The TOW missile made news in the late 80s during the Iran-Contra scandal, more specifically then-USMC Lt. Col. Oliver North’s role in selling the TOW missiles to the Iranian regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Four years later, during Operation Desert Storm, the TOW was depicted in a more positive light, namely how America’s Bradley Fighting Vehicles were using the weapon system to kick the crap out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi armor.
BMG-71 TOW Missile Early History and Specifications
The BGM-71 TOW (“BGM” stands for Ballistic Guided Missile; “TOW” stands for “Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided”) antitank missile was first produced in 1970 and entered into official service with the U.S. Army that same year, replacing the French-made MGM-32 ENTAC (Engin Téléguidé Anti-Char; “Remotely Guided Anti-Tank Missile”), M40 106mm recoilless rifle, and the SS-10/MGM-21.
Put another way, the TOW has been toeing the line for antitank warriors for over 50 years. It was originally produced by Hughes Aircraft Company and is presently manufactured by Raytheon Missiles & Defense.
As Kyle Mizokami noted in an April 2021 article for Popular Mechanics, “In the early 1970s, the Army fielded what was then the heaviest, longest-range anti-tank missile in the world. The Army, facing down thousands of Soviet tanks in Europe, needed a weapon system that could kill tanks accurately at long ranges, even beyond the range of tank guns.
“The TOW was revolutionary. It had a hit probability of about 90 percent out to its maximum range of 3,700 meters (2.33 miles). Once the TOW reached its target, its shaped-charge warhead could penetrate the heaviest of enemy armor. The missile was more accurate and deadlier than a tank gun, but it couldn’t match a tank gun’s rate of fire.”
The weapon has a diameter of 5 inches, a length of 3.83 feet (1,17 meters) with a folded probe and 4.95 feet (1.51 meters) with the probe extended, a wingspan of 1.5 feet (0.46 meters), a warhead with a weight of 8.59 to 13.35 pounds (3.9 to 6.14 kilograms) and a capability of penetrating 16.92 to 35.43 inches (430 to 900 millimeters) of rolled homogenous armor (RHA), and a velocity of 1,049 feet per second (320 meters per second).
The missile fit in a large launch tube connected to a command unit. The gunner would train the crosshairs on an enemy tank and fire the missile, from there, the gunner could move the crosshairs to keep them centered on a moving enemy tank, and as the missile hurtled downrange, it trailed a thin wire that enabled it to receive the gunner’s course adjustments.
Initial Battlefield Performance
Though the 1991 Persian Gulf War was where the TOW’s battlefield performance first caught the eye of the general public, it was actually first “blooded” in combat during the Vietnam War, more specifically during the North Vietnamese Army’s (NVA’s) 1972 Easter Offensive, whereupon helicopter-launched TOWs were used to kill NVA tanks. Tanks battles were relatively few and far between during the Vietnam War.
It has been used in over a dozen different conflicts, past and present. Arguably the most famous use of the TOW was during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, more specifically in the operation that killed Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay,
Where Are They Now?
The Army is looking for a replacement for the TOW, but that’s not happening overnight; Mr. Mizokami expects that the replacement – conceivably the Israeli-made Spike ER2 missile – will be fielded sometime in the 2030s, whilst Raytheon more confidently projects that “The TOW weapon system will be in service with the U.S. military beyond 2050.”
Meanwhile, the TOW is getting an additional lease on life in Ukraine, wherein that country’s intrepid defenders are using it alongside newer antiarmor weapons such as the FGM-148 Javelin and Carl Gustav m/48 M4 variant to annihilate Russian tanks.
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Christian D. Orr is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch and The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). In his spare time, he enjoys shooting, dining out, cigars, Irish and British pubs, travel, USC Trojans college football, and Washington DC professional sports. If you’d like to pick his brain in-person about his writings, chances are you’ll be able to find him at the Green Turtle Pasadena in Maryland on Friday nights, singing his favorite karaoke tunes.
