Russian/Soviet vs US/NATO ATGMs

The shape is more lke a big needle.
They are fin stabilized ,and use same finns or aditional canards for control.

Reading comprehension anyone ?
Original statement of reference by GarryB :

The only real option would be self forging fragment warheads... already widely used on some mines and top attack submunitions.
The basic design is ......

yes soviets/ russians lagged in fire & forget capability which was a huge drawback of their antitank missiles . so they tried to compensate with higher missile speed to reduce crew exposure to counterfire which would brake the guidance.

"Fire and forget" capability as main discriminating element between western and domestic design of ATGM in......Cold War ?
So classic : ridiculous conditioned reflex linking automatically and....completely out of context......the word "western" to other encoded words such as "AESA radar", "fire and forget", "situational awareness", "x- generation", "stealth", "networked", and so on with similar marketing garbage or over-simplistic concepts.


Not even ONE "fire and forget" ATGM has been ever cited or credited, in any Cold War publications both western or eastern, as a weighty AT asset capable to influence, in any way, the evolution of Soviet combined Armored and Mechanized Division's advance in Europe.


In a major conventional war against a very advanced opponent the first requirement of any weapon system is above all its......presence (you know a wonder weapons not present in the exact place and time where it should count, would perform very badly on the battlefield ) followed closely by density, reliability and flexibility of employment.


Only to provide a practical implication of what just said for the weapon class into examination -ATGM- is sufficient to recall that Indian export contract for 10,000 Konkur-M ATGMs is for 1200 RP crores (about 213 ml US dollars) while a same year US MoD domestic procurement contract (therefore with significantly lower profit's edge for the manufacturer and without ancillary costs such as training/maintenance structures and personnel already operative and paid for in the first procurement contracts) for the "fire and forget" FGM-148 , is 172,5 ml dollars for 710 "Javelin" !!!

All of that only to receive the "privilege" to remain well within lethal stand-off engagement range of enemy : auto-cannons, HE-Frag munitions, infantry mortars, MBT's main cannons and ,ironically, even enemy ATGM's squads.

You know, no so many nations get the luxury to attentively select its enemies among immensely weaker third world nations, to be attacked only after long-lasting weakening embargo and in big NATO coalitions.

Is very simple to mask, in this way, behind a crushing unbalanced force and technological ratio, the ridiculous cost-inefficiency of its own weapon design ; inefficiency that would cost you a total defeat ,in a major conventional war ,against a very powerful opponent.

GarryB wrote:The only real option would be self forging fragment warheads... already widely used on some mines and top attack submunitions.

That makes sense . And I am not just talking about a APSFDS round with top-attack capability but also a direct attack mode .

Take the British MANPAD Starstreak . Basically it is the 3 DARTS that eventually hits an aircraft and it has an effective range of around 7 kms .

An ATGM will not have to fire it's missile to great heights like a MANPAD . SO velocity of release of the missile will not be an issue . Distance as I have mentioned in my previous post , probably is .

GarryB wrote:.... but Starstreak is not really combat proven and I am very suspicious of the effectiveness of the three darts it uses as a warhead...

That's right . Top of my head , it was probably last year that the Indian AF tested the Star Streak as part of their VSHORAD competition and it was found to be NOT EFFECTIVE . As a courtesy the reason/s for it's failure were not made public .

I used the Star Streak analogy to define a concept and not to advertise the product per se .

The point is the velocity that is used to propel the Star Streak at altitudes of 7km can be channelized to propel an APFSDS round from a distance of around 750 meters towards a Tank.

GarryB wrote:To make it an effective kinetic weapon you would need a much bigger rocket motor, which will make it much much heavier.

I need to do the Math on this to figure out exactly how big the rocket motor should be to fire an APFSDS round but in all likelihood it the ATGM should not weigh more than what the Javelin does and therefore will need not more than 2 people to use it , and that's the minimum that almost all modern day ATGMS need.

GarryB wrote:
I am referring to a self forging fragment... called EFP or explosively formed penetrator in the west.

After the explosive is set off the flat disk is crushed into a slug like this:


They just didn't see fire and forget as being a goal worth the expense and performance limitations. By making the expendable part of the system as cheap as practically possible they were able to develop systems as capable or more capable than western systems at a much lower price that could be introduced into service more widely and produced in much larger numbers. The result is that they ended up with more bang per buck.
Where they needed fire and forget they spent the money and got it... ie Igla, Strela.

