The history of anti-tank missiles has ended in Russia and Ukraine
Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, a variety of cheap drones have single-handedly changed the direction of the development of the entire human weapon system, and even led to a certain type of weapons being close to collective "unemployment".
Russian experts bluntly pointed out that the early days of the war had been very high-profile "javelin", "cornet" and other anti-tank missiles, almost disappeared on the battlefield, whether it is the Russian army or Ukrainian soldiers, are no longer willing to use such weapons.
The article "The Death of ATGM in Ukraine" on the Russian "Journalist" website pointed out that the outbreak of Russian "special military operations" in 2022 has reshuffled the global military forces, and has seriously changed the weapons and tactics in reality. What is most interesting is that the very existence of some weapons or even entire categories of weapons is being challenged. Among them, not only the days of heavy armored vehicles seem to be numbered, but even the anti-tank missiles, the Nemesis of armored vehicles, may face a "doomsday" and encounter a worse situation than tanks.
The "culprit" of these situations is the UAV, which has greatly reduced the combat value of traditional weapons such as bombers, fighters, anti-tank missiles, and armored vehicles, and even been squeezed out of the front-line battlefield. The most serious is the anti-tank missiles, which are hardly used by Russian and Ukrainian soldiers today, and have been replaced by a large number of small FPV drones, which have taken almost all the results of the infantry destroying and wounding tanks, and even more than the anti-tank results of the aircraft and tanks combined. In the early days of the war, Western countries' anti-tank missiles such as Javelin and NLAW attracted much attention, and they were known as the "tank killers" on the battlefield by virtue of their high-precision striking capabilities and long-range launch advantages. However, with the deepening of the war, these former scenery weapons have gradually disappeared from people's sight. Instead, there is a small, flexible and very low cost device - the FPV drone. This is true not only on the Ukrainian side, but also on the Russian side.
Interestingly, the most controversial topic in the past, "is the end of the tank?", does not seem realistic at present. The loss of thousands of tanks in the Russian and Ukrainian battlefields was almost a digital record after World War II, and the survivability of tanks against FPV drones, patrol missiles, and anti-tank missiles was very low. However, the facts have also proved that the battlefield role of tanks can not be replaced, tanks are still the most favorable weapons to break through the ground defense line, and drones can not do this work.
However, the work of anti-tank missiles in the Ukrainian battlefield has been basically robbed by FPV drones.
Russian media pointed out that whether it is the cost of use, the number of equipment, personnel security or combat efficiency, anti-tank missiles are almost lost to FPV drones. Take the Javelin missile as an example, the missile uses thermal imaging guidance and "no tube after launch", which is theoretically the lowest risk anti-tank missile, but still requires the operator to get within visual distance of the tank. According to statistics, every ten "javelin" can successfully destroy a tank, and due to lack of training and other problems, the death rate of the operator is not low.
In addition, the "Javelin" missile unit price of $250,000, the number of United States aid to Ukraine is about 7,000 or 8,000, almost emptying the United States inventory. However, compared with the FPV drone's unit price of only $1,000 or $2,000, and the scale of tens of thousands of units that can be easily achieved, these data of "Javelin" missiles are not enough.
In contrast, FPV drone operation training is easier than missiles, and each infantry squad of the Russian and Ukrainian armies can train almost one FPV drone operator. What's more, FPV drones or small drones are highly safe to operate and can hide behind bunkers and obstacles without having to venture close to enemy tanks or fortifications.
Because of this, Russian and Ukrainian infantry increasingly prefer to use FPV drones, rather than anti-tank missiles to fight tanks. The latter is difficult to train, expensive to build, but also to risk lives, and the trouble of replenishing ammunition, far less than the "DJI" drone's nearly unlimited replenishment capacity.
Portable is also an easily overlooked factor, "Javelin" missile system weight 22.5 kg, "Cornet" full weight 56 kg, "Tao" full weight 93 kg. In contrast, "DJI" FPV drones plus all equipment such as the operating station and flight glasses are only two or three kilograms. The former need to risk their lives to drag dozens of kilograms of equipment, close to enemy tanks, while the latter can easily hide behind, as if playing a game.
An ultra-small FPV UAV can hang a 3kg RPG-7 warhead, and the armor-breaking power can reach 500mm, which is theoretically inferior to the armor-breaking capability of 600-1500mm anti-tank missiles. However, FPV drones can accurately choose the weak parts of the tank with their high-speed and flexible skills, and the efficiency of the tank is higher. In actual combat, there are often many examples of drones besieging tanks, the first one is unsuccessful, and the second one is "filling the gun" at any time, which is not easy to do with anti-tank missiles.
In fact, not only were portable anti-tank missiles abandoned on the battlefield, but anti-tank missiles carried by armored vehicles were also affected. Including vehicle-mounted "Tao" missiles, "My-S" and "Storm-S" anti-tank vehicles, etc., are no longer welcomed by ground troops. The main reason is the same as portable missiles, which rely on direct fire, armored vehicles are even more exposed, and firing a missile is close to suicide.
Simply put, the simultaneous abandonment of anti-tank missiles by the Russian and Ukrainian militaries is based on the most basic of human values - unprofitability.
The abandonment of anti-tank missiles on the battlefield seems to have happened suddenly in the last year. A variety of anti-tank missiles remained active until last summer. But entering the second half of 2023, FPV drones suddenly seem to monopolize the entire battlefield, and even the task of infantry fighting tanks.
On the one hand, FPV drones have crowded out anti-tank missiles through "battlefield selection", on the other hand, the high intensity consumption of the Ukrainian battlefield has also made the supplement of missiles difficult to sustain, and completely lost the possibility of free competition with FPV.
Even worse, the actual combat experience of the Russian-Ukrainian war has raised questions about the subsequent development of anti-tank missiles. The third and fourth generation anti-tank missiles spend a lot of research and development funds, integrating thermal imaging, data link, artificial intelligence and new materials, new armor breaking technology and other high-tech, with a unit price of tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, but lost to a thousand dollars of FPV drones.
In the 21st century, the new generation of anti-tank missiles struggled to break the armor of the new generation of main battle tanks such as the Leopard 2A7, M1A2SEP4, T-90SM, and Merkava -4, while the FPV UAV could easily solve the problem by simply mounting an old RPG warhead or even a World War II anti-tank grenade. This makes future efforts to continue developing advanced anti-tank missiles a joke.
Generally speaking, the battlefield is the test room for the progress of weapon science and technology, and large-scale wars often completely change the development direction of some weapons, and even declare the "end" of a certain type of weapons. Whether the anti-tank missile really encountered the doomsday crisis, we still need to wait and see.
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