Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) anti-tank missile
MP-ATGM is a typical third-generation anti-tank missile. It should be said that the threat is not small, but there are ways to deal with this type of missile. The main thing is to destroy its locking and image matching. For example, after the tank receives an alarm from the opponent's laser ranging, it suddenly throws out a large area of infrared jamming bombs to destroy the locking of its infrared targeting unit. If the missile has been launched, a large area of infrared interference will also prevent the image obtained by its seeker from matching the pre-stored image, so the probability of missing the target will increase. In fact, when MP-ATGM was tested in the hot desert of Rajasthan, India, there was already a situation where the picture obtained by the seeker could not match the pre-stored picture due to the high ambient temperature. When the Javelin anti-tank missiles of the US military were used in Iraq, they also missed the target many times.
MPATGM is a 3rd generation ATGM with 'Fire & Forget' and 'Top Attack' capabilities, which can be day and night. MPATGM Weapon System consists of three major separate elements: (i) Missile in an LT called the weapon round, (ii) the CLU including Thermal Sight (TS), Gunner Display, Command Control Unit, and Battery and (iii) the Launcher or Tripod. Launcher System was specified to be light and user-friendly with following functionalities: System power and health checks; missile seeker cooling; provision to display TAS and missile seeker images; display controls; target acquisition through thermal/day sight; and thermal battery and launch motor firing.
According to the DRDO, the missile's command launch unit (CLU) consisting of a target acquisition system and a command control unit weighs 14.25 kg. The fire-and-forget missile is equipped with a midwave infrared direct-drive seeker and fired in lock-on-before-launch mode. The missile can engage a target in direct- or top-attack approaches. The missile is integrated with the DRDO's anti-armour tandem warhead system. In a tandem warhead system configuration, two shaped charges namely the main shaped charge and the precursor shaped charge are mounted in the same missile and are initiated one after the other with a predefined time delay of the order of microseconds.
Both these shaped charges are mounted at a certain distance from each other, keeping in view the warhead system constraints. It is necessary to protect the second charge [main shaped charge] from the blast effects of the first charge [precursor shaped charge] during the time delay between the initiations of two shaped charges, the DRDO said.
In terms of aerodynamic design, the MP-ATGM does not follow the aerodynamic scheme of the Nag missile, and the middle wing does not use a wide strip wing. Instead, its wing is similar to our foreign trade HJ-12E individual anti-tank missile, but the length is shorter. The body appears more slender. In terms of power, the MP-ATGM also does not have an engine side nozzle design, and the nozzle of the cruise engine is directly designed at the rear, which is similar to the HJ-12E version displayed in 2021 (the engine of the displayed version before HJ-12 has side nozzles).
In terms of specific size, India's MP-ATGM missile has a total length of 1.34 meters and a diameter of 120mm, which is 0.24 meters longer than the U.S. Javelin anti-tank missile, but the diameter is 7mm thinner, and the maximum range is the same as the Javelin's early days. The same version is 2500 meters. In terms of weight, the MP-ATGM missile weighs 14.5 kg, the launch and targeting system weighs 14.25 kg, and the total weight of the system is close to 29 kg, which is much heavier than the Javelin's 22.3 kg, which may be due to the tripod.
In terms of guidance, this MP-ATGM is the same as the Javelin and HJ-12E, and it also uses image guidance. First, the aiming control unit locks the target, and then pre-stores the locked image into the guidance unit of the missile. After the missile is out of the barrel and the infrared imaging seeker is turned on, the missile-borne computer matches the picture captured by the seeker with the pre-stored target picture, identifies and locks the target by itself, and at the same time generates a correction command to control the missile to fly to the target. The whole process does not require the intervention of the shooter, which is what we often say after launch. In terms of attack trajectory, MP-ATGM is the same as Javelin and HJ-12E. They both have direct attack trajectory and dive to the top trajectory after climbing. The shooter can choose by himself on the battlefield. The armor-piercing power of MP-ATGM's warhead is said to be around 750mm, which is much smaller than that of HJ-12E, but it is still enough to attack the weak top of the tank.