-They are all explosively formed penetrators ,this one is with a smaller curvature cone for wider area of attack but less penetration.
-Yes i agree with you it seems west valued their soldiers lives more then USSR.
But with minituarisation and cheaper electornics its the way to go and russians finally realised that and now seem to get on the vagon, and they also have market to buy from unlike sanctioned USSR.

Rpg type 7v wrote:
-Yes i agree with you it seems west valued their soldiers lives more then USSR.

What a pile of bullshit, i hear this blatant "argument" so often, especially when the matter is Tanks, that Russians/Soviets don't value the lifes of their soldiers, but facts which lunatics of such arguments don't want to hear is, Russians were the inventors of all modern measurements and technologies that safe lifes in Tank warfare, such people come always with the ignorant and stupidy they possess that only Soviet/Russian tanks need one hit to "pop up", FYI only one single tank has stored its entire ammunition in blow off paneled boxes.. the Abrams, the rest of all tanks store half of their ammunition in crew compartment room,like Leo2,Chall2,Arjun,Leclerc next to tank driver and commander.
Soviets already used body armor during WW2, they are the pioneers of self-sealing tanks,ejection seats for helicopters, Composite armor, Active Protection System like Drozd,Arena, they are the inventor of lot of fields when it comes to protect the lifes of their soldiers or people.
The most advanced in medical terms were the Soviets during their time, too.


Everything that is left from your "argument" now is you don't value the lifes of their soldiers.

GarryB wrote:-snip-
Then we don't agree. The USSR could easily have created a simple TV guided Javelin if they really wanted to....

really? i dont think they could. any prof of that??????
you know very well you dont have to kill every single tank to stop an armored column ,javelin was worth it...
Trained and smart at crews are rare and too valuable to lose.
But soviet union didnt put such a value on people like nato, due to communism and "everybody is equal" school , which was a mistake.

Well electronics and their miniaturisation wasn't strongest thing in Soviet union. That is a fact.
Soviet Javelin equivalent would be over expensive and over complicated to manufacture for Soviet industry that was affected by stagnation, but don't see why it couldn't be created.
Infantry carried ATGMs are defensive weapons so why Soviet union would spend it's time and resources on these weapons, it's amazing that Russian man held ATGMs were always improved and developed.
Javelin usage was covered in few tactical documents, but I don't see how Soviet doctrine would make benefit out of it, can You explain?
And of course Soviet union didn't care much about soldier lives, look at NATO troops in Western Germany, you think that NATO cared about it's troops so much? Their troops in Berlin were dead man walking. There is no saving private Ryan scenario in real conventional world. Especially high paced one. Us even had plans to use gyro planes to swarm soldiers with AT weapons and I can only imagine very high losses caused by this tactic and not only by enemy fire

Javelin is much less cost-effective than both russian and belarussian ATGMs such as Kornet or Shershen. One Javelin missle costs $80,000 while one Kornet costs $2,000 (I've heard so), Shershen is also cheap.

I think it makes little sense to have such a system today, not to mention 1980s...

As Sa'iqa wrote:Javelin is much less cost-effective than both russian and belarussian ATGMs such as Kornet or Shershen. One Javelin missle costs $80,000 while one Kornet costs $2,000 (I've heard so), Shershen is also cheap.

I think it makes little sense to have such a system today, not to mention 1980s...

Better post the links for those number my friend.

Shershen is really sound like very potent ATGM. It wish my country would buy this system. But I think it's not as cheap.

AlfaT8 wrote:

As Sa'iqa wrote:Javelin is much less cost-effective than both russian and belarussian ATGMs such as Kornet or Shershen. One Javelin missle costs $80,000 while one Kornet costs $2,000 (I've heard so), Shershen is also cheap.

I think it makes little sense to have such a system today, not to mention 1980s...

Better post the links for those number my friend.

he cant ,hes just blabling his ass off
and kornet 2000$ ???? this guy is insane

As Sa'iqa wrote:Javelin is much less cost-effective than both russian and belarussian ATGMs such as Kornet or Shershen. One Javelin missle costs $80,000 while one Kornet costs $2,000 (I've heard so)

Unfortunately mate , what you heard is NOT true . Javelin's off the shelf price is around $210,000 ( Missile + Launcher) .

