An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. ATGMs range in size from shoulder-launched weapons, which can be transported by a single soldier, to larger tripod-mounted weapons, which require a squad or team to transport and fire, to vehicle and aircraft mounted missile systems.
Semi-automatic command to line of sight (SACLOS) is a method of missile command guidance. In SACLOS, the operator must continually point a sighting device at the target while the missile is in flight. Electronics in the sighting device and/or the missile then guide it to the target.
Manual command to line of sight is a method for guiding guided missiles.
Javelin is a British man-portable surface-to-air missile, formerly used by the British Army and Canadian Army. It can be fired from the shoulder, or from a dedicated launcher named the Lightweight Multiple Launcher (LML), that carries three rounds, and can be vehicle mounted.
Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its Probability of Guidance (Pg).
Beam-riding, also known as Line-Of-Sight Beam Riding (LOSBR), beam guidance or radar beam riding is a technique of directing a missile to its target by means of radar or a laser beam. The name refers to the way the missile flies down the guidance beam, which is aimed at the target. It is one of the simplest guidance systems and was widely used on early missile systems, however it had a number of disadvantages for long-range targeting and is now found typically only in short-range roles.
Command guidance is a type of missile guidance in which a ground station or aircraft relay signals to a guided missile via radio control or through a wire connecting the missile to the launcher and tell the missile where to steer to intercept its target. This control may also command the missile to detonate, even if the missile has a fuze.
The AGM-12 Bullpup is a short-range air-to-ground missile developed by Martin Marietta for the US Navy. It is among the earliest precision guided air-to-ground weapons and the first to be mass produced. It first saw operational use in 1959 on the A-4 Skyhawk, but soon found use on the A-6 Intruder, F-100 Super Sabre, F-105 Thunderchief, F-4 Phantom II, F-8 Crusader, and P-3 Orion in both Navy and US Air Force service, as well as NATO allies. The weapon was guided manually via a small joystick in the aircraft cockpit, which presented a number of problems and its ultimate accuracy was on the order of 10 metres (33 ft), greater than desired. In the 1960s it was increasingly supplanted by fully automatic weapons like the AGM-62 Walleye and AGM-65 Maverick.
Proportional navigation is a guidance law used in some form or another by most homing air target missiles. It is based on the fact that two vehicles are on a collision course when their direct line-of-sight does not change direction as the range closes. PN dictates that the missile velocity vector should rotate at a rate proportional to the rotation rate of the line of sight, and in the same direction.
The 9K112 Kobra is a SACLOS anti-tank missile system of the Soviet Union. It is fired from the 125 mm main guns of the T-64 and T-80 series of tanks. A newer design based on the same concept is the 9M119.
The 9M123 Khrizantema is a Russian anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). Khrizantema was designed to deal with current and future generations of main battle tanks and can also be used to engage slow and low flying aerial targets like helicopters. The 9M123 missile, and its associated guidance system, forms the 9K123 missile system.
Motion camouflage is camouflage which provides a degree of concealment for a moving object, given that motion makes objects easy to detect however well their coloration matches their background or breaks up their outlines.
Orange William was a British project to develop a long-range anti-tank missile as a possible alternative to the Malkara being developed in Australia. The project was drawn up in 1954 and the resulting contract won by Fairey Engineering in 1956. It was very similar to Malkara in form and layout, including the Malkara's distinctive square fuselage. It differed primarily in its guidance system and the use of an infrared command link replacing the Malkara's manual wire guidance. The name is a randomly selected "rainbow code".
The Nimrod is a long-range air-to-surface missile developed by Israel Aerospace Industries. While designed for mainly anti-tank warfare, it provides standoff strike ability against a variety of point targets such as armoured personnel carriers (APCs), ships, bunkers, personnel concentrations, and guerrillas.
The AS-30 was an air-to-ground missile built by Nord Aviation. It was a precision attack weapon designed to be used against high-value targets such as bridges and bunkers. The AS-30 was essentially a larger version of the earlier AS-20 design, and initially used that weapon's guidance system, which required pilots to track the weapon visually and correct its path using a small joystick, while also flying their own aircraft. All such MCLOS systems proved very difficult to use in practice. The updated AS-30L replaced this system with a semi-active laser homing system, which allows the missile to fly to the target without operator intervention. About 60 AS-30Ls were launched during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Deliberate Force with great success.
Guidance, navigation and control is a branch of engineering dealing with the design of systems to control the movement of vehicles, especially, automobiles, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft. In many cases these functions can be performed by trained humans. However, because of the speed of, for example, a rocket's dynamics, human reaction time is too slow to control this movement. Therefore, systems—now almost exclusively digital electronic—are used for such control. Even in cases where humans can perform these functions, it is often the case that GNC systems provide benefits such as alleviating operator work load, smoothing turbulence, fuel savings, etc. In addition, sophisticated applications of GNC enable automatic or remote control.
Pursuit guidance, or a pursuit course, is a form of guidance widely used in older guided missiles.
CM501G is a Chinese land attack missile first revealed during the 9th Zhuhai Airshow held in November 2012. Developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), CM-501G is also available in air and ship launched versions upon customers' requests, but only the land-based version made its public debut at the airshow.
The Royal Navy's Type 901 X-band radar was used as the beam-riding command guidance system for the Seaslug missile system, which was the first such system used by the Royal Navy. Designed by the Admiralty Surface Radar Establishment at Portsdown, the project was passed to Marconi Systems for manufacture.
Predicted line of sight (PLOS) is a method of missile targeting. In PLOS, the operator tracks the target with the missile launcher's onboard sights for a short period of time. Software on the launcher extrapolates from the data gathered, producing a prediction of the route required to intercept the moving target. When fired the missile uses inertial navigation to fly this course and hopefully engage the target either by direct contact or via proximity fuse detonating the warhead. The method is used by the NLAW and FGM-172 SRAW anti-tank weapon.
