CONCEPT OF THIRD-GENERATION ATGM SYSTEMS

Arkady Shipunov, General Designer and Head of the Instrument Design Bureau, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Vyacheslav Dudka, First Deputy General Designer and First Deputy Head of the Instrument Design Bureau
Lev Zakharov, Division Chief Designer, State Prize Winner Yuri Parfyonov, Section Deputy Head
 

The Instrument Design Bureau, a state unitary enterprise, is a Russian leading developer of precision-guided weapons   antitank missile systems used as manportable infantry weapons and installed on mobile ground carriers such as wheeled vehicles, armored personnel carriers, infantry combat vehicles and tanks as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, to fight tanks and other mobile and stationary targets.

However, the threat caused by constant modernization of armor materiel intended to augment its protective qualities (increase of armor thickness, outfitting of the materiel with apron and explosive reactive armor, passive and active optical and electronic jammers, night sights) as well as an increase in tank gun aimed firing range has put a task before ATGM developers to improve these systems by reducing the time of target detection and the instant of fire opening, extending the firing range, obtaining a high accuracy of fire, augmenting warhead power, increasing the number of engaged targets per unit of time, improving jamming immunity, acquiring a possibility of firing from confined spaces and indirect laying positions, and ensuring their use at any time of day or night and in any weather.

The assigned tasks were partially resolved by modernization of second-generation ATGM systems: by outfitting missiles with tandem hollow-charge warheads to penetrate up to 800 mm of explosive reactive armor and installing thermal sights for the conduct of combat actions at night and in adverse conditions. However, the outfitting of tanks with optical jammers (MIDAS in Great Britain, Pomals Violin Mk1 in Israel) sharply reduced the jamming immunity of second-generation missiles when their direction finding channels are affected by jammers. The modernization did not eliminate wire links that limited speeds and maximum firing ranges of missiles and, hence, reduced the rate of fire.

To overcome the shortcomings of modernization, it is necessary to give up old incorporated design approaches and create systems possessing high armor penetration ability and effectiveness in a jamming environment both day and night, extended firing range and high rate of fire, which, however, involves large expenditures for rearmament. Naturally, the assigned task must be resolved with due regard for low cost and mass production of ATGMs and their systems.

The main requirements for modern antitank guided weapons of motorized infantry units of ground forces were stated above. It is evident that one ATGM model cannot incorporate all the aforementioned requirements. It is expedient to have an array of models that supplement one another during the accomplishment of combat missions. Despite the fact that different organic systems have their own advantages and differ in weight, dimensions, firing range and warhead lethality, they all have one common property   a universal nature of effect on battlefield targets, i.e., the potential to detect and engage virtually any military object presenting a threat.

To this end, the Instrument Design Bureau has partially renounced the implementation of the fire-and-forget principle, which had previously been a virtually obligatory sign of the third- generation guided weapons, and created a combined system including the models with the implementation of the see-and-fire and fire-and-forget principles.

The development of the third-generation ATGM system with due regard for the effectiveness-cost ratio envisages the provision of antitank defense up to 15 km deep into the enemy battle formation with three different organic types of ATGMs:

  light manportable Kornet ATGM system with a medium firing range of up to 2,500 m (Kornet-MR);

  self-propelled and portable Kornet ATGM system with a long firing range of up to 5,500 m (Kornet-LR);

  self-propelled Germes ATGM system with a long firing range of up to 15 km. The basic characteristics of the third-generation ATGM systems are presented in the table. Let us consider the main design principles and characteristics of the Kornet-MR and Kornet-LR systems.

Hummer-mounted Kornet-LR

The effective engagement of current and future tanks provided with explosive reactive armor is attained by a direct frontal impact of powerful tandem hollow-charge warheads with an armor penetration of 1,000 to 1,200 mm. The outfitting of missiles with high explosive thermobaric warheads, possessing blasting and incendiary effects of a large caliber artillery projectile, ensures the defeat of lightly armored materiel (infantry combat vehicles, armored personnel carriers), pillboxes, machine gun emplacements with hostile manpower, as well as light boats, small ships and other craft in case of coastal defense.

