Soldiers from the British Army’s Combined Arms Manoeuvre School have live fired Javelin and NLAW anti-tank missiles this week, with footage showing a pair of Javelins striking their targets, according to the Royal Armoured Corps.
Sharing the footage, the corps said: “This week the Combined Arms Manoeuvre school (CAMS) live fired the Javelin and NLAW anti tank missiles. Featured here are a pair of Javelin missiles hitting their targets. Anti tank missile training is an important skill for many troops within the RAC.”
Javelin, built by a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and RTX, is a fire-and-forget missile guided by an imaging infrared seeker that locks on to its target before launch, leaving the operator free to move or take cover as soon as it is fired.
A soft-launch motor ejects the missile from the tube before the main motor ignites, allowing it to be fired from inside buildings, and the operator can choose between a direct attack and a top-attack profile in which the missile climbs and dives onto the thinner armour on the roof of a vehicle. NLAW, produced by Saab with Thales in Belfast, is a lighter shorter-range weapon that uses predicted line of sight guidance and can overfly a target and detonate its warhead downwards.
Both weapons were sent to Ukraine in large numbers in 2022, and Britain moved to replace its stocks afterwards. The UK Defence Journal reported when the US State Department cleared Britain to buy 600 Javelin missiles, and when the government ordered thousands more NLAW anti-tank weapons.
Javelin is used by the RAC? Interesting, thought that it was only in Infantry Battalions FS Coys and in SF. NLAW obviously is more widely used and carried by vehicles.