[Fun!] Mistral as anti-tank missile!

The latest versions of Tunguska have missiles with dual AA and AT warheads and 15km range, so the difference is blurred!-this rockets are not too heavy

The 15km range tunguska missiles have boosters that accelerate the missile to 1.2km/s… again a hypersonic missile. Still wouldn’t trust it against heavy armour, but against APC it would be effective.

Anti-tank bisonic missile ?? Wow! I LOVE that idea!!! 😀

Well then you’d REALLY love LOSAT and CKEM. 😀

GarryB-The latest versions of Tunguska have missiles with dual AA and AT warheads and 15km range, so the difference is blurred!-this rockets are not too heavy
all military and engeneears stride for are universal flexible battlefield weapons
hmvys jeeps other small vehicles sure can cary
can a manpad be that weapon-though question…
carried by 2 man yes but just 1…?

GarryB has. In post #6. 🙂

Oops. Busted skimming Garry’s posts 🙂

Daniel

surprised no one has mentioned ADATS yet but I suppose the discussion has been confined to MANPADS so I’m upping the ante somewhat 🙂

Daniel

GarryB has. In post #6. 🙂
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Iolite portable vaporizer

There are several reports that in the 1980s, the Mudjahidin in Afghanistan were provided with British “blowpipes”. Realising that these Manpads were far less effective against airborne targets than Stingers (i.e. the fact that the “blowpipes” were not too effective had already been demonstrated in the Falkland conflict), they seem to have used these missiles against lightly armoured vehicle, apparently to good avail !!!

surprised no one has mentioned ADATS yet but I suppose the discussion has been confined to MANPADS so I’m upping the ante somewhat 🙂

Daniel

The British have also tested their Starstreak missile against armored targets, with success it seems.

The starstreak uses three hypersonic darts as a warhead. Hypersonic means mach 5-6. This is getting further away from the 800m/s mach 2.5 and closer to the 1,300 plus speeds you’d need to reliably penetrate serious armour. Starstreak is also a SACLOS guided missile, this means that unlike with IR SAMs you can actually aim with confidence in actually hitting the target and like IIR guidance you can pick which part of the target you want to hit… most ATGMs use semi automatic command to line of sight guidance. (ie you put the crosshairs on the target and fire. The computer detects where the missile is based on tail mounted flares and then send course correction commands via a wire or radio link to the missile to move it in line with the crosshairs. Keep the crosshairs on the target and you should hit it if it was in range.

Would expect its anti armour use to be extremely secondary simply due to cost and of course the size of the starstreak launcher. If it is used I would expect it would be used against support vehicles like APCs rather than main battle tanks due to questions over penetration of heavy tank armour of the HE frag filled darts which were no doubt designed to penetrate aircraft armour, which is much lighter.

Actually having a think about it there is one possibility I hadn’t considered. Most MANPADS have proximity fuses so that they can still destroy small targets they don’t hit directly (like UAVs or cruise missiles). The other common fuse is impact. More rarely used is delayed impact… to explode inside the aircraft for maximum effect.

A variation of the delayed fuse might have some use against an old tank like an AMX-30. It wouldn’t be much use against modernised tanks with laminate armour or indeed any tanks fitted with ERA. The British use a round called HESH, or High Explosive Squash Head. Basically a HE charge with a base mounted fuse. When the round hits the target it flattens like dough and spreads out over the armour. It is detonated by the rear mounted fuse. Basically the kill mechanism is a shockwave that passes through the armour and makes flakes of armour on the inside of the tank flake off and ricochette around starting fires and injuring crew. It doesn’t work against layered armour or spaced armour. It wouldn’t therefore work on any Soviet Tank older than a T-64 and it wouldn’t work on Soviet tanks with addon armour either. It needs a very large charge… the bigger the better… 3kgs might not be enough anyway. It is supposed to be the reason the Brits stick with rifled guns on their tanks.

if i were an infantryman facing down a tank and all i had was a Mistral i would desperately shoot it at the tank and be happy that it got “neutralized” and i am still alive.