These systems employ the see-and-fire principle during battlefield observation through an optical or a thermal sight enabling target detection by their signatures in the infrared and optical bands of electromagnetic waves. The use of the laser beam control system with a large energy potential and the thermal sight ensures practically full immunity to active and passive interference (such as smoke screens). The high immunity to active optical jamming from the enemy side is attained by the fact that the missile photodetector faces the firer. In the smoke screen environment, the operator observes the battlefield through a thermal sight, while the see-and-fire principle is implemented due to a high energy potential of the laser beam control channel. The laser emission coding allows adjacent systems to deliver crisscross fire at different targets or at one target simultaneously.

The systems can be installed on wheeled and tracked carriers that were previously used for the Konkurs system (UAZ-469 and Hummer jeeps, BMD-1 and BMP-2 airborne and mechanized infantry combat vehicles). The outfitting of the Kornet-LR system with an automated stowage rack for 12 rounds allows successive fire from each of the two launchers and salvo firing of two beam-riding missiles at one especially dangerous target.

The additional equipage of the automated fire control system of the self-propelled ATGM mount with a two-channel target tracking automatic unit increases the rate of fire almost twofold, while the installation of the Kredo-type radar on board the vehicle sharply reduces the time to detect ground targets and ensures their rapid engagement and transmission of target designation data to other ATGM systems.

The Kornet-MR and Kornet-LR systems are similar in composition: a launcher with a sight/tracker and mechanical target tracking drives, a thermal sight and guided missiles in launching transporting containers. They are very  close  to the soldier, have good economic indexes, are easy to produce and simple in combat use. For example, the Kornet-MR system, when arranged in two packs like the Metis-M system, can be carried by two crew members (the launcher and the thermal sight in one pack, two containers with missiles in the other pack) to hard-to-access combat areas. A somewhat reduced muzzle velocity of missiles permits their firing from confined spaces during combat operations in populated areas.

The advent of the third-generation Germes ATGM system signifies new capabilities in combat employment of antitank weapons, i.e., transfer of fire to the depth of enemy disposition and repulsion of enemy breakthrough at any defense area without changing fire positions. This will prevent hostile armor units from their movement to and deployment at the line of attack (and even its disruption) while reducing own losses and ensuring fire superiority at the forward line of defense. The use of this tactics puts the task to radically extend the range for reconnaissance and engagement of armor units by advanced ATGMs that should cover the entire zone of responsibility of friendly units in terms of reconnaissance and defeat of the enemy to a tactical depth of 10 to 15 km and, in the future, to the full tactical depth (25 to 30 km). Since a modern armor grouping of a potential adversary is a complex mobile system, the defeat of such a grouping requires comprehensive engagement of all targets incorporated in the grouping as well as various other targets that operate in the attack zone. The advanced ATGM systems are capable of accomplishing these missions.

The long-range Germes ATGM system is an advanced new- generation precision-guided weapon system for ground forces   a multipurpose reconnaissance and fire ATGM system combining the properties of artillery and antitank weapon systems intended to engage current and future armor materiel, soft-skinned transport facilities, stationary engineer works, waterborne targets (with a displacement of up to 500 t) and entrenched manpower.

The system comprises:

  fire unit of guided missiles in launching transporting containers with three types of homing heads (semiactive laser, infrared, radar);

  combat vehicle with a cluster launcher and onboard means for reconnaissance and laser illumination of targets;

  command and surveillance vehicle with a rising mast device for multichannel and multispectral optronic and radar reconnaissance assets.

The Germes system ensures:

  fire from indirect laying positions using the fire-and-forget principle and salvo fire with individual guidance to elements of a multiple target (two missiles with semiactive laser homing heads in a salvo and up to 12 missiles with autonomous homing heads in a salvo);

  all-weather capability in real combat conditions;

  flexible tactical cooperation with attached ground- and air-based reconnaissance and control facilities.

