ABCNews.com April 1, 2003
Silver Bullets
Digital Technology Helps Infantry Defeat Tanks
By Paul Eng
With U.S.-led forces closing in on Baghdad, ground troops may face the toughest challenges yet in this war against Iraq.
Arrayed against allied armored tanks and combat soldiers are the numerous tanks and armored fighting vehicles of the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units, reportedly the best-equipped and most dedicated of Saddam Hussein's ground forces.
And while the Iraq tanks - composed mainly of Soviet models designed and built in the late 1970s - might not be as advanced as those in the coalition's ground forces, they are still worrisome, especially against infantry soldiers.
What's more, troops may have to face these metal beasts in close quarters in Baghdad and so-called "built-up" areas where tanks may remain hidden in buildings and out of view from coalition aircraft and precision-guided bombs.
But, coalition foot soldiers have some smart weapons of their own to attack modern-day dragons.
Better Than a Dragon
The newest arrow in their quiver is a portable anti-tank missile called the Javelin. In development since the 1980s, the 50-pound missile is about two-thirds the weight of previous medium-range anti-tank missiles fielded by the U.S. Army.
Designed to attack tanks, ground targets such as bunkers and forts or even low-flying helicopters, the Javelin offers a significant advantage over a majority of current portable missiles.
Traditional shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons, such as the Army's Dragon missile, are so-called command guided. In order to hit a tank, the soldier must keep the weapon's sights on the target and direct the missile's flight.
And firing such missiles often produce a lot of noise and "back-blast" - smoke and debris that shoots out the rear of the missile's launch tube - that the enemy can use to spot where the missile came from and fire back. The soldier must either hope to destroy the tank before the hostile fire reaches him or break away from the attack.
But the Javelin is a true "fire-and-forget" missile - meaning once it's launched, the Javelin guides itself to the target without any further input from the soldier. That allows the trooper to move away and avoid return fire or quickly prepare another missile for launch.
At the heart of the Javelin's guidance system are a set of digital imaging chips that "see" detecting invisible infrared light that bounces off of objects on the battlefield. A soldier uses a separate optical or infrared viewer attached to the missile's launch tube to spot a target such as a tank.
Once the infantryman finds a target and pushes the fire button, the missile's imaging chip captures an electronic picture of the target and launches itself out of the firing tube. As the missile flies toward the target, its camera takes new images of the target every second and compares it to what's stored in its memory.
The image processing computer and software is so robust that even if the target moves - which changes what the missile would "see" - the missile remains "locked on" to the target until the very end.
Take It From the Top
Robert Sherman, a weapons expert with the Federation of American Scientists, says the Javelin is one of the first of a few such smart anti-tank weapons for ground troops.
"For an anti-tank weapon for the foot soldier, there is just no comparison," said Sherman. "You put the [sight] box on a target - like a tank or any ground target - and the missile remembers the image of the tank. That is an amazing thing."
It also allows the missile to attack a target unlike any other man-portable anti-tank weapon in the coalition's arsenal.
The Javelin is programmed to attack a ground target just like its hand-thrown namesake. Once it's launched against a tank, the missile flies in a high arc to ultimately slam into the target from above.
Such "top attacks" help the missile evade common countermeasures that might be employed by the tank, such as producing smoke that obscures the view of the missile and infantry. More importantly, the Javelin strikes where the tank's armor is thinner and more vulnerable to attack.
The Javelin is carried by the U.S. Army and Marines as well as the British Royal Marines in Iraq and has an effective range of about 2,500 meters. But the missile also can be used against targets as close as 65 meters, making it ideal for close-quarters fighting such as within urban areas.
Another benefit of the Javelin: It uses a so-called soft launch that produces no telltale back-blast. Sherman says that a small explosive charge produces just enough force to push the missile out of its launch tube a few feet. Once it's safely away from the launch tube and its human crew, the missile's motor kicks in to propel it to the target.
"With a Dragon, when you pull the trigger, you're literally putting yourself in danger," says Sherman. "That doesn't exist with Javelin. You fire it and then duck down and hide or move to a new location. It's up to you."
Another Shot
Other countries are developing similar smart anti-tank missiles with similar capabilities as the American Javelin.
Israel, for example, has a Javelin-like equivalent called the Gill. Although the missile is slightly heavier than the Javelin, the Gill also contains an extra set of imaging chips. The chips, similar to the ones used in digital cameras, can be used to "command guide" a version of the missile called Spike.
In command guidance mode, the Spike actually sends what it sees back to the soldier over a set of fiber optic wires that trail behind the missile as it flies. The soldier uses the images to "fly" the missile, sending steering commands back through the same fiber optic wire. And unlike other portable anti-tank missiles, the Spike can be launched against targets up to 4,000 meters away - more safely out of the range of return fire.
Military analysts note that the Western digital imaging technology is a big edge when it comes to anti-tank weapons. And it's unlikely that the Iraqi forces have any weapons of similar capabiliy among its Soviet-era arms cache. But, less-advanced arms doesn't mean the coalition's tank forces are completely safe from harm.
Less Tech, But No Less Efficient
Last week, ABCNEWS' Ted Koppel, embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, reported that the division lost as many as four vehicles - including two Abrams tanks - to a capable Russian anti-tank missile called the Kornet.
Although the Kornet requires a crew to guide the missile to the tank using a laser, the Kornet, like the Javelin and Gill, has dual explosive warheads and can defeat the toughest, modern tank armor.
"For a Russian system, it's a fairly good weapon," said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org. "It's similar to the American TOW [anti-tank] missile as far as capability and its laser guidance system is hard to countermeasure."
And for now, there doesn't seem to be any way to protect tanks and their crew of soldiers from these improved anti-tank missiles. Adding extra armor would already make a tank such as the 70-ton Abrams even more unwieldy for battle.
"The tank is too heavy as it is," said Sherman. "The main criticism of the M1A2 [Abrams] is that only a few bridges can carry its weight." And its gross tonnage also makes the Abrams impossible to transport quickly to distant battlefields such as Iraq by plane, hindering U.S. ability to react quickly to land-based threats.
"The balance between armor and anti-armor is a constant see-saw," said Sherman. "And for now, it seems the see-saw's tipped in the anti-armor's favor."
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