http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Securit.../4421463162157/


This made me giggle. A TOW is not a high tech missile. At least tow and tow2. Its just a couple wires it spools out the back to its launcher/vehicle. And in its basic form goes back to 1970. So when I read this, the only thing I could think of as to how to "jam" one of these things is with smoke grenades. So did Iran finally fit their old M60 main battle tanks with smoke grenade launchers finally? And does this constitute high tech Iranian "jamming". Although I have the feeling they use TOW as some strange slag for anti tank missile. Of which there are a number of ways that they guide depending on the type. Laser or some kind of thermal tracking deal like on a Javelin. But not the old crusty TOW!


About the only good thing with the TOW is it is low tech and apart from getting the operator of the thing to flinch, its like flying a remote control air plane into something. Only easier.

I have fired exactly 1 TOW 2 missile. And its not fool proof. The one I fired somehow skidded over the turret of an old M48 hulk, flew up a bit and blew up behind the thing. My guess was the probe sticking out the end somehow caught at a funky angle on the curve of the turret. Lesson, aim at the middle of the thing and not the center of the turret. At least if your target is at a relative higher angle than where your at. Oh and its an old sort of tank with rounded everything. At least mine made it out to 3500 meters. The one fired from the track one over only went about 25 feet in front of the firing line.

They probably mean an IR 'dazzler' that confuses the tracking sensor for the SACLOS guidance, and can provide false returns on laser rangefinders and designators.

Like the 1995 Shtora system.

You're right that the "TOW jammer" could be an IR 'dazzler' however in the case of the TOW the IR 'dazzler' wouldn't work exactly the way you describe (unless I misunderstood your post).
The only effective way for an IR 'dazzler' to work against an incoming TOW is to induce some sort of a temporary blindness on the TOW operator.

I never fired a TOW in real life but I actually fired simulated MILAN shots and the MILAN works exactly the same as the TOW but it's lighter (and thus has a smaller range) and knowing how the system works (by wire commands and manually guided by the operator by placing the "crosshairs" on the target) the only way to "jam" the missile would be to mess up with the operator's eyes (there's were the IR 'dazzler' comes from).
Well that or a Giant Telescopic Scissor

So... Giant pair of scissors?

Lol, 2 man teams on quads swarming around the AFVs. Driver and rear specialist armed with a pair of oversized "grand opening ceremony" scissors. Be perfect for Battlefield 5.

I'm gonna say Nuke is on to something. They've issued every Iranian soldier with large hedge shears and told them to duck and let the missile pass overhead!

Early TOW missiles are very well subject to jamming. The first models had no enconding of the missile's rear IR beacon signal, which the guidance system MUST recognize to determine the angular distance between the aim point (center of crosshairs) and the relative position of the missile, in order to generate correction commands and send them through the guidance wire.
The next generation of TOW missiles then had eight different signal codes so that two or more TOW launchers could operate side by side without interfering with each other. So, if you place a sufficiently strong IR source within the field of view of a TOW missile operator (say... on the target vehicle) that sends out the eight pulse codes in a constant loop, you are guaranteed to jam those early generation TOW missiles.

The latest generation of missiles uses a much more sophisticated signal encryption. But were you to acquire the codes, the basic defeat mechanism would still work. TOW isn't immune.

Russian ATGMs of the AT-10 and AT-11 type come closest to "immune" to jamming because the guidance sensor is located in the missile, looking back to the launcher which sends out a laser beam towards the target. The missile steers itself into the center of that laser beam, until impact. Of course, a second laser beam would confuse that sensor, but then you have to be located where the enemy is in order to send out a suitable laser beam. Which is rather difficult to accomplish in practice.

I'm kind of surprised the TOW haven't been replaced by something newer and more advanced.

I remember them back in the army in 92-93..

How about this for remembering them. I was an anti-tank platoon leader and transitioned my platoon from 106 Recoiless Rifle to TOW.

I'd like to see someone try to jam a recoilless rifle.

Well, if I'm not mistaken in the US military the TOW is somehow partially replaced by the FGM-148 Javelin.

In other western military forces and Israel the TOW can be completely replaced by the Rafael Spike, namely the Spike-LR variant which is essentially a Spike-MR with a fibre-optic cable attached which extends the range of the missile to around 4km (around the same range as the TOW) and allows manual guidance.

Thanks for the heads up on the "mechanics" of the TOW missile.

From what I've gathered, the replacement of the TOW's been placed on the back burner due to the somewhat less urgent need for MBT killing weapons in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The latest features of it, e.g. the replacement of the wire and the addition of a fly over top attack mode, when were those introduced Ssnake?

Ugh, there's Wikipedia for that, but I think it was around 2003 or so for the TOW-2B.

There is supposed to be some TOW 3 or some such out there that is suppose to be fire and forget. But more something waiting for a production order. But this was something I heard about threw the grape vine years ago. So who knows. And I never looked. Tow 2B I never saw personally, but its out there somewhere and been out for sometime.


The Javelin is so far, only a man portable weapon. There was talk of sticking them on Bradley's, but to the best of my knowledge never happened. Its to short ranged anyways. They need something way longer ranged, fire on the move, and fire and forget to counter current Russian IFV's that can do this. Some of which have a max range of 8000 meters, not 3750 of the tow 2. The last 2 wars screwed up modernizing the Bradly (among others) to counter what other 1st power nations have been up too.

Mount a wire guided anti-tank missile onto a dromedary and you'll have a camel TOW.

And, as we know, Iranians hate camel TOWs and will try and stop them at every turn.

I am still laughing at the awesome fearsome Iranian submarines fleet

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ont-coming.html

How about the control wires? Are they resistant to electromagnetic playing naughty on them? My idea is that you could disrupt the signals by inducing noise in the control wires themselves. Wild ass speculation of course.

They don't like water, high voltage powerlines, trees or any of a multitude of other impediments.

Water obstacles have a definite impact on TOW operation in the absence of elevated firing positions.

Yes indeed, hence why I used the word "partially" when referring to the Javelin's replacing the TOW.

I still think that most interesting candidate for a TOW replacement is indeed the Israeli Spike.
Like I previously said you can purchase the Spike-MR (medium range) system and use it like the Javelin (a man-portable fire-and-forget Anti-Tank missile) with a range of 2500 meters (same as the Javelin) albeit the Spike in somehow more cumbersome and a bit heavier than the Javelin when used as a portable weapon.
But what makes the Spike very interesting is that you can attach a fibre-optic cord to the Spike-MR and turn/transform that system into the Spike-LR (Long Range) which can extend the missile range to 4000 meters (again, around the same as the TOW) and giving the operator the capability of manually guide the missile (while retaining the fire and forget capabilities for targets up to 2500 meters) making it ideal for use on somehow static positions or mounted on vehicles or resuming in places where you would normally use a TOW.

However I don't believe that the US military (Army, Marines) will ever use or adopt the Spike having already the "home made" Javelin. Put perhaps the Javelin could also receive an upgrade in the future which would grants it similar capabilities as the Spike-LR. That would be my best guess for a future TOW replacement (at least within the US Military).