Would you also fire your rifle at the tank? Would you try a bayonet charge?

Tanks of the era of the AMX-30 had 100-115mm guns that fired HE rounds that weighed about 15-20kgs at speeds of between mach 2.5 and mach 3. ( 800metres per second plus). This will often damage a tank and perhaps shell shock the crew, but there is a reason they also carry HVAPDS rounds as well.

As I said, a MANPAD would be an attention getter. When a MANPAD gets a lock you just hear a sound or tone. For all you know the missile might have locked onto a burning tree next to the tank. Any person carrying a missile of any kind will be target number one for any tank commander. The AMX-30 has from memory a coaxial 20mm cannon that would rip you to pieces before you got a lock… that is assuming you actually get a lock in the first place.

however if anything else was available like Eryx or Predator or Javelin or Spike i would of course use those first. and save the mistral for enemy helicopters.

If I didn’t have an anti tank weapon on me I’d stay under cover and leave it to my own tank forces.

generally speaking the lines between anti-tank/aircraft/ship missiles are kinda blurred. Hellfire can be used quite effectively against helicopters, AIM-4 Falcons were used against ground targets in vietnam, and USN doctrine envisages long-range HARM shots at radar-emitting enemy ships.

Quite true, but in addition to concerns about whether you will actually get a lock every time, and the anti armour capability of the weapon I would suggest it would be a desperate measure that I personally wouldn’t waste my time even trying.

Agreed! But the “B2” version is equipped with Reactive-armor. Though, the article doesn’t says if there were RA or not…

Mistral doesn’t have a shaped charge warhead to penetrate armour. ERA would not have much effect. In fact if the armour is heavy enough to support the explosion of ERA then it will likely be strong enough to stop the effects of a 3kg frag warhead.

After all the 3kg warhead arrives at a mach 2,5, that is at ground level, about 3000 kmh or 833 metres per second. It FAST! And remember, it’s only an anti-aicraft fragmentation warhead with few real effects on armor, but what affect would do a 3 kg HEAT warhead ? More than that, does the kinetic speed of the missile have significant effect on the shaped charge effects ? Do both kinetic energies (the missile’s and warhead’s) add together as far as perforation is concerned ?

The problems are manyfold. A HE Frag warhead is designed to spread the damage around. A shaped charge warhead is designed to concentrate the energy on one point. They are opposites. Fragments from a HE FRAG get penetration from weight. Through light structures a heavy fragment will penetrate better than a light one though make the fragments too heavy and you reduce the number of fragments or you make the warhead too big and heavy. Against hard armour like tank armour the fragment has to be of the correct shape to again concentrate all its energy of mass on as small a point as possible… though not too small or the tip will shear off and penetration is reduced. Fragments from a HE FRAG warhead are never the right shape for armour penetration… that is why you need specialised AP ammo.

What’s interesting with this test is that a Mistral can be used against tanks.

Tanks are fitted with big powerful diesel engines that put out a large amount of heat. Those fitted with Gas Turbines (as fitted to modern helos) put out even more heat. The only real problem is that using IR to target tanks means engine hits or mobility kills. This means that even if you popped up and hit that tank with your Mistral the best you can hope for is that it will start to burn. Fire suppression systems make that unlikely, though it is always possible for fires to overcome suppression systems. The main problem is that the tank can still fire at you and the crew are going to be p!ssed at you for ruining their ride.

But if, and I say “if”, a BIG “if”, a Mistral can succesfully target a MBT, could’nt the anti-aircraft warhead be exchanged for an anti-armor one ?

