Strela Anti Aircraft - For operators, the drone also offers another tool: Militaries have chosen to selectively release footage recorded by the TB-2. This imagery, in part, can exaggerate the influence of drones on battlefield outcomes, building the mythology of the weapon outside of its actual importance.
The Swedish-made Carl Gustaf, which Canada says it plans to send 100 of to Ukraine, is an 84mm recoilless rifle, variants of which have been in service around the world since the 1940s. The system has been continuously improved over that time, especially with regard to weight reduction and improved sighting systems.
Strela Anti Aircraft
The SA-7 GRAIL (Strela-2) man-portable, shoulder-fired, low-altitude SAM system is similar to the US Army REDEYE, with a high explosive warhead and passive infrared homing guidance. The SA-7 was the first generation of Soviet man portable surface-to-air missiles.
Sa- Grail Km Strela-
Although classified as "fire and forget" types, the missiles were easily overcome by solar heat and, when used in hilly terrain, by heat from the ground. Ukrainian forces are now in the process of receiving a massive influx of additional stocks of MANPADS and infantry anti-armor systems of various types from more than a dozen different countries.
Many of the anti-tank weapons can be used against unarmored vehicles, structures, personnel, as well as armor. All told, these new shipments will be added to the thousands of similar weapons already delivered to the embattled country.
While some of these weapons, particularly the U.S.-made Javelin guided anti-tank missile and Stinger surface-to-air missile, have practically become household names, many more are much less well known. These are first and second-generation MANPADS that entered service in the 1960s and 1970s and there are reports that they may not even be functional at this point.
Matt Schroeder, a Senior Researcher at Small Arms Survey, an independent organization that investigates the supply and use of small arms and light weapons in international conflicts, has raised the possibility various reports may be confusing Strelas with Igla-series types that would be at least
What Has It Meant For The War So Far?
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Market data DirectFN Finansal Veri ve Teknoloji Hizmetleri Ltd. Know provided by. BIST stock data is delayed by 15 minutes. Egyptian technicians have reverse engineered and modified two Soviet SAMs -- the Ayn as Saqr (a version of the SA-7) and the Tayir as Sabah (a version of the SA-2).
The Ayn as Saqr [Falcon Eye] anti-Aircraft missile system is designed to counter air-ground attack by all types of aircraft flying at low and very low altitudes due to its simplicity of operation, accuracy, light weight, mobility & versatility (either
by one man or to be integrated into other overall A/D systems). Also it can be mounted on any combat vehicle, light or armored. Moreover the basic equipment can be fitted with IFF & night vision units.
The Nlaw Anti-Tank Weapon
There have been reports that Finland's shipments of anti-armor weapons to Ukraine could include the French-made APILAS. This is a single-shot disposable weapon that is only available preloaded with a 112mm high-explosive anti-tank rocket. It has a maximum effective range of just over 1,640 feet against static targets and just under 985 feet against moving ones.
The TB-2, in use by Azerbaijan, contributed to that country's success in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war against Armenia. Part of that is from the utility of the drone: the TB-2 can fly for up to 27 hours, at a range of over 90 miles from where it was launched.
In addition to optical and infrared cameras, the TB-2 can carry up to 330 lbs of laser-guided missiles and rockets, including anti-tank rockets. The first versions of the M72 LAW, which is a single-shot disposable rocket launcher, were developed in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Well before the end of the Cold War, it had become clear they had limited effectiveness against even contemporary tanks and had begun to be gradually withdrawn from service with the U.S. military and other armed forces around the world.
The missile is fitted with a passive infrared homing system and a contact fuse and it is guided to contrast heat sources, usually the outlet pipe of an aircraft engine. It is powered by a two-stage solid fuel engine.
The target is detected visually by the operator; an additional IFF system can be used to identify its nationality. Activation of the homing system and electronic circuits takes 4 to 6 seconds, the engine is ignited 0.8 second after that.
For stabilization reasons, the missile rotates about its longitudinal axis (20 rps). The target is destroyed by a pressure wave and splinters upon the initiation of the HE warhead. After launching, the operator can reload the device up to 5 times.
