Javelin Anti-Tank Maker Gets a Boost from the President – You know a weapons system has become a part of the everyday lexicon when the politicians get involved. The American Javelin anti-tank missile has become so ubiquitous and decisive in Ukraine that even President Joe Biden takes a personal interest. Biden toured the plant in Alabama on May 3, where the launcher and missiles were produced. This is a show of resolve for his latest $33 billion additional assistance package for Ukraine that he wants Congress to approve.
Biden Speaks as Javelin Missiles Surround Him
“I urge the Congress to pass this funding quickly to help Ukraine continue to succeed against Russian aggression, just as they did when they won the battle of Kyiv and to make sure the United States and our allies can replenish our own stock of weapons to replace what we’ve sent to Ukraine,” Biden said to reporters at the Lockheed Martin facility in Troy, Alabama.
Pumping Out the Javelins
Five thousand and fifty Javelins have been produced in the Alabama location and these have been transferred to Ukraine. Others will be sent to replace American stockpiles. Biden congratulated workers for making a difference in the war effort since the Russians invaded.
Employees Are Enthusiastic
The 265-workers in Alabama have much to be proud of. The Javelin has been a potent weapon that the Ukrainians have wielded against Russian tanks and armored vehicles, and sometimes, even low-flying helicopters.
Don’t Get In the Way
The Javelin is portable, shoulder-fired, and “fire and forget,” which means it has a tracking system that doesn’t require the operator to sight the target all the way in to paydirt. The soldier can shoot and then immediately move to another protected site right after launch. The missile can destroy targets up to three miles away.
Workers Are Patriotic
The last time a weapon has created this much hype was probably the Patriot surface-to-air missile system during Operation Desert Storm. The media visited that factory too to fire up the workers and allow them to bask in the glow of a quick victory in that war.
Putin Never Knew What Was In-Store
Vladimir Putin overlooked that the Western defense industrial base would be united against him and his forces. American ingenuity, at least for the Javelin, got the best of him in the armored portion of the war so far.
Moreover, employees in defense manufacturing do not always get to look at the final product they have constructed. Many weapons remain on the shelf and are only removed for training purposes and then are placed back in storage promptly.
The experience of the Javelin in this war has been different. Now the employees are getting to see the fruits of their labor against an unjust foe that plays out in near real-time on social media.
Makes Tank Warfare a Questionable Proposition
Javelins can be given some credit for changing the course of battle in Ukraine. Russian tanks are weak in the turret in their armor system. The Javelin missile can arc upward and dive down on the tank’s vulnerable points. Russian crew members sit close to the T-72’s ammunition, so a direct hit from the Javelin can create a massive fireball that results in no survivors.
Pictured are Royal Marines from Fire Support Troop, Charlie Company, 40 Commando Royal Marines engaging Taliban positions with a mortar and a Javelin medium range anti-tank guided weapon.
The Marines were engaging Taliban positions near the Southern Forward Line of Enemy Troops (FLET) or Frontline, near Kajaki, Northern Helmand Province Afghanistan. The Operation was part of Operation Ghartse Spike and RECCE Troop 40 Commando and elements of the Afghan National Army (ANA) supported them. 40 Commando RM were halfway through their 6 month deployment to Afghanistan.
Infantry Soldiers with 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, fire an FGM-148 Javelin during a combined arms live fire exercise in Jordan on August 27, 2019, in support of Eager Lion. Eager Lion, U.S. Central Command’s largest and most complex exercise, is an opportunity to integrate forces in a multilateral environment, operate in realistic terrain and strengthen military-to-military relationships. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Liane Hatch)
Javelin anti-tank missile firing. Image Credit: US Army.
Don’t Give Too Many Away
Of course, the U.S. military doesn’t want to give so many Javelins to the Ukrainians that it empties the stores for the Americans. The Troy, Alabama, facility will likely run another shift to plus up and backfill the numbers for U.S. forces. Other than these concerns, the Javelin program has created a monster hit.