The best warhead for such a weapon would probably be an incendiary one. Mach 2.5 isn’t fast enough to penetrate modern armour… even if you fitted a 40mm calibre deplete uranium rod weighing 7 kgs down the centre of it… real APDS rounds travel 1km/s faster than mistral. (Mistral = about 800m/s APDSFS rounds = about 1,600-1,800m/s)

if so, it would make an interesting addition te the Mistral’s anti aicraft capabilities by extending its range of actions from strict surface-to-air function to both surface-to-air an surface-to-surface adding much flexibility to the troops actions…

The only dual purpose weapon I have heard of like that would be ADATs. Far too expensive to ever be used as an Anti tank weapon though. As you point out going the other way has more potential… ATGMs used as anti aircraft weapons. Even milan type weapons as anti helo weapons.
Main problem is guidance. IR not so great unless it is imaging IR.

Regading the new AT system the french have had a lot of projects with russian companies, like SAGEM etc. Perhaps a few Kornets and Metis-M1s?

The British have also tested their Starstreak missile against armored targets, with success it seems.

First of all the AMX-30 is not a heavily armoured tank. It follows the Leopard I tradition of less armour better mobility.

Agreed! But the “B2” version is equipped with Reactive-armor. Though, the article doesn’t says if there were RA or not…

Second when it says neutralising what exactly does it mean?

Good question, indeed. And, again, the article doesn’t say it. I think that, had the tank been more than simply damaged (read “destroyed”), the article had said it. I think we can safely assume that there wher significant damages, but no destruction. After all the 3kg warhead arrives at a mach 2,5, that is at ground level, about 3000 kmh or 833 metres per second. It FAST! And remember, it’s only an anti-aicraft fragmentation warhead with few real effects on armor, but what affect would do a 3 kg HEAT warhead ? More than that, does the kinetic speed of the missile have significant effect on the shaped charge effects ? Do both kinetic energies (the missile’s and warhead’s) add together as far as perforation is concerned ?

What’s interesting with this test is that a Mistral can be used against tanks. Again, I don’t know about the circumstances, and what has been done one a testing field can not necessarily be redone on a battlefield . But if, and I say “if”, a BIG “if”, a Mistral can succesfully target a MBT, could’nt the anti-aircraft warhead be exchanged for an anti-armor one ? if so, it would make an interesting addition te the Mistral’s anti aicraft capabilities by extending its range of actions from strict surface-to-air function to both surface-to-air an surface-to-surface adding much flexibility to the troops actions…

As a sidenote, I suspect this test took part in the perspective of replacing the French army’s MILAN missiles. Since the Trigat missile program is dead, France will have to purchase non-french equipment (mainly US or israeli) OR design its own. The first option is politicallly problematic, the last one needs time and money, whom France has currently none.
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Herbal Vaporizer

if i were an infantryman facing down a tank and all i had was a Mistral i would desperately shoot it at the tank and be happy that it got “neutralized” and i am still alive. however if anything else was available like Eryx or Predator or Javelin or Spike i would of course use those first. and save the mistral for enemy helicopters.

generally speaking the lines between anti-tank/aircraft/ship missiles are kinda blurred. Hellfire can be used quite effectively against helicopters, AIM-4 Falcons were used against ground targets in vietnam, and USN doctrine envisages long-range HARM shots at radar-emitting enemy ships.

First of all the AMX-30 is not a heavily armoured tank. It follows the Leopard I tradition of less armour better mobility.

Second when it says neutralising what exactly does it mean? An IR missile would likely hit the engine deck or engine exhaust, but it could equally it the main gun or the tracks depending upon the circumstances. Unless it is made of some hardened material then its velocity is irrelevant. (Of course if it was very heavy like a HAWK or Shtil then the mass could be used to knock the turret off of a tank… but with a MANPAD this would be unlikely). 3kg is heavier than many first generation ATGM warheads. RPG-7 rockets weight about 3kgs including rocket fuel so their warheads are generally lighter than this (except the newer models and the FAE models).

A hit on the barrel or the tracks or the engine especially from behind would be very dangerous for most tanks. 3kgs on the top of the turret would smash optics and generally make the tank hard to use. For the most part however I would call a Mistral an attention getter for tanks and certainly not something I would be using it for.