The system includes a 9M32M missile in a 9P54M container, 9P58 launcher, 9B17 electric battery, 9V810M mobile testing and support assets, 9F620, 9F622 and 9F626 training and simulation installations. The weapon system, which Ukraine had already begun acquiring stocks of years ago, has top-attack and direct-fire modes of operation, making it very flexible when engaging armored vehicles and other targets, especially in dense urban environments.
It has a significant range, with the latest shoulder-fired versions being able to hit targets up to two and a half miles away. The Command Launch Unit's (CLU) targeting system, which includes a thermal imaging sight, also has a secondary surveillance capability that can be used in a pinch.
These weapons are even capable of being used against low and slow flying helicopters, especially during their terminal operations in and out of landing zones. The age of these weapons means that the batteries used to power the missile launcher may have drained and degraded since they were built.
In 2014, The New York Times reported that rebels using Strelas had resorted to recharging the batteries themselves. While Ukraine used the TB-2 drones as part of its long-running war against the separatists in the eastern part of the country, the drones have risen to new prominence in the invasion, in no small part because of the spectacular drone-recorded footage.
One such video, apparently recorded from the ground control station of a TB-2, shows the drone releasing weapons on a Russian Buk anti-air missile truck. For now, broad estimates of deaths and injuries offer a first assessment of the human cost of the war.
As of March 2, the United Nations reported 752 confirmed civilian deaths in Ukraine, and noted that this was likely an undercount. The Russian defense ministry confirmed that at least 498 of its soldiers had died so far in the war, while Ukraine claimed to have killed at least 5,300 Russian soldiers by March 1. The US government has estimated deaths in the war up to this point at 2,000
Russian soldiers and around 1,500 on the Ukrainian side. Since the invasion, Ukrainian forces have destroyed many of these tanks, helicopters, and artillery pieces. Accurate numbers of destroyed equipment are hard to come by. Governments in a war have a vested interest in exaggerating the accomplishments of their own forces, and downplaying their own losses.
This is compounded by the "fog of war," a military term for the uncertainty of information in conflict. This uncertainty can cover the location of enemies, whether militias are friendly or not, and even if an abandoned tank was destroyed in a fight or simply left on the road because it ran out of fuel.
The standard sights on the AT4 are very rudimentary and it has an effective range of just under 985 feet. The launcher can be fitted with an adapter to allow the mounting of more robust sighting systems, including night vision optics, but this is a complicated and potentially costly proposition given that the core weapon is meant to be discarded after use.
The Grom family of missiles, the first versions of which entered service in the 1990s, are improved derivatives of the Soviet-designed 9K38 Igla. Like Stinger, Grom and Piorun are short-range, heat-seeking missiles, but which still have appreciable engagement envelopes that make them very capable weapons against a variety of aerial threats.
It is hard to know what weapons have resulted in what deaths in the war. While drone-recorded video footage offers some clear evidence, a comprehensive understanding of the impact of bombs and missiles on people, vehicles, and buildings will come later.
First developed by the Soviet Union, the Strela weapons are a kind of MANPADS, or man-portable air defense system. They are fired from a shoulder-mounted tube. The first Strela missiles were fielded in 1968, and the weapons were fielded by many of the Soviet-aligned militaries, including East Germany, a different nation than the rest of Germany from 1949 to 1990. The weapons Germany is giving to Ukraine date back to
this East German arsenal, which makes them at least 31 years old. There have been reports that Germany is or has at least explored the possibility of sending 2,700 Soviet-era heat-seeking Strela-series MANPADS to Ukraine from stocks that had belonged to the now-defunct East German military.
It's unclear whether the weapons in question are 9K32 Strela-2s or 9K34 Strela-3s, which are also known to NATO as SA-7s and SA-14s respectively. The APILAS is understood to be pretty punishing on the user to fire in terms of both the shock of firing and the noise produced when the rocket is launched.
At least in the past, the French military has categorized it as a "traumatic weapon" and prohibited personnel from firing more than two or three of them in peacetime throughout their entire service careers. The SA-7 seeker is fitted with a filter to reduce the effectiveness of decoy flares and to block IR emissions.
