Antitank guided missile

Initial developments in the field of tactical guided missile weapons for use directly on the battlefield as anti-tank weapons , conducted in parallel with the development of armored weapons , included equipping tanks and other heavily armored fighting vehicles with guided launch vehicles that, by analogy with standard ammunition, were called " projectiles " .

For a long time, the designer-gunsmiths, who worked on the creation of models of anti-tank guided weapons for launching from a guide, could not solve a number of problems that significantly affect its combat effectiveness, namely:

• Provide rocket high initial speed and give the necessary acceleration.
• Stabilize the rocket in the initial part of the flight path.
• Protect the calculation from the jet flying back to the side without relocating it to the side.

All missile weapon models that were launched not from the barrel immediately began to “wander” in space due to their relatively low initial speed and created a danger to the launching forces (which required equipping the calculations with coils with an unwinding cable to remove the control point to a safe distance from the firing position, which also impact on the quality of the rocket control, since the operator, who was on the sidelines, was required to “catch” the flying rocket and take it to the line of sight of the target. I provide a guaranteed hit targets with the first shot, and signified the weapon can only be in the form of ammunition for barrel run and no other. With the passage of time and the development of technology to increase missile stability in flight, the synthesis of new varieties of rocket fuel, including in the construction of the propulsion system emitted by the engine or expelling charge in order to protect the launching, this problem was largely solved, and therefore, the development of anti-tank weapons was no longer tightly tied artillery systems.

Subsequently, after the beginning of the development of anti-tank missile systems of higher mobility categories, it is lighter and more compact than the original models designed to equip infantry units and are suitable for carrying by hand with one or several servicemen, to the specified category of domestic and foreign weapons in the Soviet military press for quite a long time (until the end of the 1980s and later) the wording “ATGM” was used until it was finally replaced in everyday use by the more correct version of “ATGM”. Due to the fact that, for a variety of reasons, the development of cannon-launched guided missile weapons with wire guidance was discontinued as unpromising (primarily due to the emergence and start of practical application of technologies that provide the necessary initial speed and stabilization of the rocket in flight without prior acceleration in the borehole as well as for the reason that the external or being deployed with the help of retractable devices the anti-tank guided missile launchers they baked the possibility of using a tank gun for combat purposes and missile weapons at the same time, which was not possible when firing an ATGM (wire-guided), the formulation went through a concept defined by it for several decades.

The practical feasibility of developing an ATGM cannon launch at the initial stage of the development of missile weapons (at the time of rocket control by wire) was dictated by the following circumstances associated with the use of conventional guided missiles that did not meet the requirements of the armed forces:

• Versatility is a relatively large combat mass, requiring installation of a launcher on a carrier vehicle and, as a result, the need for unification of a new type of ammunition for already existing tank armament , which would allow to retrofit an existing fleet of armored vehicles without the use of technological operations, without creating special machines;
• Operational simplicity - eliminating unnecessary links in the “operator-weapon” interaction system significantly simplified the operation and combat use of missile weapons, while simplifying the training of missile operators, which made it possible to include them in training programs for gunners, tanks and combat vehicles, in addition , the launching device integrated into the system of the onboard armament of the tank was repaired and maintained by specialists in the operation of armored personnel carriers and did not require the involvement of each their specialties (in this case, RAV service specialists);
• The simplicity of technology - the elimination of unnecessary items of the nomenclature of products, simplified the interaction of military industry enterprises engaged in providing troops with ammunition and armaments;
• Unification - bringing the diameter of projectiles to the caliber of standard tank guns simplified the organization of their production on existing industrial equipment;
• Vitality - a high probability of failure of a launcher mounted outside the tank in the event of enemy shelling or damage while overcoming difficult terrain (dense thickets, forest obstructions, etc.) led to the need to deploy rocket weapons within the protected armor space;
• Reliability - the unreliability of retractable devices when placing a launcher inside a tank for transportation in the stowed position and extension to the outside for translation into a combat position and ensure the missiles are ready for launch (the device could be jammed by a number of factors to which the tank gun was indifferent);
• The size of the loaded ammunition - due to the exclusion from the design of the tank mass of the launcher and the volume of space occupied by it, the freed up space could be used to transport other payloads and increase the ammunition of the missiles;
• Saving work space - placing a launcher inside a tank would not only affect the reduction of portable ammunition, but also limit the freedom of movement of the crew inside the tank, reducing the amount of working space and forcing crew members to work in extremely cramped conditions;
• Shooting efficiency - low accuracy in general and when shooting at moving targets in particular, due to the spatial deviation of the rocket from the target and the insufficient speed of the rocket’s flight, which could be compensated by accelerating to the required initial speed and making the rocket stable in the barrel;
• The limited scope of the shelling sector is the presence of a vast area of uncharted space , due to the need for a significant adjustment of the initial flight path of the rocket by the operator in the first seconds after launch due to the high coefficient of spatial deviation already at the start
• The duration of the firing cycle is a low speed of a rocket and, as a result, a large flight time, turning its operator into a potential target for return fire ;
• The surprise factor - the visual detection of a slow-flying missile in flight or its detection using radar tools eliminated completely or extremely minimized the surprise factor of shelling for the enemy;
• The reaction time of the enemy to shelling - the low speed of the rocket’s flight made it possible for the enemy not only to detect the missile launched or flying up in time, but also to take measures to leave the shelling sector or take countermeasures, and therefore it was necessary to accelerate the missile’s flight to the target;
• Resistance to countermeasures - low resistance of openly transported missile systems to measures of active counteraction from the enemy, including small arms and high-explosive fragmentation ammunition, the operator of tank weapons was protected by vehicle armor.

For the most part, the ATGM is assembled in a normal aerodynamic configuration, sometimes with front steering surfaces, less often in a tailless pattern .

• Tank guided weapons complex (KUVT)

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