I'd argue that the NLAW's probability of kill is comparable, easier to use and its cost is radically lower. The Javelin is a great weapons system, and is highly complimentary to the NLAW - but if I was forced to pick one thing to arm my force with it'd be the NLAW (or maybe the Spike-SR).
> The NLAW may have a maximum range of 600 or even 800 meters, but it also has a minimum range of 20 meters. Below that range its fuse isn’t meant to go off.
> So most likely, the lucky tank was actually too close for the NLAW to work as intended.
NLAW direct attack mode is intended for soft targets. Its shaped charge warhead points down at a 90 degree angle from the direction of flight. It is intended to detonate while the missile flies over the top of the tank shooting a jet hypersonic molten metal down into the most lightly armored part of the tank. If you use the direct attack mode against a tank it's probably not going to work much better than just throwing an equivalent amount of high explosive at the tank which usually won't do shit.
I hope users know that mode as "Unarmored target mode". Knowing nothing about this I can imagine non-professional soldiers selecting "direct attack" because that sounds intuitively like a thing that would work against a tank.
If I had to choose, I would take the Stugna-P. You guide it with a laptop and don't have to hold it up to fire (it's mounted on a tripod), and the range is much further (4km!).
Remotely operated might be a better descriptor. Instead of getting shot at from the tank or infantry support, you can set up the missile and hide in a ditch/building.
Apparently a man-potable javalin's range is a 2.5K. The thing I think about is that the amount of of area one has to secure around their tanks using infantry/drones/whatever. The area increases with the square of the counter weapon's distance.
But if we're picking anything, I'd also take a kamikaze drone. While they're ineffective against tanks directly, the logistical support and forward bases are very soft targets, and you could essentially make tanks impractical.
Just feel like a drone is a great psychological warfare weapon, you're never safe even behind your lines.
Surely some sampling bias here but, in the overwhelming majority of videos of Russian vehicle kills I've seen, the guys are using a Stugna. Sometimes even a repurposed export model with UI text in Arabic or something.
They are very different types of weapons. The NLAW's range is inferior at a basic level and the missile itself does not actually track the target making shots out to the edge of it's theoretical range very difficult, unlike the Javelin. While both Javelin and NLAW are top attack munitions, their flight trajectories are very different. The NLAW flies more or less in a line from launch to directly above the target and then detonates its shaped charge warhead which shoots down as the missile flies over (i.e it explodes down, not forward). Its flight trajectory is more vulnerable to active protection systems compared to the Javelin's true top attack mode (but that's not an issue against Russians). The warhead is also smaller and less effective. The NLAW is a great weapon but its constraints are apparent in many cases.
The nlaw was already obsolete 40 years ago. Every tank has explosive reactive armor and the nlaw is a single warhead projectile. It's useful against trucks and ifvs but against even a tank from the 80s its basically useless.
The NLAW is easier, cheaper, and if it hits probably has similar lethality, but the Javelin is much more likely to hit in the first place. The NLAW isn't really guided: you point it at a tank, track it through the sights for a moment, then fire, and the missile will keep blindly tracking the movement of the tank. So if the tank stops or turns then the NLAW will keep deflecting and will miss. The Javelin actually does have sensors on the missile to track the tank, so it can compensate for changes in direction. Now, when you're fairly close you can probably get away with just momentum tracking, so the NLAW is perfectly fine in many circumstances, but the Javelin is much more likely to hit in any scenario.
I think it depends on the terrain in which you're operating on and whether you're on the offense or the defense. In urban or wooded terrain where engagement distances are shorter, the NLAW is probably a little better. In desert or plains where engagement distances are longer, the Javelin is probably better. If I were in flat terrain or on the offense I would not want to be carrying a weapon with a range of 800m when the tank I'm fighting has a range of 3000m.
In terms of total capability yes, but as an insurgent weapon the nlaw is arguably better. It's much smaller and lighter and deploys faster while being cheaper. The javelin has better performance and can target aircraft, but both kill a T-72 equally dead.
> The nlaw was obsolete against tanks 40 years ago.
