Russian Army ATGM Thread

I think with their experience in Syria Russia found that they didn't always need a heavy ATGW when majority of what they were facing were light armour, and SUV with ramshackle metal plates attached. Where a kornet was overkill and costly in regards to the target. The west however felt it was ok to fire javelin at the same type of targets or mud huts in Afghanistan for 20yrs. I wonder how much the bill was for javelin over the 20yrs and versus the target price and mpact it had on the battlefield.

The Syrians never had Bulat but they made do with SPG-9 and Sagger/Malyutka which had a reasonable range and penetration although a bit slow but buildings no move and some armoured targets didn't know it was coming. When I was in the forces the cost of a sagger was around $600-800 a missile export prices. Local production could be cheaper. And it had a variety of warheads. Stand off probe, tandem warhead, thermobaric, the standard warhead was good enough for most targets. And the Serbs went one step further with a 2T5 a 5km range radio command missile.

The Bulat is basically going to replace the role although it will cost more, and have less penetration but will be more accurate and less chance to jam. Sagger stocks could still be used up then Bulat adopted in Syria that is.

Not exactly true. The US ordered the Carl Gustav during that period precisely to have a lower cost option. But of course the MIC found ways to make it more expensive.

lancelot wrote:Not exactly true. The US ordered the Carl Gustav during that period precisely to have a lower cost option. But of course the MIC found ways to make it more expensive.

The Carl Gustav was liked by troops but wasn't widely issued. But it had drawn backs, it was heavy, cumbersome, and range wasn't the best. Towards the end they did develop a version of the 66mm LAW but it was very short range. And with all west systems the costs were always higher than soviet, Russian or Chinese weapons even Gustav.

That is odd... two missiles weigh 26.5 kgs but a single missile in a container weighs 6.5kgs.

I looked it up and the original Kornet launcher is 26kgs... the original missiles are 29kgs each.

I mean even Metis-M1 which has 13kg missiles are designed to be carried in pairs weighing 26kgs with the launcher being only 9.5kgs, so a team of three men can carry 5 missiles and the launcher, where one has the launcher and a missile and the other two carry two missiles each.

If each missile weighs 6.5kg then they could carry four missiles for the 26kgs they normally carry with two missiles.

I would also say that these missiles are likely supersonic like Kornet is as they don't drag wires which means much less time standing guiding the missiles.

3.5km is a useful range.

The west however felt it was ok to fire javelin at the same type of targets or mud huts in Afghanistan for 20yrs. I wonder how much the bill was for javelin over the 20yrs and versus the target price and mpact it had on the battlefield.

Well the focus was never value for money, but that expensive weapons means large profit margins... because obviously if you are choosing between a $600K US dollar Javelin missile and a $5K US dollar Kornet missile, the American missile must be better because it is so expensive.

But soldiers never think of the price, but of course the price means you get 5 Javelins if you are lucky, while you might get 200 Kornets.

The Bulat is basically going to replace the role although it will cost more, and have less penetration but will be more accurate and less chance to jam. Sagger stocks could still be used up then Bulat adopted in Syria that is.

It would be a good cheap missile for general purpose use against a variety of threats... a HE Frag model would be interesting too for precision delivery of a HE payload beyond RPG range. Lighter, and likely much faster than older wire guided missiles, it would be very useful.

The US ordered the Carl Gustav during that period precisely to have a lower cost option. But of course the MIC found ways to make it more expensive.

They also decided to make an unlicenced copy of the RPG-7 which ended up being horribly more expensive but not objectively any better, but in this case this would be more like they made a new version of TOW that was quarter the weight and calibre but was compatible with TOW launchers... except that TOW launchers are enormous and not particularly portable.

And with all west systems the costs were always higher than soviet, Russian or Chinese weapons even Gustav.

A 20% profit margin on a $500K missile compared with a 20% profit margin on a $5K missile is $100K vs $1K... you need to sell 100 times more Kornets than Javelins to make the same level of profit with the same profit margin.

In reality of course the profit margin for Kornet is probably closer to 5%, so 400 need to be sold for every Javelin...

Note the $5K figure I am using is the export price to India, which is probably closer to 10-20% profit margin... exports are where Russian MIC companies make their money and avoid bankruptcy.

The other factor is that Russian weapons tend to be simpler and more reliable and easier to use.

Ironically during the cold war I would have said western weapons get better penetration performance, but we have since found out most of those numbers were massively inflated and unrealistic, while the Soviet weapon figures were often western conservative guesses that were never revised when captured and tested for themselves.

Western countries prefer US weapons and lots of countries from the third world prefer US weapons simply because of the kickbacks and bribes the officials get in making that choice. Equally there is an implied political aspect there too where a small country buying US weapons might expect US support if they find themselves in conflict with an enemy the US doesn't like.

Obviously that doesn't always work.

Now that America has realised there are a billion Indian consumers they have shifted from Pakistan to India for purely commercial reasons... and think Indian ties with Russia can be cut to please those who don't care about Pakistan or India (which is most Americans probably).

When the US was in Afghanistan Pakistan was useful of course... but now...