The Insane Engineering of the Javelin

at this point you know what has happened a tyrant has invaded a peaceful democratic nation against all logic and morality an invasion of a sovereign european nation of this magnitude has not been seen since 1939 the invasion of poland and world war ii at large was dominated by the tank a technology that shaped the battlefield of world war ii a technology born out of the trenches of world war one a war defined by artillery and machine guns the tank served as a weaponized shell to burst through defensive positions poland's resistance to this new battlefield defining weapon relied on light infantry carried anti-tank rifles towed anti-tank guns and mechanized anti-tank vehicles those anti-tank rifles were attempting to solve one crucial problem a weapon that could be mass manufactured and put into the hands of individual soldiers a lightweight piece of equipment that could be quickly moved around the battlefield the tanks the polish most commonly faced were the german panzer 1 and 2 and the soviet t26 both of which had maximum armor thicknesses between 13 and 20 millimeters the polish in anticipation of this new threat had developed the model 35 anti-tank rifle a lightweight high-powered rifle capable of penetrating 20 millimeters of armor from 300 meters away however a projectile that exhausted its kinetic energy in penetrating the armor with little left over on the other side was of little use lucky shots to critical engine components located on the rear of the tank may [ __ ] it but if the germans or soviets discovered this rifle had been manufactured in such large numbers countering it was as simple as adding slightly more armor to critical areas poland fell in a single month today we are two months into russia's invasion of ukraine and despite being equipped with modern tanks with modern reactive armor they've made little progress the nature of war has changed radically since the days of the blitz creek across europe where once tanks rampaged unimpeded through forest field and town in the modern battlefield against a well-equipped enemy lone tanks have become large high priority targets for advanced infantry carried missile systems capable of taking out even the most advanced armor from miles away while russia's military incompetence cannot be ignored the importance of these lightweight anti-tank devices cannot be understated countries around the world have developed their own variants of these weapons all highly capable anti-tank devices and many are in the hands of ukrainian soldiers defending their country against the tyrant but one has become a symbol of this war like the spitfire of the battle of britain it may not be the most numerous but it has become an icon of a country under siege saint javelin of ukraine a weapon purpose built for a cold war scenario designed to be put into the hands of individual soldiers purpose built to take out wave after wave of russian tanks this is the insane engineering of the fgm-148 javelin the javelin began its development in the latter years of the cold war designed to fulfill exactly the role the polish anti-tank rifle sought to fill a lightweight and mobile anti-tank weapon that would allow individual soldiers to quickly target tanks and escape to cover before being seen in total the javelin system weighs just 22 kilograms light enough for a single soldier to move around the battlefield enabling guerrilla warfare tactics to be used against an invading army the javelin is so much more than a simple rocket-propelled explosive like the rpg the javelin is a fire and forget weapon capable of guiding itself to the most vulnerable region of a tank from miles away and bypassing even the most advanced reactive armor allowing soldiers to target fire and escape to safety in order to do this the javelin employs ingenious bits of technology to begin the soldiers need a method of spotting and locking onto a target this starts with the night vision sight lens located here despite being called the night vision lens this device provides soldiers with a four times and nine times magnification infrared sight that works in both day and night allowing soldiers to spot enemy tanks from a distance even in low visibility situations this lens is part of the command launch unit or clu which attaches to the expendable rocket tubes that contain the round the fact the tube is detachable makes the clu by itself an incredibly useful piece of equipment soldiers frequently carried these units on patrols in afghanistan and iraq when the threat from enemy armor was low simply because they provided excellent infrared sighting capability once connected to a launch tube the soldier can flip this switch from off to night mode and the cooling unit of the clu will begin to cool down the infrared detectors to their required temperature taking two to three minutes the day mode switch provides sighting capability but cannot activate the seeker once the night vision sight is adequately cooled the soldier has full missile capability from here they have several selections to make using the left hand grip a range of site options can be selected using the site selection switch located here switching between the wider four times site or the more narrow nine time size between night and day imaging settings there is also a filter switch which applies a filter to the night vision site to make enemy detection of the infrared sight more difficult while the focus setting simply adjusts the focus of the site once a target has been identified the user can flip a protective cover and press and hold the seeker trigger on the left hand grip which activates the seeking locking sequence this also activates the firing trigger on the right hand grip over here the user can select a firing mode with two options direct and top which change the trajectories depending on the object being targeted or the surrounding area the top trajectory is ideal as it targets the least protected section of a tank but top may not always be possible the target could be under an overpass or some other obstacle this directional pad allows the user to adjust gates manually around the perimeter of the target's profile this is essentially visually training the seeker on the target once locked the image is saved into the seeker and the user can pull the trigger from here things happen extremely quickly a launch motor fires pushing the seeker out of the tube with just enough force to get it clear of anyone nearby about 4.5 meters this minimizes recoil and makes the system incredibly easy to use even allowing it to be launched from inside buildings without fear of the back blast turning the building's interior into a pressure cooker as the seeker leaves the tube two separate spring-loaded fins deploy the front set of eight fins referred to as the wings provide lift and stabilization to the seeker while the rear four are controlled by the flight computer to guide the seeker to its target the control fins are also helped along by four thrust vector control vanes around the nozzle of the rocket motor which can vector the exhaust of the rocket to provide additional control at this point the user's job is done they can get back behind cover or change position which is especially useful after giving away their position while firing the seeker is controlling itself at this point the image initially locked into the guidance electronics is used to guide the seeker towards its target but the seeker also has its own infrared imaging camera mounted on its nose the goal of the guidance computer is to keep this image in the center frame using the control fins and thrust vectoring veins to do this it uses pattern recognition algorithms to keep track of the target and updates the target reference image every frame to make the job of tracking the continually changing image as easy as possible as the seeker closes in on the target a sequence of events occurs incredibly quickly the seeker has a two-stage shaped charge shaped charges are fascinating they use fluid dynamics and the kinetic energy of the blast to slice through armor shaped charges consist of the charge itself shaped with a hollow indentation where a metal liner is placed when the charge is detonated a pressure wave forms behind this metal liner deforming and accelerating the metal into a lance-like jet of ultra-fast metallic particles that cut through armor like butter contrary to the shaped charges other name heis which stands for high explosive anti-tank this is a purely kinetic mechanism the shaped charge effectively creates a hypersonic projectile at point-blank range the metallic liners chosen need to be ductile so that they readily deform and form into a linear jet maximizing the projectile's penetration ability a brittle fracture of the liner would result in large chunks of particulated metal that would reduce the penetrating power of the metal but this needs to be balanced with the velocity of the jet which will lower with heavier elements the javelin itself has two stages the first stage uses a molybdenum liner while the main charge uses copper this two-stage design allows the javelin to deal with modern reactive armor more effectively reactive armor are those strange box-like structures you see on modern tanks and they were created specifically to deal with shaped charges reactive armor works by placing an explosive charge between two metal plates when a jet from a shaped charge strikes the upper plate it detonates the inner explosive you may think this could damage the tank but the tank's lower armor is more than capable of dealing with the relatively blunt pressure formed by the reactive armor detonation the outer plate then flies outwards to disrupt the incoming jet while the shock wave formed by the detonation also breaks up the stream of metal approaching the tank the first stage of the javelin is designed to trigger these reactive armor boxes before the main charge detonates the second charge can then cut through the inner armor unimpeded many modern tanks do have secondary defenses to protect against threats like this like russia's active protection system arena this system uses radar to detect incoming threats and activates a bookshot like munition that strikes the incoming threat this detonates the shaped charge far enough away from the tank that the jet disperses into too large of an area to effectively pierce the armor however the arena active protection system struggles to deal with top-down attacks something the javelin is designed to do and we are starting to see photos of rudimentary cages placed on top of russian tanks to defend against top-down attacks it's important to remember that the footage we are seeing is going to be skewed in favor of ukraine this is an ongoing battle where morale is vital we aren't going to see battles where anti-tank munitions failed the age of the tank is far from over it's still a vital tool that has advanced with new modern threats however one thing is for sure russia is losing an astronomical number of tanks russia's incompetence has been their own worst enemy fuel logistics have left tanks stranded on the roads air cover against drones has been lacking and all too frequently we are seeing tanks without adequate infantry and artillery support to deter and defend against these anti-tank munitions the importance of military tactics cannot be understated competent leadership and logistical support makes all the difference in our ongoing series on nebula we explore the exemplary tactics of the raf during the battle of britain in this month's episode we explore the doubting system using our 3d recreation of a battle of britain command room to show you exactly how data was disseminated and acted on quickly to allow british pilots to intercept german planes within minutes have been notified of their approach this isn't like the same old boring history documentaries being remade over and over again these days repeating themselves constantly for their 30 minute run times so they can fit enough ads in this episode goes over a mock raid from german planes showing how information was quickly filtered ratified and displayed on a massive map of britain to allow british pilots to quickly receive orders in an age before digital data processing existed this is the nitty gritty detail that you have come to enjoy from real engineering just applied to a different genre we have made nebula the home of our world war ii series as historically our videos on these subjects are often demonetized and suppressed on youtube something we've tried to tiptoe around in this video by avoiding certain words by signing up you'll get access to our 9-part series on the logistics of d-day this ongoing battle of britain series as well as real-life loris monthly modern conflict series where he explores modern conflicts like his last two episodes on the russian invasions of chechnya and georgia on top of all that you get access to curiositystream's massive library of award-winning documentaries you can get all of that for the low price of 14.79 a year and we will be donating five dollars for every person that signs up to nebula in the next month to aid ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict on average one thousand people sign up with my link every month so i am preemptively donating five thousand dollars today i've posted proof of that donation on my instagram account and on the community page here if you are looking for something else to watch right now you can watch our last video on the uncertain future of international cooperation for the iss in the wake of the war in ukraine or you could watch real science's latest video on the strange health consequences of space travel [Music]