That's going way too far. Lots of tanks around the world still don't have ERA, and ERA doesn't make tanks impervious anyway. You can put a lot of ERA panels on a T-72 but there will always be gaps.
from the front there's more ERA than there are gaps by a large margin. You're not likely to destroy a tank with one, and it can shoot back at you. When equipping someone with weapon for a life and death fight, betting on a weapon unlikely to work because 'there are gaps' is not a winning strategy.
Pretty much every part of a modern AGTM is made out of fancy high dollar materials and the QC processes on these materials and assemblies are staggeringly expensive (and it's worth it, imagine how much a dud would damage the troops confidence in the weapons system, when you're the underdog you can't afford that kind of doubt.)
They aren't cheap, but they aren't expensive for what they are.
The ATGM also doesn't have the offensive capability of a current tank so you get what you pay for.
If your goal is to just inflict large cost upon the occupiers until they get bored after a decade then ATGMs are great. If your plan involves routing them with a counter-attack ASAP you'll probably find them lacking.
I've read a couple of posts over the years from people here who've actually tried to sell to the US military. All of them said the process was highly rigid and politicised, and seemed to be more of a way of funneling money into well-connected organisations than getting the best equipment for the soldiers.
In any case, the processes and diligence required are extensive which creates a huge barrier of entry. It creates an environment where it's much easier to go with a company that knows all of your requirements and compliance needs.
Like everyone, these procurement people are probably overworked and would rather pay a bit more to reduce their risk and handholding required. They're more likely to be personally blamed for failure of a new vendor, than one that's been used extensively. The upside is limited for them.
Is this bad? Well... allowing silicon valley to self-drive cars is about my upper tolerance. Space-X is getting there, so they're a good example of what's needed to succeed in that space.
You need to make sure as much of the supply chain is domestically producible as possible. A cheap system that relies on China (or international shipping in general) aren't what the military wants.
There probably are opportunities for savings, but there are also significantly higher development costs than your random shitty piece of consumer tech. Low volume, life critical, has to survive harsh environments and have a minimal failure rate, has to go through many rounds of design specification and verification, has to be backwards compatible a long way... etc.
This isn't a fragile laptop you can sell a hundred million copies of.
> Low volume, life critical, has to survive harsh environments and have a minimal failure rate, has to go through many rounds of design specification and verification, has to be backwards compatible a long way... etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if the 'low volume' part of that statement can be revised a year from now.
They're being used up at a pretty fair clip right now; Ukraine has been provided 7,000 so far, which is about a third of the US inventory. Current production volume is only sufficient to replace those in a bit over a year, which is giving a few folks the heebie-jeebies, and who knows how many more will be sent, and whether there will be a push to enlarge the US stockpile.
So, current production volume is almost certain to be ramped up to replenish the inventory faster, and I would bet that at the same time production capacity will be modernized and ramped up even more (since it looks like when you need to use them, you may need to use them a lot), leading to the per-missile cost coming down, which of course may mean that they'll be handed out and deployed even more widely and used up even faster (per the Jevons paradox), which at some point even starts shortening the design iterations.
Many consumer products do get produced in that sort of volume, but consumer electronics often are produced in smaller numbers, when considered on a per-sku basis.
There's a reason the Commodore 64 remains the most popular personal computer ever sold: There was really only one model, and it sold millions. Even though the market has expanded hugely since the 80s, it has also fragmented, and no personal computer, not even the original iMacs, has ever reached that level of popularity since.
So, given that the production volume for Javelins may be doubled (at least, and potentially much more if they start being exported more freely), it isn't unreasonable to expect some cost savings.
> Why does a single missile cost $80k? Is it just profiteering or is there an actual technical/economic reason for this?
Unit costs tend to be estimated by dividing the total amount of cash spent on a weapons program and divide it per deployment unit.
Let's put it this way: if you invest a million bucks on a R&D program for a donut factory and in the end you close shop after getting a single donut out of the program, that would mean that donut cost 1 million bucks to make.
I think the “typical” target in recent American wars is a twenty year old Toyota pickup with a machine gun bolted to the bed. In that case, the Javelin is at least 10x more expensive.