The Javelins have generated such a tactical advantage that the Russians may rethink the original tank-dominated maneuver warfare battle plan. They entered the war with more tanks than the Ukrainians, but Russian armor has been significantly depleted. Thus, Javelin has been transformational on the battlefield, which will keep giving Russian generals headaches.
Now serving as 1945’s Defense and National Security Editor, Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood.
Alex
May 5, 2022 at 8:39 am
Recently, a Russian journalist returned to Moscow with nlaw. This is not surprising, because 40% of British and American equipment is taken by the Donbas militia, another 40% is destroyed in warehouses by Russian missiles and the remaining 20% is in the hands of Banner Nazis, who can sometimes even shoot themselves.
mcswell
May 5, 2022 at 11:34 am
Alex, you’re pretty good at shooting yourself in the foot with your obviously false and dumb comments here. Do you suppose you could provide some training in that? During the Vietnam war, it was not unheard of for US servicemen to shoot themselves in the foot, so they would get taken out of combat. I suspect there are a *lot* of Russian soldiers who would be willing to do that so they could get out of fighting a losing war. Maybe you could help them!
CK
May 5, 2022 at 9:27 am
Here we see another predictable tactic – claiming most of the weaponry we send over there either ends up destroyed or captured. Every article that mentions our weaponry is greeted with the same line of attack by the Kremlin trolls.
The internet is simple – stop the shipment of weaponry. This is actually good news – if they weren’t worried about it, they wouldn’t want us to be sending them in the first place.
The internet is awash with example of said weaponry destroying Russian personnel and materiel and – contrary to what they are claiming – almost non-existent with evidence supporting the claim of mass captures and destruction.
The louder their lies become, the more we know they are afraid!
Alex
May 5, 2022 at 11:55 am
The offer of Ukrainian militants at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol to exchange civilians there for food and medicine is very similar to the demands put forward by the terrorists.
As for the similar demands of the nationalists who are hiding in the underground premises of the Azovstal plant, then, of course, they are very similar to similar demands that were previously voiced by terrorists in Syria and in other places.
The remnants of the Ukrainian military group are securely blocked along the entire perimeter of Azovstal. Russian troops are not storming the territory of the plant, but they are suppressing the attempts of the militants blocked there to reach the firing points.
The flags of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russia and Chechnya are set over the entire city of Mariupol. The city is completely under the control of the special military operation forces.
The whole world sees how Bandera Nazis show their true colors. A driven rat will destroy itself sooner or later.
Alex
May 5, 2022 at 11:56 am
German journalist Thomas Röper: Ukrainians are very afraid that the Russians will leave.
The journalist spoke about the distortion of facts in the Western media:
“I was three times in the south (Ukraine). The first trip was also to Melitopol. And so, on this trip, I was most impressed by the fact, or the fear that you see there in the eyes of people. And not among those who do not agree with the military operation, and according to my estimates, this is a minority. It is they who swear, the camera writes, and they will say how much they disagree. And those who agree are the majority.
I see it in the squares, when there are hundreds of people, they walk past the soldiers and say in a whisper: “Thank you guys, don’t leave.” They are very afraid, and they said it directly. They are very afraid that the Russians will leave and there will be reprisals. What, in my understanding, happened in Bucha, by the way.
And the fact that now, Alina said, from Mariupol is another such example. The woman was afraid to just speak the truth. Afraid that, God forbid, the Russians would leave and there would be reprisals. I don’t want to take too much time now, I just want to give one example, because the West always says it’s Russian propaganda if they say that Azov and other units of the Ukrainian troops use civilians as a “human shield”.
I write in German, and the other day I read an article in the German magazine Spiegel, which is probably known to many. And there was a very surprising offer. So they wrote… Everything, of course, sounded very positive, but they wrote that in Mariupol… More precisely, they (the newspaper) were told by people in Zaporozhye who had come from Mariupol, telling them that their national battalions held them, “politely of course”, held peaceful residents to the basement, and took positions in the apartments above these basements. It sounds in the Western media as if they are protecting them. Excuse me, what is this? If the fighters take up their combat positions above the basements where civilians are sitting, and how voluntarily they went to this basement.