Kornet E costs around $875,000 for 1 launcher and 10 missiles.

The RPG 29 is cost effective as well at around $500 for a launcher and $300 for missiles .

If you want dirt cheap ATGMs , then you need to approach Iran They managed to reverse engineer a few Russian and US ATGMs and are now selling them in the black market .

Rpg type 7v wrote:
he cant ,hes just blabling his ass off
and kornet 2000$ ???? this guy is insane

Are you a Psychiatrist ? Or do you excel at Telepathy ?

This guy joined the forum just this month and within 3 days you have concluded that he is insane without even knowing who he is . Get a grip .

Kornet E costs around $875,000 for 1 launcher and 10 missiles.

Turkey payed $70 million for 80 launchers and 800 missiles. We don't how much of that was launchers, or how much was missiles. We also don't know how much the Russians gouged the Turks either, the Kornet was still the cheapest one in the competition.

No doubt the missile cost more than $2k though.

It was chosen over Spike and TOW.

Probably I was wrong. It still seems though that Kornet is cheaper, I've read on one blog that cost of guided missles with a seeker is three times higher than that of missles with semi automatic guidance. If it's true, I don't know but it's at least plausible.

If someone is interested in an apple to apple comparison (... rather sensibly "unbalanced" in FGM-148's favor, being one between an export deal and a domestic procurement program) can give a look to this cute graph :






....enough said .


Turkey contract included also all other ancillary costs (obviously not present in recent Javelin procurement deals for US Army) for establish a Kornet-E foreign operative basis such as : instructor training and simulator devices, technical documentation tutoring, maintenance's equipment and training, stocking elements etc....


Moreover Turkey contract included also some special and unique in-deal "benefits" :

"This cooperation model was tested in Russian-Turkish relations back in 2004 and 2005, Alexander Vassilyev says, when Russia supplied Turkey with anti-tank missile systems Kornet-E.
The contract provided for a partial assembling of final products in Turkey, with eventual growth in the production of Turkish-made parts. Both parties to the deal stand to gain, given Turkey’s aspiration for building its own defence industry that would be maximally concentrated on its territory.
Besides, Russia and Turkey could jointly re-export end products to third countries".

Difference in procurement cost between even only the export Kornet-E and ,instead, the domestic production of US FGM-148 for US Army is simply crushing.

Ok but you still havent told us -what is the difference!?

I just have one question for all those who say that Javelin isn't worth it . Why has Russia or any other country for that matter failed to come up with a top attack missile ?

I remember hearing similar arguments when the US introduced AESA radars in fighters. We were told that AESA is a failure waiting to happen . And yet 20 years later these same nations are struggling to develop AESA radars for their aircrafts.

Department Of Defense wrote:I just have one question for all those who say that Javelin isn't worth it . Why has Russia or any other country for that matter failed to come up with a top attack missile ?

I remember hearing similar arguments when the US introduced AESA radars in fighters. We were told that AESA is a failure waiting to happen . And yet 20 years later these same nations are struggling to develop AESA radars for their aircrafts.

Who said that?

As well, AESA radar for other nations were in R&D for quite some time, but PESA radar in terms of Russia was under development for a long time already, and had a strong industrial base around it, thus making it cheaper and effective to have PESA radar. What makes AESA good now more so than PESA is its strong ECCM charactoristics as well as not requiring the need of high energy for high output. AESA has its drawbacks, like the quality of tracking/engaging (in the sense that they can be not entirely accurate) but overall, has its advantages. PESA was cheaper/easier to build for Russia and they produced radar that outperform the AESA alternative in terms of raw power, but lack the ECCM charactoristics as well as LSI mode. The ECCM can be accomodated by sub-systems that can be attached to the aircraft (new ECM/EW equipment are being installed on all current and future aircrafts) but the LSI mode is very important, and I am surprised they did not have such a feature on the Irbis-E. But they can keep the radar off and use other passive sensors to pick up radiation leakage from other aircrafts.

Javalin isn't a bad system. Actually, it is a great system. Problem is the cost and effectiveness. Technically, it relies on the IR signature of the tank in order to be stricken. There are indeed countermeasures like Smoke or even better: Newer covers for tanks/armor that reduces its signature. Although, that costs money in itself and does not protect it from Passive mode. Other systems like RPG-29 have proven itself to be quite effective against tanks without the need to hit from atop.

