The Ukrainians have shown many times that thanks to their great creativity they are able to successfully destroy Russian equipment in a variety of ways. Now we see how, with the help of the American Javelins, they eliminate Russian armored weapons. We explain how they do it.
Ukrainians have already used vehicles of the type buggy as destroyers of Russian tanks that had huge problems with the Ukrainian mud, the so-called rasputica, about which she wrote Karolina Modzelewska. In turn, pick-ups are used, among others as carriers for unguided rockets S-8 or even towing 122 mm rocket launchers from the BM-21 Grad launcher, affectionately named by the Ukrainians “The Witcher”.
The video below shows how soldiers from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade eliminated a T-80BW tank with a hit from the FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank guided missile in July.
It is clearly visible that the Ukrainian soldier sitting on the “pace” fired the missile at the Russian tank, and then the pick-up drove away. The FGM-148 Javelin is an advanced “fire and forget” missile with a range of 4,750 meters capable of burning up to 750 mm of protected armor steel reactive armor.
Before firing a shot, it only takes a few seconds for the homing head with the cooled IR sensor to memorize the target. The missile then rises to a high altitude and attacks the target with a dive flight from the upper hemisphere, where its armor is weakest.
You can see that the hit came from the right side of the turret and there was no immediate detonation ammo carousel. The tank continues to drive a moment after being hit, and then, after it has stopped, most probably the only Russian soldier still alive escapes from it. It is the driver who in the tank, unlike the commander and the gunner, is a bit further in the front of the hull.
Przemysław Juraszek, journalist of Wirtualna Polska