Talk:BGM-71 TOW

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[edit] Prevalence

The entry in this article is incorrect: The RPG-7 is the world's most widely used anti-tank missile.

Berrik

A rocket-propeled grenade is not a missile.
Technically it is, as a missile qualifies as any projectile; a stone could qualify as a missile. --The1exile 15:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Someone's changed it to *guided* missile, which should be precise enough. --Random wikipedia user.


If anyone has been in combat against an RPG-7 lately.....it is barely anti personnel. I have been hit in an unprotected hummer with no injury several times. If a TOW were to hit a hummer it would desimate it. So to say that an RPG-7 is Anti-tank is a misnomer anyway.

RPG is used mostly for lightly armored (by today's standards) vehicles , but it was anti-tank material in '61. So to define it as anti tank, we really should look at other items. A bullet that was developed to penetrate the first bullet-proof vest (made of silk i believe... that may have not been the first though.) could have been called armor-piercing way back then, but would it still be considered an armor-piercing munition today against kevlar and metal sheets? answer it yourselves, if yes then consider the RPG-7 anti-tank. If no then it should be downgraded to anti-vehicle (or useless... I have yet to see one in action and its destructive power) IngeniusDodo (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acronym

There are different understandings for what TOW stands for: Tube-launched Optical Wire guidience (and just guided), Tube-launched Optically Wire (and wired) guidience (and guided). Apologies for my poor spelling.

The acronymn TOW as defined by The School of Infantry USMC is Actually Tube Launched;Optically Tracked;Wire command linked Guided missle System.

I have corrected the acrynom to that used by the official manufacturer, [1] i.e. "wire-guided". — Deon Steyn (talk) 11:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TOW guidance

Is the TOW a fire-and-forget missile, or some other system? I have always understood it to be Fire and forget, but the article is confusing. So confusing that unless it gets improved soon I will see if I can get it listed to be cleaned up. --The1exile 17:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where you got the idea that TOW is a fire-and-forget system. To my knowledge no wire-guided missile is fire-and-forget, they're all command LOS weapons. TOW still requires the sighting system feeding information to the guidance unit in the missile to be fixed on the target until it impacts. I have, however, added a note at the end of the variants section explaning this. --Thatguy96 12:31, 5 March 2006
Ok, I got the idea that the TOW was fire-and-forget from the portrayals I have seen of it, mainly in games. It is usually shown as a fire and-forget missile rather than a SACLOS missile, but I wasn't sure where to confirm it. Probably wrongly portrayed because it is in fact neither. --The1exile 20:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acronym

I think we may be suffering creeping acronym shift here. TOW originally stood for "Television Over Wire."

If that's in reference to the TOW missile then I don't understand why that would be the case. There's no "television" involved on any level. Thatguy96 13:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ANY Armor?

The TOW can penetrate ANY known tank armor? Are we completely sure of that?

YEs i was the one who added that and i am fairly certain about. i have seen videos of a current production tow being tested against and M1A1 Abrams MBT. The missile fully penetrated the frontal turret armor. I am there fore fairly certain that it can kill any tank on this planet --Paladin 14:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Back in 91 when I trained to fire these things, the spec we were given was that it is capable of penetrating in excess of 36 inches of rolled homogeneous steel, making it capable of taking out an M1A1 head on. The missiles also have a probe on the front to defeat reactive armor. Before I got out in 94 we were feilding the 2B variant that was supposed to fly over the top of the tank and fire down through the turret. I personally never got to see these in a live fire exercise though.

I'm not sure that a video of one test qualifies as positive proof that it can penetrate any known tank armor. In any case, there should be a reference and probably a qualifying statement. 203.45.85.74 14:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Max

That comment should be removed. It assumes that the Abrams seen in the video had modern chobham armor (early models did not)and also that the up-armored m1a1 is the most heavily armored tank in the world (it's not). I think we could at least say that TOW models would not penetrate the Leopard 2's (A5 or A6)frontal armor at 45 degrees. The inability of small ATGMs to penetrate modern composite armors is the reason top attack munitions were created (TOW2B) 65.37.28.154 22:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tank vs. Anti-tank

IIRC in one of the Arab-Israeli wars the Arabs used TOW (or the equivalent) against the Israeli tanks but the missles were too slow relative to tank cannon fire. When the Israelis saw a TOW launch they would fire at the presumed launch site and the missle would lose guidance. The account I read had a tank turret draped with multiple TOW guidance wires. Anyone interested enough to track this down? -Wfaxon 02:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This seems to me to be an account of the use of AT-3 Sagger missiles used in the October/Yom Kippur War. The AT-3 is far slower than the BGM-71 (more along the lines of the Dragon), and the time to target was a notable issue (just as it was with the Dragon). The speed of weapons like the BGM-71 is specifically designed to deal with this issue. -- Thatguy96 02:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. This rationale for additional speed should be mentioned in the article. I note that the article on the AT-3 Sagger lauds the latter's utility in the 1973 Yom Kipur War. (Also Dragon needs disambiguation for the M47 Dragon; in fact, all such missles should be double-indexed by name and weapon number, if that's what it's called.) -Wfaxon 12:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The general idea of tank vs anti tank is not as much power vs power as it is stand off distance. Having said that, besides the abrams and the merkava (at times) there isnt a tank that exists with a max "effective" range of 3750m

[edit] Need big list of countries?

This seems to be a commonly used weapon system. Is there a great need for the big list of countries? I don't think it adds much value to the article. -- Medains 16:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary (IMHO), having a list of users of a weapon always adds value. I guess the issue can be that if the list gets very long maybe it would be better to include in this article just a link to a different wiki-article with the detailed list of users (as seen in other parts of thsi wikipedia). Regards, DPdH (talk) 13:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Details

how come this page lacks details like fuel type, max speed, range, weight, cost... Paskari 14:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

How do you pronounce it? Does it rhyme with "cow" or with "flow"?Blaise 21:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Flow