Presumed they were used literally against tanks. But it makes sense to use against lightweight vehicles that pose somewhat similar threat against infantry.
That's fine. In the context of deployed US soldiers on a battlefield, the US can trivially afford to take out trucks and jeeps with Javelins if it makes sense in the scope of harming the enemy's capabilities.
Even if it were true, it wouldn't necessarily matter. Cost-to-cost comparisons, while having some value, don't give the full picture. Real wars aren't wars of attrition between opponents with balanced resources. It's also hard to put a dollar value on the experienced tankers killed by those missiles. The loss of hardware is only part of that picture.
In addition to losses directly caused by the Javelins themselves, these missiles force the enemy to change tactics, often slowing their advance and making the battlefield safer for friendly forces (such as by destroying anti-air vehicles).
>Cost-to-cost comparisons, while having some value, don't give the full picture. Real wars aren't wars of attrition between opponents with balanced resources.
Israel's Iron Dome system was and is criticized for its missiles costing far more than the rudimentary Palestinian projectiles they shoot down.
While true, the true measure is whether the Iron Dome missiles are worth more than the damage the Palestinian weapons would cause.
There is also psychological damage to your populace to take into account. In Israel’s case, the iron dome prevents enough civilian deaths that the public and war hawk politicians don’t clamor for a “real” war against Palestine.
An actual war could quickly spiral out of control if third parties intervene, and the cost of that is far greater the attrition of using a missile defense that’s too good at its job.
> The irony of using Javelins to destroy pickup trucks and machine guns is that the roughly $80,000 Javelin missiles cost considerably more than the weapon systems they are destroying. This has reportedly has led U.S. forces to at times hold back on using the weapon in Afghanistan.
This was not talking about their earlier uses vs. tanks, rather later targets when there were fewer tanks on the board.
A Javelin costs around $178K ($78K for replacement missiles only). The NLAW costs around $35K/ea. The NLAW weighs 12.5 kg. The Javelin weighs 22.3 kg.
So even if we agree a Javelin is technically superior, is it 2x an NLAW in weight or 5x NLAW in cost superior?
Plus the NLAW is easier to use, almost turn-key, and typically can be deployed by one soldier instead of two.
Sometimes good enough is good enough, and that feels like it applies here. If I was in charge of ordering, I'd definitely take a handful of NLAWs over a single Javelin because my assumption is many won't be in the right place at the right time or will be damaged/lost before utilized.
The reality is that a mix of both is great, in particular if they're free. Javelins are great weapon systems at medium range.
They're very different weapons; an NLAW is unlikely to incapacitate a tank at any range, whereas a Javelin has a high probability of destroying a tank at 500-2500m. The NLAW can be very useful against structures or softer targets like APCs and IFVs.
There are lots of videos of NLAW's taking out Russian tanks on Youtube etc. The biggest difference is that an NLAW is only good to 1000m, whereas a Javelin is good to 3500m. In urban and wooded battle fields like around Kyiv that's not a massive difference, but on the Eastern Front where the land is much more open, it'll be a big deal.
> They're very different weapons; an NLAW is unlikely to incapacitate a tank at any range
SAAB claims that the NLAW "(...) can destroy a heavily protected modern battle tank with one shot, and the system is effective at ranges between 20 and 800 metres.)
Do you have any source that substantiates your personal assertion?
> The NLAW can be very useful against structures or softer targets like APCs and IFVs.
Wikipedia's article on Russia's battalion tactical group mentions that each is comprised of 10 tanks and 40 IFVs.
Even if we take your personal assertion at face value, and given that disabling a IFV also takes infantry out of the picture, it seems the NLAW showcases an impressive bang for the buck.
The NLAW is apparently very popular among Ukrainian troops because it is more convenient to use in the confines of urban warfare (don't remember the details). Sometimes the best tool for the job is not the most sophisticated one. It may not be strong enough to take on the best Western armor, but it has certainly proven to be adequate for taking out Russian tanks.
That's the place for the Matador[0]. There's been a few videos of NLAWs hitting point blank but not doing anything simply because they were too close to arm.
Interesting to note the article is from 2021, and says Javelins haven't been tested against modern tanks. I guess now they have been, but maybe hard to say how effective because of fog of war.