I love how people put RPG-29 in to consideration. It isn't new and it's not ATGM, so no point in comparing it with Javelin. And not sure how easy it would be to dazzle Javelin's IR. I wonder how come Spyke is more cheaper while being more advanced than Javelin.
Maybe it will sound like nonsense, but would it possible to create top attack RPG? An unguided one acting same way as Bill, projecting force downwards. Launcher with integrated spotting rifle, digital sight would help with accuracy.

Regular wrote:I love how people put RPG-29 in to consideration. It isn't new and it's not ATGM, so no point in comparing it with Javelin. And not sure how easy it would be to dazzle Javelin's IR. I wonder how come Spyke is more cheaper while being more advanced than Javelin.
Maybe it will sound like nonsense, but would it possible to create top attack RPG? An unguided one acting same way as Bill, projecting force downwards. Launcher with integrated spotting rifle, digital sight would help with accuracy.

Of course it isn't a ATGM, as it isn't guided. But, its sole purpose is the same. To take out armor or fortification. New or old, doesn't matter, as long as it follows the same concept - Missile to fortification: Fortification destroyed or damaged. They could, they could easily build one that is a top attack missile. But, what is the point? The guidance system would make it stupidly expensive when something less expensive can do the same thing, and has been. Countermeasures existed for a long time, and Russia as well as other countries are aware of its capabilities. It is IR. It relies on picking up IR signature to determin what it is before it has a lock. Block that signature, and it would be hard to get a lock on.

Why has Russia or any other country for that matter failed to come up with a top attack missile ?

Those questions has been clarified several times in the past on this same forum , but i can understand that not all have get the chance to follow this subject.


In substance also US has NOT developed any kind of "top attack" flight's profile (that characterizing FGM-148 Javelin) for its company level main ATGM .

FGM-148 Javelin in fact represent no more no less than the successor of M-47 Dragon and it cover the same operational tasks and show very similar CONOPS to the former close range ATM of US Army.

Top-attack flight's profile was ,therefore, implemented for strict system's weight to penetration-power-ratio reasons; in facts a weapon ,such as FGM-148, having the volumetric and weight requirements to be transported and operated by a single warfighter would have been completely incapable to penetrate Soviet MBT equipped with ERA even under favorable geometry of engagement (and at the close ambush range ,where FGM-148 was foreseen to be operated, that would have signified a surely neutralized ATGM's squad).

The elegant solution found was to let the relatively weak tandem warhead of the new ATGM system in question to attack the enemy tank from an interception's aspect historically getting less passive protection in classic MBT's designs and to add a "fire and forget" feature to increase chances of survival of the ATGM squad.


Naturally ,as always in those sectors, no design compromise come out for "free"

You "pay" the top attack flight's profile and the fire and forget feature of FGM-148 with :

1) A significantly higher unit price (much higher even of competitor system in the long range/heavier class !!), meaning a much lower number of system deployed for each sector.

2) A very long FC-to-target collimation's time and FCA cooling (naturally not only worsening the number of targets engaged for units of time but also sensibly enlarging the window open for enemy sensors of enemy armored/mechanized/infantry formation to detect and engage the FGM-148's operator before it would get the chance to even employ its weapon).

3) High susceptibility to IR-opaque battlefield obscurants -such as the by now ubiquitous 3D6M and 3D17 aerosol grenade- (even 2-3 sec of lock's break in the top attack mid-flight phase is equal to a surely wasted missile)

4) Reduced speed of the missile itself, offering to the potential target more time to maneuver to interpose a solid object (such as a building) between it and the incoming ATGM and/or to employ soft/hard countermeasures and rendering at any effect impossible to employ FGM-148 against UAVs ,helicopters or low-flying aircraft.

5) Prevent the redirection "on the fly" of the missile to other targets in the event that the one initially designated was neutralized/incapacitated by other element of ally's fire.


Kornet and Kornet-M (and theirs export version Kornet-E and Kornet-EM) pertain to a completely different category of ATGM (the same of the US TOW series just to be clear) offering completely different level of performances and opening tactical solutions totally outside the technical and operative capabilities of close range ATGMs such as FGM-148, Metis-M or Spike-MR.