In the first days of the Ukrainian war, the world watched outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops use missiles to decimate Russian convoys.
Many people think that the initial Russian offensive was stopped by the Ukrainian anti-tank missiles. US-made Javelins and British/Swedish-designed NLAWs were also included.
According to a report from the Royal United Service Institute, it was the Ukrainians who caused the Russian advance to fail.
According to the British think tank's report, "Despite the prominence of anti-tank guided weapons in the public narrative, Ukraine blunted Russia's attempt to seize Kyiv using massed fires from two brigades."
Jack Watling said that the problem is not that anti-tank missiles are useless.
Watling told Insider that it was impractical to have enough of them concentrated in one area.
According to Watling, at the start of the war, Ukraine had 9,100 anti-tank missiles. It was enough to pin down Russian armor, hit targets, and engage Russian tanks from beyond the range of their cannons.
The best way to deliver large volumes of fire against concentrated units is with the use of cannons. This was the cause of the death of the most Russian soldiers.
Watling made it clear that this isn't a matter of anti-tank missiles vs. cannon.
You have to have both." Watling told Insider that the task could be completed with one person. It's more important to have enough cannon to destroy the enemy in high-intensity warfare.
The line between tanks and missiles has become blurry. Anti-tank guided missiles are built into many Russian and Ukrainian tanks.
The US experiment with this kind of missile-launching tank in the 1970s was a failure because the tank had to remain stationary while the missile was fired.
There have been a lot of tank-launched missiles in the conflict.
Many missiles have been launched out of the barrels of tanks, so those who argue that tanks are obsolete probably didn't know how many missiles have been launched. The tanks have the ability to sit in positions to watch more safely while guiding a missile to target, which is why this is.
Ukrainian man-portable AT GMs were able to destroy Russian missiles.
Ukrainian missiles could engage at a distance beyond the range of a tank cannon. The Russians couldn't sit safely at that distance and use their ATGMs, so being able to engage at that range forced them to hold off.
Maybe this shouldn't be a big deal.
Early in the war, when the fighting was more fluid, drones and missiles generated all the buzz, but the fact is that Ukraine had a limited number of missiles when the war began and a lot of foreign weapons didn't start arriving in significant numbers until weeks after Russia invaded.
If Russia had seized Kyiv in the first week or two, those Western arms might not have arrived in time.
Despite being outnumbered and outranged by Russian howitzers and rockets, Ukrainian artillery disrupted clumsy Russian armored columns that were making narrowly focused attacks.
The unfavorable battlefield geometry made it impossible for the Russians to build up significant momentum, as they came under sustained and intense shelling throughout the month.
When the fighting is static and the operations by both sides are more methodical, old-fashioned artillery has emerged as the decisive weapon.
The anti-tank missiles are important to protect the artillery from tanks. A successful army requires a variety of weapons.
His work has been published in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He has a masters degree in political science. You can follow him on social networking sites.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