Here's a YouTube video I recently stumbled over that expresses skepticism about their effectiveness in the current UKR/RU conflict.
This article rang a bell with me. It's basically word-for-word the script for this video which was posted more than a year before date on the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6COKC5ZU6gM
I don't know why this is or if anyone cares, just thought I'd mention it
I just linked to same video! I would never have noticed it was word for word! You're right.
My suspicion is the YouTube channel is a content factory, where the guy narrates a published article over whatever military B-roll video they can find. I highly doubt it was reverse.
Still sorta useful. It's nice to see the actual weapon, and I doubt I'd ever normally read the article otherwise.
>My suspicion is the YouTube channel is a content factory, where the guy narrates a published article over whatever military B-roll video they can find. I highly doubt it was reverse.
I've seen this with several YouTube channels with very generic military-sounding names. I hadn't realized/expected that the channels would just plagiarize existing articles, though!
And what should happen to engineers who spend their time on Earth working at a job that pays better, while a foreign country is creating weapons with which to invade their country?
"Deserves" is a strange word in this context. Did the ukranian software engineers "deserve" to get invaded? No, but it happened.
But you seem to be saying that if they defend themselves, they do deserve to get invaded?
You seem to be following a very long-running fallacy that you can unilaterally opt-out of violence. Ordinary citizens in safe countries fortunately can opt-out, but only because others are in the business of war protecting us from the likes of Putin. Condemning those good warriors is perilous.
85 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 165 ms ] threadThe only thing I've seen about the NLAW is a direct hit on the top turret of a Russian tank doing absolutely nothing.
> So most likely, the lucky tank was actually too close for the NLAW to work as intended.
Who knows how it works in practice.
NLAW - 40k Javelin - 80k missile + 140k launcher Stugna - 20k missile
I suppose it depends on the type of terrain, but it would be interesting to know some representative figures.
Javelins can be fired from inside a building, which'll be nice in close urban quarters.
But if we're picking anything, I'd also take a kamikaze drone. While they're ineffective against tanks directly, the logistical support and forward bases are very soft targets, and you could essentially make tanks impractical.
Just feel like a drone is a great psychological warfare weapon, you're never safe even behind your lines.
So what if I turn my country into a radioactive dump. It's my radioactive dump and you'll only get it over my dead body.
That's going way too far. Lots of tanks around the world still don't have ERA, and ERA doesn't make tanks impervious anyway. You can put a lot of ERA panels on a T-72 but there will always be gaps.
They aren't cheap, but they aren't expensive for what they are.
If your goal is to just inflict large cost upon the occupiers until they get bored after a decade then ATGMs are great. If your plan involves routing them with a counter-attack ASAP you'll probably find them lacking.
In any case, the processes and diligence required are extensive which creates a huge barrier of entry. It creates an environment where it's much easier to go with a company that knows all of your requirements and compliance needs.
Like everyone, these procurement people are probably overworked and would rather pay a bit more to reduce their risk and handholding required. They're more likely to be personally blamed for failure of a new vendor, than one that's been used extensively. The upside is limited for them.
Is this bad? Well... allowing silicon valley to self-drive cars is about my upper tolerance. Space-X is getting there, so they're a good example of what's needed to succeed in that space.
This isn't a fragile laptop you can sell a hundred million copies of.
I wouldn't be surprised if the 'low volume' part of that statement can be revised a year from now.
They're being used up at a pretty fair clip right now; Ukraine has been provided 7,000 so far, which is about a third of the US inventory. Current production volume is only sufficient to replace those in a bit over a year, which is giving a few folks the heebie-jeebies, and who knows how many more will be sent, and whether there will be a push to enlarge the US stockpile.
So, current production volume is almost certain to be ramped up to replenish the inventory faster, and I would bet that at the same time production capacity will be modernized and ramped up even more (since it looks like when you need to use them, you may need to use them a lot), leading to the per-missile cost coming down, which of course may mean that they'll be handed out and deployed even more widely and used up even faster (per the Jevons paradox), which at some point even starts shortening the design iterations.
