Antiarmor Weapons – sfoil blog

I’ve previously posted about the history of antiarmor weapons and the current state-of-the-art. The takeaway: tanks have never been invulnerable, and they don’t need to be. Also, Anti-Tank Guided Missiles have become and are becoming longer-ranged, more accurate, and more lethal. Despite improvements in ATGM technology over first-generation weapons like the AT-3 Sagger, American tactics have remained essentially unchanged for decades, although armor protection has improved.

The ATGM threat profile is a combination of standoff and high kill probability (per launch). Remember, these don’t have to make ATGMs completely worthless, just make them less useful. I’ll look at standoff first.

Right now, I think that anti-armor weapons have gained an upper hand over tanks and other armored vehicles, and that the United States is falling behind in anti-anti-armor measures. They can take several courses to correct this. First, however, I want to lay out the history of the threat and how the current situation developed.

The First Tanks

Although it wasn’t the first battle in which tanks took part, the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 is the first major combined arms attack with a significant armored component, the use of armored vehicles beforehand having been relatively piecemeal. Together with the infantry of the 51st Highland Division, 476 British armored vehicles took part, of which 350 were combat vehicles (the rest were supply carriers and mobile radio stations, with perhaps some engineers in the mix). The attack succeeded, although as usual in the First World War the attackers proved unable to exploit their gains over the following days.

Tag: Antiarmor Weapons

The ATGM Threat Part 3: Solutions

The ATGM Threat Pt 1: A Brief History of Anti-Armor Weapons