Stugna-P, Javelin, and NLAW all kinda have the same properties. They're large, bulky, and filled with a LOT of explosives. They also have a guidance system: laser for Stugna-P, some kind of computer for NLAW/Javelin, so these weapons can be shot at 1000 meters to 5000 meters and still hit their targets consistently.
But since they're larger / heavier / more expensive, they are the primary-weapon of the soldier (or squad, in the case of Stugna-P). If you're equipped with one of these, your job is to kill tanks.
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Panzerfaust, AT4, RPG7 are variants of the same concept. They're more of a "sidearm" than anything. You don't really want to be facing down a tank with one. They are manually aimed and therefore only effective at 100m to 300m (depending on how good your aim is).
Because they're smaller warheads (84-caliber for the AT4, yes its a pun/joke), they're less effective at penetrating armor. So you really want to use them vs lighter vehicles, such as IFVs instead of proper tanks. If you need to use it against a tank, you should aim for a weak point, like shooting from above, or hitting the side/rear armor.
So your snipers / riflemen / machine gunners have a job, that's the 50-cal, or machine-gun. But what if they come across an enemy vehicle? Well, the AT4 / Panzerfaust are light enough to carry _WITH_ your other weapons. Its better than nothing, and light enough to be a secondary weapon.
Alternatively, maybe you're in an environment where hitting the weak top-armor is possible (ex: Urban / high-rise building in Kyiv). Giving many, many cheap AT4 weapons out to the crowd of defenders will effectively kill even main-battle-tanks, if they are attacked at the proper angles / from their weakpoints.
> Stugna-P, Javelin, and NLAW all kinda have the same properties. They're large, bulky, and filled with a LOT of explosives.
This is a very common mis-conception. These weapons don't have a lot of explosive. They instead rely on very precise application of a little explosive, through an EFP design.
If you see a Javelin or NLAW hit an inert target, it's very modest. If you see a big explosion in a demo it's because they've filled it with fuel!
Javelin is a 50 lbs weapon. Sure, some of that weight is computer and night-vision. But most of that weight difference is explosives (I assume the 2nd tandem charge in particular).
NLAW is 28lbs, somewhere in-between.
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Tandem charges (dual-explosives: first explosion disables reactive armor, second explosion penetrates the tank) basically means carrying 2x warheads with every warhead... its weight and heavy.
Each of those Javelin explosions you see is __TWO__ explosions, timed carefully to defeat Russian reactive armor. Its a sophisticated weapon for sure, but you still have to physically carry all those extra explosives somewhere.
> Javelin is a 50 lbs weapon. Sure, some of that weight is computer and night-vision. But most of that weight difference is explosives (I assume the 2nd tandem charge in particular).
No most of it is the motor. The entire warhead of Javelin weight just 8.4 kg. That's the entire warhead - not just the explosive. An EFP contains a lot of 'inert' metal that gets formed into a projectile.
(Can we not use pounds in a technical military discussion, lol.)
But since they're larger / heavier / more expensive, they are the primary-weapon of the soldier (or squad, in the case of Stugna-P). If you're equipped with one of these, your job is to kill tanks.
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Panzerfaust, AT4, RPG7 are variants of the same concept. They're more of a "sidearm" than anything. You don't really want to be facing down a tank with one. They are manually aimed and therefore only effective at 100m to 300m (depending on how good your aim is).
Because they're smaller warheads (84-caliber for the AT4, yes its a pun/joke), they're less effective at penetrating armor. So you really want to use them vs lighter vehicles, such as IFVs instead of proper tanks. If you need to use it against a tank, you should aim for a weak point, like shooting from above, or hitting the side/rear armor.
So your snipers / riflemen / machine gunners have a job, that's the 50-cal, or machine-gun. But what if they come across an enemy vehicle? Well, the AT4 / Panzerfaust are light enough to carry _WITH_ your other weapons. Its better than nothing, and light enough to be a secondary weapon.
Alternatively, maybe you're in an environment where hitting the weak top-armor is possible (ex: Urban / high-rise building in Kyiv). Giving many, many cheap AT4 weapons out to the crowd of defenders will effectively kill even main-battle-tanks, if they are attacked at the proper angles / from their weakpoints.