Article Summary: At the start of the Ukraine war, Javelin and NLAW anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) proved critical in stopping Russia’s advance. However, the battlefield has since changed dramatically. Today, FPV drones have become the dominant tank killers, responsible for 65% of Russian armored losses.
Key Point #1: These low-cost, long-range drones can strike beyond visual line-of-sight and offer a cheaper, more flexible alternative to ATGMs.
Key Point #2: With Ukraine adapting to drone warfare, traditional anti-tank weapons may no longer be the primary threat to Russian forces. The war’s technological shift highlights how drones are reshaping modern combat and future battlefield strategies.
How Ukraine’s Tank Killers Evolved: From Javelins to FPV Drones
In the opening days of the Ukraine war in 2022, likely no class of weapon made more of a difference in halting the Russian advance on the capital, Kyiv, than the anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). However, the United States primarily provided these weapons, and the UK was not immediately forthcoming, as there was plenty of pessimism in European capitals that Ukraine was done for.
In a long article in The New Yorker published three months later, The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany recalled telling the publication Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that as Russian troops and armored vehicles poured out of Belarus towards Kyiv, Germany’s finance minister was rejecting all of his appeals for aid and weapons. “You have only a few hours,” the German Federal official told him.
Once it was clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brash predictions of his army rolling over all of Ukraine in a few days were nowhere close to reality, the initial response of Western countries was to supply Ukraine with defensive weapons to counter Moscow’s armored columns.
The Big Two: Javelin and NLAW
Two weapons that played a pivotal role in this were the US-made FGM-148 Javelin ATGM and the Next-Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW), produced jointly by Saab Bofors Dynamics in Sweden and the TEAM MBT LAW UK in the United Kingdom. The US and UK supplied thousands of both types of missiles, considered crucial in attacking and harassing long columns of Russian vehicles on the road to Kyiv.
Promotional materials from the US makers of the Javelin, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, state the missile has a 94 percent engagement success rate, which statistically means that each 19-pound tandem warhead fired is almost always a successful hit. The tandem warhead defeats the reactive armor that covers most Russian tanks. This armor makes the Russian vehicle appear like a mechanized armadillo.
Penetrating the reactive armor means a kill. Early reports from Ukraine supported the manufacturers’ claims, with one US official claiming the 300 Javelins fired had destroyed 280 Russian vehicles, meaning a 93 percent kill rate. Ukraine received some 10,000 Javelins and 12,000 or more of the NLAW, the latter of which has a shorter range (22-875 yards) but is no less effective within its engagement envelope.
Current Day Battlefield: Beyond the Tank Attacks
Subsequent analysis, dividing the number of destroyed vehicles seen in Battle Damage Assessments (BDA), indicates a lower success rate on the battlefield. This was determined by dividing the quantity of missiles reported to have been fired by the Ukrainians by the number of destroyed vehicles tabulated.
Some of this is mitigated, however, by the fact that the Ukrainians have used ATGMs to fire on numerous targets that are not armored vehicles. Russian naval vessels, patrol craft, and even helicopters have been both hit and destroyed by Ukrainian-fired ATGMs.
In the meantime, the ATGMs are no longer the wildcard they were at the beginning of hostilities. The battlefield has changed considerably, with drones now the increasingly significant factor in destroying armored vehicles. First-person view (FPV) one-way, kamikaze drones have become the number-one tank killers in the conflict.
The current estimates are that 65 percent of armored vehicle losses are now the result of strikes by FPV and other small drones. The ATGMs are much less of a factor, most of which comes down to cost and range twin variables.
One of the after-action reports on the role of these weapons points out that Javelin was designed more than 30 years ago when the electronics technology it was based on was some of the highest priced in the world.
In comparison, today’s electronic components, many available from the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) sector, offer better performance at a much lower price and are the basis of most FPV designs.
FPV drones can cost as low as $500, but they can also knock out a tank over 10 miles away. The Javelin’s maximum range is less than three miles, and the soldier firing it must also be able to visually acquire the target before locking on the missile.
The FPVs, on the other hand, can be flown far beyond the operator’s line of sight and into an area where targets may or may not be located. These can be on the other side of a hill or behind terrain that offers some protection. The FPVs, the author concludes, do use much smaller warheads, which means several FPVs may be needed to destroy a single target, but at only $500 a shot, it is still orders of magnitude cheaper than an advanced ATGM.
Javelin and NLAW: A Missile Photo Essay
Javelin Anti-Tank Missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
NLAW anti-tank missile.
A member of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment fires a Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW)…Paratroopers have demonstrated the firepower that they could bring to bear during combat missions as the British Army’s global response force. ..As the culmination of a course in support weapons skills, paratroopers staged a firepower demonstration on Salisbury Plain. ..The Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW) is the first, non-expert, short-range, anti-tank missile that rapidly knocks out any main battle tank in just one shot by striking it from above…NLAW utilises predicted line of sight guidance and has overfly top and direct attack modes, and it is easy to use, making it a valuable tank destroyer for light forces that operate dismounted in all environments, including built up areas…It also has night vision capability and is designed for all climate conditions and environments..
NLAW. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
NLAW missile firing. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Ukrainian marine with NLAW ATGM. Photo: Marine Command.
NLAW anti-tank missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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