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Comment by sklargh | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that the NLAW's probability of kill is comparable, easier to use and its cost is radically lower. The Javelin is a great weapons system, and is highly complimentary to the NLAW - but if I was forced to pick one thing to arm my force with it'd be the NLAW (or maybe the Spike-SR).

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They are very different types of weapons. The NLAW's range is inferior at a basic level and the missile itself does not actually track the target making shots out to the edge of it's theoretical range very difficult, unlike the Javelin. While both Javelin and NLAW are top attack munitions, their flight trajectories are very different. The NLAW flies more or less in a line from launch to directly above the target and then detonates its shaped charge warhead which shoots down as the missile flies over (i.e it explodes down, not forward). Its flight trajectory is more vulnerable to active protection systems compared to the Javelin's true top attack mode (but that's not an issue against Russians). The warhead is also smaller and less effective. The NLAW is a great weapon but its constraints are apparent in many cases.

If I had to choose, I would take the Stugna-P. You guide it with a laptop and don't have to hold it up to fire (it's mounted on a tripod), and the range is much further (4km!).

How does the cost compare? Also, point and shoot might be better than setting up and using a laptop.

A quick google says 20K.

Remotely operated might be a better descriptor. Instead of getting shot at from the tank or infantry support, you can set up the missile and hide in a ditch/building.

Javelin and NLaw can go up to around 5km, can't they?

Apparently a man-potable javalin's range is a 2.5K. The thing I think about is that the amount of of area one has to secure around their tanks using infantry/drones/whatever. The area increases with the square of the counter weapon's distance.

To give a sense of scale, do you know roughly how many soldiers are needed on the ground to defend, say, a square kilometre of terrain?

I suppose it depends on the type of terrain, but it would be interesting to know some representative figures.

Seems like there's a place for both.

Javelins can be fired from inside a building, which'll be nice in close urban quarters.

I'd also pick the Stugna-P, great ambush weapon.

But if we're picking anything, I'd also take a kamikaze drone. While they're ineffective against tanks directly, the logistical support and forward bases are very soft targets, and you could essentially make tanks impractical.

Just feel like a drone is a great psychological warfare weapon, you're never safe even behind your lines.

If we're picking anything I want tactical nukes.

So what if I turn my country into a radioactive dump. It's my radioactive dump and you'll only get it over my dead body.

Surely some sampling bias here but, in the overwhelming majority of videos of Russian vehicle kills I've seen, the guys are using a Stugna. Sometimes even a repurposed export model with UI text in Arabic or something.

Maybe if your army boss can print dollars, you wouldn't mind paying 200% more for 10% improvement.

The NLAW is easier, cheaper, and if it hits probably has similar lethality, but the Javelin is much more likely to hit in the first place. The NLAW isn't really guided: you point it at a tank, track it through the sights for a moment, then fire, and the missile will keep blindly tracking the movement of the tank. So if the tank stops or turns then the NLAW will keep deflecting and will miss. The Javelin actually does have sensors on the missile to track the tank, so it can compensate for changes in direction. Now, when you're fairly close you can probably get away with just momentum tracking, so the NLAW is perfectly fine in many circumstances, but the Javelin is much more likely to hit in any scenario.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastienroblin/2022/03/31/anal...

The only thing I've seen about the NLAW is a direct hit on the top turret of a Russian tank doing absolutely nothing.

> The NLAW may have a maximum range of 600 or even 800 meters, but it also has a minimum range of 20 meters. Below that range its fuse isn’t meant to go off.

> So most likely, the lucky tank was actually too close for the NLAW to work as intended.

The NLAW has a single warhead, while the Javelin and Stugna have a tandem warhead designed to deactivate ERA first.

Who knows how it works in practice.

NLAW - 40k Javelin - 80k missile + 140k launcher Stugna - 20k missile

NLAW direct attack mode is intended for soft targets. Its shaped charge warhead points down at a 90 degree angle from the direction of flight. It is intended to detonate while the missile flies over the top of the tank shooting a jet hypersonic molten metal down into the most lightly armored part of the tank. If you use the direct attack mode against a tank it's probably not going to work much better than just throwing an equivalent amount of high explosive at the tank which usually won't do shit.

I hope users know that mode as "Unarmored target mode". Knowing nothing about this I can imagine non-professional soldiers selecting "direct attack" because that sounds intuitively like a thing that would work against a tank.

I'd like to think each missile comes with an instruction booklet illustrated in the same style as the pamphlets airlines have for evacuations.

I think it depends on the terrain in which you're operating on and whether you're on the offense or the defense. In urban or wooded terrain where engagement distances are shorter, the NLAW is probably a little better. In desert or plains where engagement distances are longer, the Javelin is probably better. If I were in flat terrain or on the offense I would not want to be carrying a weapon with a range of 800m when the tank I'm fighting has a range of 3000m.

The nlaw was already obsolete 40 years ago. Every tank has explosive reactive armor and the nlaw is a single warhead projectile. It's useful against trucks and ifvs but against even a tank from the 80s its basically useless.

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