funding hasn't yet appeared, and there was no Sneak Preview in my area.

kipanderson,

And back in 1983, there was Drozhd (Thrush) on the T-55. http://russianarmor.info It's described under Equipment.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ September 01, 2007, 02:44 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[snake_eye]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

snake_eye,

You do realize I'm joking, don't you?

So, do I John. I haven't put on an helmet yet while playing CMSF. But somehow, the cost could be implied through a stock allowance limitation to give a more realistic use of the Javelin as really done on the field. I have yet to load V 1.03 just downloaded yesterday.

Long live 1.03 hurra for 1.04 whenever it comes.

Regards

[JasonC]

kip - I'm not convinced.

I think 90% accuracy vs. 30% is still worth something. Far more than a factor of 3 actually, because a man will take a 90% shot far more readily than he will play Russian roulette with 4 barrels loaded.

I think 2.5 km range vs. 500m range is still worth something. Because AT weapons with limited range have combined arms counters in which the vehicles overwatch to the limits of LOS - or enough do so to KO each AT shooter that reveals itself.

In fact I think it is quite obvious these things are fully worth the price tag, and any engagement in which a $75k missile is actually used on a piece of armor (that run half a million to 3 million a pop plus personnel etc) is going to be both military- and resource- efficient. The only way to get resource inefficiency from them is to fire off hundreds of the things at individual enemy soldiers - which being rich we do, as the thread describes, etc.

As for active defense, that I agree is a very promising technology. And I agree it will make low velocity missiles much less effective and raise the importance of much higher velocity MBT penetrators. But when actually deployed, it will also just make missile speed and final approach "agility" more important design attributes in an ATGM - just as reactive armor defenses made tandem warheads important, and composite armor made top attack important, etc. It is an ongoing competitive design war, not a single move, single solution game.

I also note that many engaged armies are quite slow to field promising technologies. I mean, our enemies are nuts not to spring for e.g. terminal IR homing HEAT 120mm mortar rounds, Milan class ATGMs, improved Manpads, good night vision, CB radars, GPS jammers, etc. Let's just say efficient budgeting for cost effective technologies is not their leading characteristic.

[RT North Dakota]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

BTW… you do not need the ultra expensive Javelin.

Yes you, and you are missing the point.

Do youy need Jav for infantry fires support? No. Dragon, Eryx or Milan will do nicely.

Do you need Jav to kill MBTs at 3000m. Sure as hell. Milan takes 12.5 seconds to fly to max range at 1,850m. That's some 10 seconds of enemy counter fire, coming back at you and breaking your track on the target. Once Jav is on it's way, that's it. You can scuttle away, and find a new firing point. With Milan you had to hang on and pray.

This is real life stuff and I'm not sure how well this is simulated in the game.

[kipanderson]

Jason,

The AT14 can do anything the Javelin can do to any tank for way less. Also the mix of AT14 and shoulder launched “dumb” weapons such as RPG29 and RPG7s with the 105mm tandem warhead may make for a cheaper and more flexible AT defence than Javelin.

As stated before we live in an artificial world in which MBT defences have not been updated/modernised as they would have been in a world in which high intensity warfare between countries in the same technology ball park was deemed possible.

Once the hard and soft kill systems become standard…very soon now, large numbers of cheap, dumb AT weapons such as RPG29 may make for the best solution.

Time will tell… but small numbers of very expensive system would be very risky.

All the best,

Kip.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

BTW…. I agree that any Third World or poorer country that feels threatened by the US and NATO would do well to put its money into the most advanced shoulder launched AT and air-defence weapons it can.

But Saddam’s Iraqi was nation with other priorities than preparing for war against the west.

All the best,

Kip.

[JasonC]

The Kornet is noteworthy for its greater penetration and ease of use compared to earlier Russian ATGM systems, but still isn't as capable a weapon system as the Javelin.

Above all it is less deployable. It is tripod mounted and the whole system weights 145 lbs - 65 lbs for the missile alone, 25 lbs for the sight alone, the rest for the launcher and stand. A Javelin weighs 50 lbs for the entire system.

The Kornet is beam riding, so the operator must maintain the track actively throughout the whole missile flight, while Javelin is true fire and forget. The Kornet's laser is susceptible to smoke countermeasures, the Javelin's IR is not.

The Kornet has superior range in daylight, about its only significant edge.

As for cost per system, yes the Javelin is more expensive. But e.g. Eritrea just bought 80 AT-14 systems and its total cost was $32 million, or $400,000 per system. I've seen per unit quotes considerably lower, but by the time you've paid for all the components, servicing, and training, you are in the same range as the expense of Javelins (or TOW).

As for the RPG-29, it is a capable short range infantry AT weapon certainly, but it remains an unguided low velocity rocket launcher. The achieved velocity is around 280 meters per second, the same about as a US AT-4, which to me indicates the reasonable hit range is 400 meters maximum, with the hit chance getting decidedly dodgy even that far out, and 250 meters a more practical range.

As for it being "artificial" that all the armies fighting each other do not have best in the world, latest tech equipment, I think you have confused the meaning of the word. The real world is the one out there in which actual armies are shooting at each other daily, not the dreamy one between your ears. When major powers have sunk acres of real capital into older weapon systems and proliferated those to client states decade after decade, clearly being able to master all that legacy equipment is a military concern of the first magnitude.

In present spending, nobody comes close to the military expenditure of the US specifically, nobody but the Russians has even been trying for ages, and only China in the future has the wherewithall to do so. Expecting uniform present tech equipment for the rest of the world is silly; they are "the rest of the world" rather than great powers precisely because they can't match the leading country tech or military spending, to field the most advanced designs in quantity.

[JasonC]

Here is a well balanced Russian appreciation of the lessons of Lebanon on infantry AT and tank protection -

http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/2-2007/item2/item1/

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Not only does the US “not” have the best equipment in the world in almost every class… the Javelin is not the best in its class… but if other developed nations bothered to spend as much in percentage of GDP they would be just as lavishly equipped.

There is nothing in building military technology that a long list of countries round the world cannot do.. and do.. in small numbers.

The US does not have the best in pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, motors, towed and self propelled artillery, MBT, IFVs, ATGMs…. . Just look at what nations buy when there is a genuinely “open” competition.

But US equipment is good enough… which is all that matters .

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

[flamingknives]

Go on Kip, What is the best ATGM in the same class as the Javelin? Or, at least, what are better?

Re the RPG29, yes it's powerful, but it's also huge and surely has a massive backblast that would prohibit its use from confined spaces.

[JasonC]

Personally I think Israel's Spike is the only superior system out there, and nearly the only one in the same class.

[RT North Dakota]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Here is a well balanced Russian appreciation of the lessons of Lebanon on infantry AT and tank protection -

http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/2-2007/item2/item1/

I'd dispute the well balanced, but an excellent source none the less.

Many thanks.

NOTE: One of the Merkava kills was an AT-3 coming in through the open back door, during casualty evacuation.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

"Personally I think Israel's Spike is the only superior system out there,"

Exactly so . But the British would not buy it because of its origins.

All the best,

Kip.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

Stellar find with incisive analysis!

Regards,

John Kettler

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

Hi,

"Personally I think Israel's Spike is the only superior system out there,"

Exactly so . But the British would not buy it because of its origins.

All the best,

Kip.

So whether or not a system is the best often has nothing to do with who buys it.