# How effective are NATO anti-tank weapons in Ukraine right now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2022, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515 "2022-03-05T09:51:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/221 "2022-03-28T11:28:14Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > The Germans quickly learned if you took out the enemy command tank, the rest of their command were utterly helpless, you didn’t even need to kill them. Rediscovered by Mazer Rackham in the Second Formic War. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/222 "2022-03-28T11:52:01Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Not necessarily; you can deduce the importance of a potential target by their location and frequency of calls from various sources in proximity to maneuvers. And even if you can’t decrypt those communications, if you can correlate them with other messages sent in the open between individual soldiers you can work up a pattern. Hence, @RickJay’s criticism of the poor communications security of troops because it takes only a few leaks to give enough information to form a good picture of your opponent’s plans and intentions. Exactly - if you target the guy who seems to be the recipient and originator of many calls, then you are taking out the guy directing the others. (Or you are taking out the town gossip, their major back channel of information, which is equally likely to lower morale…) This is analogous to all those _Law & Order_ type cop shows - nobody does wiretaps any more. They dump cellphone records and tell the suspect “we know you called Fred an hour before he was murdered, then Bob 20 times immediately after the murder… why?” The metadata is almost as relevant. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/223 "2022-03-28T12:26:38Z")
If the claim is accurate, hitting a one meter target from 1000’ with an unguided, drone-dropped bomb is pretty impressive. I suspect that might be under ideal conditions that rarely exist in war. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/224 "2022-03-28T13:02:56Z")
> [@MikeF](#): > > If the claim is accurate, hitting a one meter target from 1000’ with an unguided, drone-dropped bomb is pretty impressive. I honestly don’t know why you still have the idea that Ukrainian TB2 drone munitions are unguided. They are not, as has been pointed out a few times. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/225 "2022-03-28T13:29:53Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > > [@MikeF](#): > > > > If the claim is accurate, hitting a one meter target from 1000’ with an unguided, drone-dropped bomb is pretty impressive. > > I honestly don’t know why you still have the idea that Ukrainian TB2 drone munitions are unguided. They are not, as has been pointed out a few times. Reread my earlier post, the two of you are talking about two different drone and weapon system combinations. You are talking about TB2 drone which use PGMs. **MikeF** is talking about civilian drones dropping RKG-1600 anti-tank hand grenades. Regarding their accuracy, my gut feeling is that the claim is indeed under ideal conditions. The only alleged combat footage of it in use that I’ve seen is grainy IR camera footage on propagandish sites. It is after all just dropping a hand grenade with a drogue parachute from 1000’ using the hand controls of a quadcopter. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/226 "2022-03-28T14:16:42Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Reread my earlier post, the two of you are talking about two different drone and weapon system combinations. You are talking about TB2 drone which use PGMs. **MikeF** is talking about civilian drones dropping RKG-1600 anti-tank hand grenades. The next question is why **MikeF** is talking about civilian drones dropping RKG-1600s. Are they being used in Ukraine? ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/227 "2022-03-28T15:23:09Z")
I don’t have the link handy but there is a Twitter feed (or whatever the correct term is) that keeps track of weapons being used by both sides with videos and still photos. They say that RKG 1600s are being used by Ukraine. I I don’t know why you think I was talking about TB2 drones. I never mentioned them. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/228 "2022-03-28T15:56:42Z")
The video is embedded in the second link from my prior post, [here](https://militaryleak.com/2022/03/18/ukrainian-forces-showed-their-unmanned-aerial-vehicle-attacks-on-russian-armored-vehicle/). ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/229 "2022-03-28T16:04:13Z")
Right, you are! That’s the one. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2022, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/230 "2022-03-29T02:00:29Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I haven’t read the book in probably thirty years and don’t recall the man-portable anti-tank weapons In _Red Storm Rising_, the NATO anti-tank weapons were BGM-71 TOW, primarily Jeep mounted. Technically man-portable, but pretty unwieldy. Much better fired from a vehicle or helicopter. > [@duality72](#): > > Heck, there was a whole [video game about the aircraft](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-19_Stealth_Fighter) before it was officially acknowledged. I remember mostly playing that game as a ground attack aircraft, as its role would eventually be, mostly because dogfighting would immediately throw all of the stealth advantages out the window. And those stealth advantages had come at the cost of dogfighting ability. Oh, the hours I wasted on that and _Gunship_ … > [@Chronos](#): > > Even if jamming meant they were reduced to using cell phones for comms, that’s still no excuse for transmitting in the clear. There are free encrypted text messaging apps for all cellphone OSes, and once you have them set up, they’re just as easy to use as the texting programs high schoolers use worldwide. > > The only plausible explanation I can see for communicating in the clear is that they really are just that incompetent, or possibly even deliberately sabotaging themselves. Without 3G/4G capability, those encrypted apps cannot work, and the Russians targeted civilian 3G/4G communications early on. This is what happened with the FSB officer trying to call home to report on the death of his general - his encrypted VOIP app failed because it used 3G/4G: ideal for peacetime situations using roaming across European networks, but useless in a war-zone. They should have shifted to using Russian military comms networks (I assume the Russians have military satellite communications), but fell back to an un-encrypted cellphone call using a Ukrainian SIM card across Ukrainian network providers, and got intercepted. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/231 "2022-03-29T19:54:52Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > This is analogous to all those _Law & Order_ type cop shows - nobody does wiretaps any more. Not literally nobody, there are still wiretaps. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/232 "2022-03-30T15:38:36Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > This is analogous to all those _Law & Order_ type cop shows - nobody does wiretaps any more. Sure they do. All that meta data can paint a pretty good circumstantial picture but there’s still nothing quite like the words actually coming out of the accused’s mouth. Of course, actual proof isn’t necessary when dropping bombs during war. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515/233 "2022-04-13T09:25:53Z")
[Rob Lee’s account](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1514171538517471235) perhaps? I’ve checked in on that occasionally and I can see that yes, more tanks getting blasted to pieces. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-effective-are-nato-anti-tank-weapons-in-ukraine-right-now/960515.md?page=11)