Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1115818
Soviet tanks, carriers, and IFVs. The armor of the vehicles – especially that of the T-72M1 – appeared to be better than expected. The front steel armor protecting them against HE warheads was thicker than 500 mm, which was more than initially assumed. At the end of the day it turned out, however, that that the armor plating gained some good reviews in the 1980s. As a result, the Swedish bought 800 MT-LBs, 301 BMP-1s with accompanying BLG60 vehicle-launched bridges. A real breakthrough came with the tests of the Russian T-80Us (Ob.219AS), which were con- nected with tests performed to select the new main battle tank for the Swedish armed forces. The surprising openness of the Russian when making a proposal to sell their armored solutions led to a presentation of the T-80U to a Swedish delegation in Omsk already in 1992. As part of the deal, two vehicles were to be tested in Sweden from October 1993 to January 1994. The tests were interrupted because the Leopard 2I (the later Strv122) was eventually chosen as the new main battle tank. That's why – according to official accounts – there was no time to test the ar- mor of the Russian vehicles. But the historical sources made available by the Swedish prove that the composition and the structure of the armor of the T-80U was considered proper, and that the 4s22 Kontakt 5 reactive armor was assessed fairly well too. The conclusions were quite clear – the tank featuring the ERA 4s22 armor, produced since 1984, offered very good protection still in 1987 – the level of protection made any attempts to get through the front plating of the turret and the hull using either heavy ATGMs or infantry anti-tank weapons much questionable (but not impossible). And it wasn't the newest Russian tank. What caused a real fear was the next-gen vehicles nicknamed FST1 and FST2 (Future Soviet Tank) in the West. It was possible, of course, to deal with the plating of the sides of the hull of T-80Us, T-72M1s, etc. using hand-held anti-tank weapons, including the new HE ammunition designed for 84-mm m/86s (the Carl Gustaf), but combating tanks only by targeting its sides meant that if armored vehicles operated in good coordination with mechanized infantry, it would be really hard to put into practice. The idea that sprang to mind was simple – strike from above. It wasn't a new concept since it was already applied in practice by the Swedish (BILL2) and the American (TOW 2B). The new weapon was designed as part of an international project, ad- dressing the needs voiced in a British program named NLAW – Next Gen- eration Light Anti-Armour Weapon. The objective was to come up with a substitute of the LAW 80 manufactured until 1993. The weapon weighed 11 kg, measured 1,000 mm in transport position (1,500 mm in combat position), and the newer versions of its HE warhead was able to pene- trate through 700 mm RHA. In theory, its range was 500 m when firing at immobile targets, but in fact it did not exceed 300 m, and when target- ing moving vehicles – even less than half of that distance (150 m). The British were quick to notice the problem of the decreasing effectiveness in combating more modern tanks, therefore their requirements included not only increasing the firing range but also an ability to strike vehicles where their armor was the thinnest – from above. At the same time, the requirement of possibly small dimensions and weight ruled out conven- tional ATGMs. Two solutions made it to the final stage of selection: the "Kestrel", i.e. another version of the American FGM-172 Predator, offered by Matra BAE Dynamics, and the MBT-LAW offered by the Swedish (Saab Bofors Dynamic). The latter was chosen in the end, although the solution required a few modifications. But it guaranteed over 20 British compa- nies being involved in the manufacturing process. The whole program became thus a joint Swedish-British initiative. The production of the MBT-LAW started in 2009. The weapon has had some success abroad as well because it has joined the ranks of the armed forces of Great Britain, Finland, Indonesia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia (probably), Swit- zerland, and – of course – Sweden. LAND FORCES