Because of the poor performance of the US missile, a similar Chinese missile** has also been questioned, what is going on?
Let's start with this US missile, which is the famous "Javelin" anti-tank missile.
As a third-generation individual anti-tank missile, the "Javelin" anti-tank missile has been regarded as an advanced anti-tank missile for a long time in the past with its famous advanced technologies such as after-firing and attacking.
However, in the high-intensity confrontation on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, there have been many problems with the performance of this missile.
"Javelin" exposed serious problems
The Ukrainian army, which uses the "Javelin" anti-tank missile, has found that there are two serious problems with the "Javelin" anti-tank missile in actual combat.
The first problem is the difficulty of locking. The Ukrainian army found that it often takes tens of seconds to lock a tank with "Javelin" anti-tank missiles.
This is still a situation when everything is going well, if it doesn't go well, it is possible to lock it for a few minutes or even ten minutes.
In fact, this problem was also reported by the U.S. military during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the U.S. military had absolute battlefield initiative during this period.
Therefore, US soldiers can calmly use "Javelin" anti-tank missiles to lock onto targets, so this problem is not prominent.
In the high-intensity confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, the lock-in time of tens of seconds or even minutes is unacceptable.
The second problem is that the Javelin anti-tank missile can easily lose its target, especially the hit rate on moving targets is unsatisfactory.
The Javelin anti-tank missile uses infrared imaging guidance technology, the principle of which is to image the target tank using a sight before launch, and then transmit the data to the missile body.
After the missile is launched, it continuously images the target according to the infrared imaging equipment on the missile and corrects its flight path.
In use, the Ukrainian army found that due to the many interference factors on the battlefield, infrared imaging is easily interfered with by the battlefield environment.
And because of the problem of the guidance principle, for a target that is moving, especially at high speed, it is easy to lose the target information and lead to guidance failure.
This point was not reported by the US military in the past, because most of the US military's use of "Javelin" anti-tank missiles hit fixed targets. For non-moving targets, the Javelin anti-tank missile's hit rate is still very high.
Red Arrow 12 also has a problem?
These two problems make the Ukrainian army's evaluation of the "Javelin" anti-tank missile in actual combat always low, and its performance in actual combat is even worse than that of the previous generation of Soviet-made "attack" anti-tank missiles.
Although the latter can't shoot after shooting, it has a higher hit rate and can hit when he sees the target.
The Ukrainian army's evaluation of the "Javelin" anti-tank missile makes people doubt this classic. At the same time, the Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile, which is regarded as China's version of the "Javelin" by the outside world, has also been questioned.
Because the Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile and the "Javelin" anti-tank missile are almost the same design ideas, it is also a third-generation individual anti-tank missile that uses infrared imaging technology and does not matter after firing.
Some voices believe that because the "Javelin" anti-tank missile lacks testing under high-intensity combat conditions, its problems were not exposed before the Russian-Ukrainian war, which makes China think that the "Javelin" anti-tank missile is an excellent equipment.
Therefore, the Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile learned the design of the "Javelin", which led to all the problems exposed by the Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile, which has almost the "Javelin" anti-tank missile in this Russian-Ukrainian war.
Does this make sense? I think there's some truth to that.
The Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile is indeed a product of our benchmark "Javelin" anti-tank missile, and in terms of technology and combat effectiveness, it is basically equivalent to the "Javelin" anti-tank missile.
It also uses infrared imaging guidance, firing and after-fire technology, and is also about 700 to 800mm armor-piercing ability and top-attack strike, and it is also a man-portable anti-tank missile.
The outside world often thinks that the Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile is a product of China's imitation of the "Javelin" anti-tank missile, but of course this statement is incorrect.
Our Red Arrow 12 is a reference to the design of the Javelin anti-tank missile, but it is not a complete copy.
However, since our Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile and the "Javelin" anti-tank missile are so similar, do our Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missiles have these problems exposed by the "Javelin" anti-tank missiles on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield?
My view is that there may be some, but not all.
The difference between Red Arrow 12 and "Javelin".
First of all, infrared imaging guidance is also used, and the "Javelin" anti-tank missile uses refrigerated infrared imaging.
The Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile uses two kinds of infrared imaging guidance, one is the same cooled infrared imaging as the "Javelin", and the other is uncooled infrared imaging.
Compared with cooled infrared imaging, uncooled infrared imaging has a shorter preparation time, so the Red Arrow 12 anti-tank missile should be able to avoid problems like the Javelin missile to a certain extent when aiming too long.
However, the guidance principle of infrared imaging guidance determines the hit rate of the Red Arrow 12, especially for high-speed moving targets, which may be like the Javelin anti-tank missile.
This problem is possible, but the good news is that the seeker of the Red Arrow-12 anti-tank missile has now been upgraded to an infrared imaging image-guided composite mode.
In addition to the infrared guidance mode, image guidance can be carried out using an optical seeker.
The principle of image guidance is to directly imaging, and then use target recognition software to judge the position of the target, which is a much more advanced guidance mode than infrared imaging guidance.
At present, the world's leading anti-tank missiles, the main guidance modes are millimeter-wave radar guidance and image recognition guidance.
In a complex battlefield environment, the anti-jamming capability of image recognition guidance is much higher than that of infrared imaging guidance.
On the one hand, image recognition guidance receives information in the entire visible light band, instead of receiving only infrared band information like infrared guidance, and more information ensures stronger anti-interference ability.
On the other hand, image recognition technology is also much more advanced and flexible than the image contrast used in infrared imaging, and can also effectively achieve locking on targets moving at high speeds, thereby improving the hit rate.
Hence the problems with the "Javelin" anti-tank and missiles. There will also be a certain presence on our Red Arrow-12 anti-tank missiles.
However, due to the late-mover advantage of the Red Arrow 12 missile and the use of more new technologies, many problems will be effectively alleviated or even completely eliminated.