Aiming the new and improved ATGMs

It’s seriously tiring to discuss these ATGM flight physics changes.

While theoretically more accurate, the performance is so poor that the missiles miss the crosshair all the time and require strange lead for moving targets. This is in stark contrast to reality, where the weapons remain very consistently stuck to the crosshair and never require the gunner to ‘lead’ the missile. In fact, IRL TOW and M2/M3 Bradley gunners are directed to “Never lead or fly the missile” as the computer is in control and the gunner’s job is just to direct the computer. This isn’t even mentioning the excessive drop of many ATGMs, including “hot launched” ones that have their boost motor firing as they exit the tube or gun barrel. While in reality, even ATGMs like ERYX (man portable SACLOS ATGM developed by France, and the only SACLOS system capable of being deployed indoors without preparation to the room) have almost zero “drop” despite the boost motor cutting out well before the missile even exits the tube. ERYX is literally the only “cold launched” SACLOS system in the world and the missile does not drop after exiting the tube. That should be evidence enough to fix the “drop” almost all ATGMs are suffering from.

I’m not even going to get into the horrid performance of the majority of SACLOS SAM systems, it’s just too disappointing to even use most of them. At least SA-15 and SA-22 have alternate guidance modes that can be used to keep the SAM on a good proportional navigation path before using SACLOS for terminal guidance. LOSBR systems also suffer from similar issues.

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