Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1064315
is unknown. The last manufac- turer of Spike products is the Polish Mesko (with the rate of works taking place in Poland having exceed- ed 20% after over a decade). Mesko makes some sub-assemblies such as warheads (old- est generation) and fuel tanks. Final assembly is also the main area of the plant's operation. By 2018 there were 2,000 launchers and over 32,000 of missiles of all versions manufactured in total. The popularity of the Spike should not be sur- prising – it is a very good and well-designed weapon of unquestionable effectiveness. It offers also many unobvious advantages that make the whole family able to become a comprehensive solution for entire armed forces. The table is only a mere basis to an in-depth analysis of both systems and the various technical nuances that make these two very similar solu- tions perform much different in tactical practice. The size and the weight of both systems are similar – it can't be different since both missile systems originate from AAWS-M. The Javelin is larger in diameter, but it has a much smaller CLU. Both missile types can be shoulder-fired or propped against make- shift natural supporting structures. In both cases, firing at longer distances requires a tripod, which will be clear to anyone who has ever tried to follow a moving target using bin- oculars with small-diameter optics and a magnification of more than 10x at a distance of 1 km. That's why the comparison of the systems in the same sets of features shows that they differ in weight only by 3 kg in favor of the latest Javelin. FGM-148 and Spike can be easily carried by a team of 2, and be freely loaded onto and into vehicles. It's hard to name the winner here. The first major differences are seen at the level of the CLU sensors. Javelin's CLU weighs 7 kg in Block 0 and only 4.2 kg in Block I version; it's also very small – which is FMG-148's clear advantage. Spike's CLU weighs 10.5 kg, but the entire block is quite well protected against me- chanical damage thanks to steel sheeting; the user ergonomics is perfect – at the cost of a much bigger size. Javelin's CLU features two sights – an auxiliary one, simple, opti- cal, with a 4x magnification and a field of view of 6.4° by 4.8° and the primary one, composed of a cooled infrared camera featuring 240 detectors in two rows. Its wide field of view is 6.11° x 4.58° with a 4x fixed magnification, and the narrow field of view is 2° x 1.5° with a 12x fixed magnification. In the case of IR sights, a very important parameter is the ability to distinguish the minimum contrasts between the temperature of the target and the background. The value of this contrast is defined as ΔT (temperature difference). With Javelin's CLU, it is perfect, amounting to only 0.59°C. The Spike features a much more extended CLU module. The first sensor is an optical telescope with a fixed magnification of 10x and a field of vision of 6° x 4.5°. After the missile is activated, an OLED display assumes the optical channel and displays the image from the missile's CCD camera. The displayed image is of a very good quality, additionally offering a 3x digital zoom, which gives a 30x zoom in total. Its use does not activate the missile's battery and it does not need cooling. As a result, this is a frequent solution for observation in combat conditions, and – importantly enough – it is fully reversible because the missile's seeker is activated only in the CCD mode, and can be deactivated an almost indefinite number of times. The sec- ond sensor is a cooled TIR camera offering 76 800 pixels and a 3.5x fixed magnification with a field of vision of 6° x 4.5° and a 10x fixed magni- fication with an optional elec- tronic 3x magnification (30x image magni- fication in total) in the narrow field of vision – 2° x 1.5°. The m i n i - LAND FORCES