Most people know the truth, but the Western media do not need this truth, they have a different manual, you need to do everything the other way around, and if it doesn’t work out the way America wants, you get sanctions, but the EU countries, not Russia, they will die after the first package of sanctions.
CK
May 5, 2022 at 6:55 pm
AWh dude, I’m disappointed in your stock reply from the other day.
It’s pointless to argue with this troll. He is not here for engagement, as he has realised recently pretty much everybody on this board is against him. He has been transparently exposed as the exceedingly obvious Internet Research Agency employee he is, working for Yevgeny Prigozhin – an oligarch with close ties to Putin.
He is either operating out of the IRA headquarters building at 55 Savushkina Street, St.Petersburg if he is lucky, or more likely, out of a shed in the massive Arsenal Machine-Building Factory at Komsomol, 1-3, also St.Petersburg, if he is unlucky.
I gather the latter, seeing as he is exceedingly stupid and dim-witted, as you have noticed. His tactics are fairly simple:
Paragraphs and paragraphs of bollocks, dubious claims about “independent journalists”, random documentarians, conspiracy theorists, deluded claims that of course, have no backup, lie after lie after lie.
Classical Kremlin troll approach. Just flood the internet, the comments, the media, with tosh, doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure you write some old nonsense. Make sure to say the claim is supported by some dude in Germany, France, the states. If it’s a “documentary” (usually from youtube) then the better.
Anything that victimises Russia, always the victim, always the bullied, never the problem. It’s always the Nazis. It’s always some pseudo-historical point.
Anyone that has had the misfortune to study his “tactics” sees the forest for the trees, the pattern of lies, disinformation, blanketing of random claims, deflection, obfuscation, and other words beyond your vocabulary.
It’s hopeless Alex. Your lies are as short as your intellect. What a pathetic job, to sit in your government shed, spreading your pathetic, government lies.
A pathetic job for a truly pathetic man. A better match could not be made in heaven.
Having realised he can’t gain traction on this board now, he has resorted to two simple strategies:
1) Be the first to comment on any article. This ensures anyone reading the article for the first time will inevitably stumble upon whatever his message of the day is, before it gets buried.
2) Ideally, be the LAST person to comment on any article. Have the last say. For the same reasons as above. If there is a large discussion, people will usually scroll all the way down, and voila, you see his targeted message again.
And that’s it. Every day, he blankets every article with the same copy + pasted content, over and over again. Saturation. This is how he ensures the message is seen one way or another.
Funnily enough, if you copy + paste some of his bollocks onto google, you find other websites where you can almost verbatim find 100% matches. These are either Alex himself operating elsewhere, or the “daily script” these idiots are given by their supervisors to disseminate for this day, sent by other colleagues. You can find dozens of duplicates if you google them exactly.
Unfortunately, the shoddy or non-existent moderation and supervision of this website allows this to happen day, after day, after day. Anywhere else, he would have been banned by now.
alexis died in a drone strike
May 5, 2022 at 10:37 pm
Keep looking up, russian troll! We’ll send your family the link to the video footage from the suicide drone dropping in on you. Warheads on foreheads!
Alex
May 6, 2022 at 8:03 am
Duda said there would be “no more” borders between Poland and Ukraine.
According to the President of Poland, in the absence of borders, the peoples of the two countries will be able to live together, “building together their common happiness and common strength.”
“Between our countries – Poland and Ukraine – there will no longer be a border. This border will not exist. So that we live together on this earth, building and rebuilding together our common happiness and common strength, which will allow us to repel any danger or any possible threat.”
And yet we Poles act smarter. We are not at war, like Russia, but we will gradually take what is ours, and let the stupid Bandera pigs think about our friendship 🙂
Alex
May 6, 2022 at 9:36 am
The Bandera Nazis of Ukraine rejoiced that they had arrested the Ukrainian independent journalist Anatoly Shariy in Spain. Anatoly Shariy moved his member on the lips of the Bandera Nazis and is already at large! This is democracy in Europe, and not lawlessness like you have in impoverished Ukraine, Bandera pigs 🙂