There's a reason the Commodore 64 remains the most popular personal computer ever sold: There was really only one model, and it sold millions. Even though the market has expanded hugely since the 80s, it has also fragmented, and no personal computer, not even the original iMacs, has ever reached that level of popularity since.
So, given that the production volume for Javelins may be doubled (at least, and potentially much more if they start being exported more freely), it isn't unreasonable to expect some cost savings.
Unit costs tend to be estimated by dividing the total amount of cash spent on a weapons program and divide it per deployment unit.
Let's put it this way: if you invest a million bucks on a R&D program for a donut factory and in the end you close shop after getting a single donut out of the program, that would mean that donut cost 1 million bucks to make.
???
A cheap tank cost upwards of a million dollars, while a javelin would cost in the low hundreds of thousands.
"Typically", a javelin costs at least 4x less than its targets. On average, I'd argue it's probably 8-10x cheaper.
Presumed they were used literally against tanks. But it makes sense to use against lightweight vehicles that pose somewhat similar threat against infantry.
Israel's Iron Dome system was and is criticized for its missiles costing far more than the rudimentary Palestinian projectiles they shoot down.
While true, the true measure is whether the Iron Dome missiles are worth more than the damage the Palestinian weapons would cause.
An actual war could quickly spiral out of control if third parties intervene, and the cost of that is far greater the attrition of using a missile defense that’s too good at its job.
This was not talking about their earlier uses vs. tanks, rather later targets when there were fewer tanks on the board.
Wikipedia cites unit costs of Javelin closer to $200,000 than $80,000.
Longer range + tripod + remote control seems safer for operators. The Javelin might be second to Stugna-P.
The Neptune might be another great weapon as well, for example, and they'll never be able to produce enough of them while at war.
It seems that producing only two already had a critical impact on the ongoing war.
So even if we agree a Javelin is technically superior, is it 2x an NLAW in weight or 5x NLAW in cost superior?
Plus the NLAW is easier to use, almost turn-key, and typically can be deployed by one soldier instead of two.
Sometimes good enough is good enough, and that feels like it applies here. If I was in charge of ordering, I'd definitely take a handful of NLAWs over a single Javelin because my assumption is many won't be in the right place at the right time or will be damaged/lost before utilized.
The reality is that a mix of both is great, in particular if they're free. Javelins are great weapon systems at medium range.
SAAB claims that the NLAW "(...) can destroy a heavily protected modern battle tank with one shot, and the system is effective at ranges between 20 and 800 metres.)
https://www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2018/june/5-facts-abou...
Do you have any source that substantiates your personal assertion?
> The NLAW can be very useful against structures or softer targets like APCs and IFVs.
Wikipedia's article on Russia's battalion tactical group mentions that each is comprised of 10 tanks and 40 IFVs.
Even if we take your personal assertion at face value, and given that disabling a IFV also takes infantry out of the picture, it seems the NLAW showcases an impressive bang for the buck.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATADOR
Here's a YouTube video I recently stumbled over that expresses skepticism about their effectiveness in the current UKR/RU conflict.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7mMm0d0aw
Since I have no knowledge of the topic, so I can't tell if he's credible or a crank. Anyone care to weigh in?
Here are three reputable Twitter accounts: @oryxspioenkop, @RALee85, @UAWeapons
I don't know why this is or if anyone cares, just thought I'd mention it
My suspicion is the YouTube channel is a content factory, where the guy narrates a published article over whatever military B-roll video they can find. I highly doubt it was reverse.
Still sorta useful. It's nice to see the actual weapon, and I doubt I'd ever normally read the article otherwise.
I've seen this with several YouTube channels with very generic military-sounding names. I hadn't realized/expected that the channels would just plagiarize existing articles, though!
But you seem to be saying that if they defend themselves, they do deserve to get invaded?
You seem to be following a very long-running fallacy that you can unilaterally opt-out of violence. Ordinary citizens in safe countries fortunately can opt-out, but only because others are in the business of war protecting us from the likes of Putin. Condemning those good warriors is perilous.
If I am an operating force forced to deal with MBA’ers and politicians. I am requesting the NLAW.