So, the developed concept of the third-generation ATGM scheme includes three systems (Kornet-MR, Kornet-LR, Germes) and makes provision for antitank defense up to 15 km deep into the enemy s rear and along the entire front of his advance. It ensures:

  long range fire attack on hostile armor units, thereby impeding their movement to and deployment at the lines of attack (and even its disruption), reducing own losses and ensuring fire superiority at the forward line of defense;

  destruction of all main types of targets on the battlefield by using warheads with different principles of engagement;

  high jamming immunity of ATGM control systems to passive and active optical and electronic interference;

  use at any time of day or night and in any weather;

  automation of firing and a possibility of simultaneous engagement of two and more targets;

  installation of the unified systems on various types of wheeled and tracked combat vehicles (Jeep, Hummer, BMP-3, BTR-80, etc.);

  firing from confined spaces during combat operations in populated areas (Kornet-MR);

  firing from indirect laying positions to repulse enemy groupings at any defense area without changing fire positions.

At present, the Instrument Design Bureau together with cooperating enterprises has launched series production of portable Kornet-LR systems that are successfully operated in many countries. The distinctive feature of the Kornet-LR system, compared to its Western counterpart, the ATGW-3/LR system developed by the EMDG association, is the possibility of its multipurpose employment due to the use of the see-and-fire principle (instead of the fire-and-forget principle) implemented with the help of the infrared homing head with matrix photodetector and registration of a target image at launch. So, the ATGW-3/LR system has a narrower capability to engage targets that include only armored vehicles possessing a heat contrast against the terrain background sufficient for target lockon by the infrared homing head. Other, no less important targets, such as bunkers, engineer works, machine gun emplacements as well as armored vehicles in concentration areas, may lack such a contrast and, hence, cannot be reliably fired at and defeated.

The Kornet-LR system uses the standard set of onboard equipment components: radiation detector, electronic equipment to shape commands, single-channel two-position control surface actuator, roll gyroscope and power supply battery. In other words, it does not contain complex and expensive electronic and mechanical components, whereas the onboard equipment of the ATGW-3/LR system incorporates the infrared homing head with the matrix PCC photodetector distinguished by high complexity and cost of manufacture which, in its turn, greatly influences the cost of the missile itself. Preliminary assessment shows that the cost of the Kornet-LR missile is three to four times lower than that of the ATGW-3/LR missile, i.e., at the same expenditures the Kornet-LR system can engage three to four times more targets than the ATGW-3/LR system.

A significant drawback of the ATGW-3/LR system is a rather long time (from 30 to 60 s) to transfer the image from the thermal sight to the homing head. During this time, the target environment can change, making the firing useless.

The technological advances made by the Instrument Design Bureau during the development of Metis-M and Kornet-LR systems can be realized in the design characteristics of the manportable medium-range Kornet-MR ATGM system which, compared to its Western counterpart, the ATGW-3/MR, is also distinguished by its multipurpose employment owing to the fact that its missiles are outfitted with two types of warheads: tandem HEAT warhead and HE thermobaric warhead. In addition, the dimensions and weight of the Kornet-MR system components allow their placement in two packs to be carried by two crew members to hard-to-access areas of combat actions (the weight of the pack with two containerized missiles does exceed 28 kg), which is impossible for the ATGW-3/MR system because the weight of its one containerized missile is 17.6 kg.

The cost of the missile of the Kornet-MR system is expected to be approximately 1.5 times less than that of the missile of the ATGW-3/MR system.

A significant merit of Kornet-MR and Kornet-LR systems is the interchangeability of launchers and ammunition, which allows potential buyers to make a correct choice proceeding from the principle of sufficiently effective defense and amount of expenditures.

The Instrument Design Bureau is ready for cooperation with foreign clients and offers the sale of Kornet-LR ATGM systems, their servicing, crew training, as well as joint research and development work for the creation of third-generation ATGM systems.