The system consists of the missile (9K32 & 9K32M), a reloadable gripstock (9P54 & 9P54M), and a thermal battery (9B17). An identification friend or foe (IFF) system can be fitted to the operators helmet. Furthermore, a supplementary early warning system consisting of a passive RF antenna and headphones can be used to provide an early cue about the approach and rough direction of an enemy aircraft.
Although the SA-7 is limited in range, speed, and altitude, it forces enemy pilots to fly above minimum radar limitations which results in detection and vulnerability to regimental and divisional air defense systems. Unlike the reloadable Javelin, NLAW is a single-shot, self-contained system.
It can be fired in top-attack or direct fire modes out to an effective range of around 2,625 feet, according to the manufacturer Saab. It uses its own onboard guidance to hit the target it was aimed at, acting in a fire-and-forget mode after launch.
This is done by the system measuring the angular speed of the target for a number of seconds prior to launch. It is autonomous once it leaves the launcher and its soft launch system allows for the ability to launch from more confined spaces.
Interestingly, despite being a single-use system, the latest versions of this weapon are equipped with a computerized sighting system with day and night vision modes that can be used by itself for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.
Russian war machines, from tanks to helicopters to artillery, have featured prominently in the war in Ukraine since it began a week ago. In fact, starting in October 2021, it was the assembly of these weapons along the border with Ukraine that first suggested to the outside world that Russia was planning a larger invasion than just its ongoing support for the separatist republics in the east of the country.
It has been reported that the 5,000 anti-armor weapons that Sweden is sending to Ukraine are likely to be AT4s. This Swedish-designed weapon, which the U.S. military was first to adopt in 1987, is in many ways a single-shot, disposable derivative of the Carl Gustaf.
As the most sophisticated version, the Strela 3 can hit aircraft at altitudes as low as 33 feet to as high as 9,800 feet, and from a distance of as close as 1,600 feet to 2.6 miles.
This makes the weapon most useful against helicopter or low-flying jet attacks, and also possibly of some use against drones, although when the Strela was developed, modern military combat drones were still decades in the future.
Before Russia's invasion kicked off, Poland had announced plans to send either Grom or Grom-M MAPANDS, the latter of which is also known as Piorun, to Ukraine. It was subsequently reported that these deliveries would most likely include Grom-M/Piorun and that they would be sent first to the United States as part of the transfer process.
The NLAW is but one of many anti-tank weapons used in the conflict. The US-produced Javelin shoulder-fired missiles are popular among militaries with access to them, including Ukraine. These missiles have already been turned into a meme for their use in destroying tanks, and the people inside.
Stinger is a short-range weapon optimized for point defense, but even early types still had significant engagement envelopes. This means that these missiles can be used to target lower and slower-flying threats, like helicopters, as well as various types of higher-flying and faster-moving fixed-wing aircraft, including combat jets and transport planes that get close enough.
The MANPADS envelope is generally 15,000-feet and below, although some can even exceed that ceiling today. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is only just over a week old, but, by every indication, Ukrainian forces have already been able to inflict significant losses on the invaders in terms of personnel and material.
Shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, have been a key factor in preventing Russian forces from gaining critically important air superiority. Infantry anti-armor weapons, both guided and unguided, have been equally valuable for Ukrainian troops, who are facing a heavily mechanized enemy on the ground.
There are versions of the Alcotán-100 preloaded with high-explosive anti-tank rockets, as well as general high-explosive and high-explosive dual-purpose types, the latter of which is meant to provide a mixture of anti-armor and anti - personnel effects.
All three types have a maximum effective range of around 2,000 feet against a static point target. The German-designed Panzerfaust 3 (PzF 3) is categorized as a semi-disposable single-shot rocket launcher. While it can be reloaded like the Carl Gustaf, it is typically issued preloaded with a single guided round – either an anti-tank or an anti-structure "Bunkerfaust" type.
AT4s come preloaded with one of a number of 84mm rounds. As such, there are anti-tank, anti-structure, and high-explosive variants of the AT4 available, as well as a specialized version that can be fired safely from within a confined space, such as a room in a building with a window
.