Channel: Real Engineering

Views: 2,195,111

Keywords: engineering, science, technology, education, history, real

Id: SUdHzKRiBX8

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 30 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/quietly41]

Kind of terrifying how it barely shoots out, then propels itself farther.

[u/chickenstalker99]

Finally, an explanation of those ridiculous-looking cages the Russians were improvising atop their tanks: trying to defeat first-stage shaped charges in a top-down attack. I suppose it's too early for an analysis of their effectiveness, but from the footage we've seen, I suspect they don't work well at all.

Solid video. Direct and to the point, no fat or melodramatic music.

[u/kilotaras]

The fact that this weights only 22kg means a lot. Ukrainians can move infantry with those via unpassable (for vehicles) terrain, fry a couple of armor and get the fuck out before anyone reacts.

For comparison: Ukraine designed Stugna-P weights almost 5x as much. On the other hand it's also cost 5x less and is controlled remotely from a tripod, so safer for the operator during firing itself.

[u/wreckage88]

So this is basically to Russian tanks today what the Stinger was to Russian gunships back in the 80s.

[u/Shaneypants]

This entire channel is absolute gold just for everyone's information. I've watched practically every one of this guy's videos and he covers all sorts of engineering topics from buildings to planes to hydrogen fuel cells.

[u/Pardoning]

Really interesting. How do you even start to research things like this

[u/DrMussintouchit]

Honestly when I read the title I thought of this

https://youtu.be/qRC28wxWEXg?t=47

[u/bgat79]

designed in 1989 and still destroying the most modern armor