Post from BFC forums on TOW Missile effectiveness

[Nemesis]

I saw this posted over on the BFC forums and thought it was very interesting.

I was once in an infantry battalion and we had TOWs. I did not work directly with TOWs (I was in the scout platoon), but I was around the TOW gunners a lot and do remember TOW gunners saying that TOWs had issues flying over water and near electrical wires.

In any case, this guy was a TOW user for 8 years. He says that TOWs are way overpowered in CMCW.

"First of all, after working with the TOW MISSLE SYSTEM for 8 years in the USMC ,it don't make me a TOW MISSLE EXPERT, BUT we had issues with the Regular TOW, Then the ITOW , then finally the TOW 2 came out and we had big issues with the TOW2.

Shooting just the regular TOW Missile 10 times, we would have a failure rate of approximately 3-4 missile failures. most of those issues being a Broken Wire from the gun platform to the missile itself. We also had 2 missiles that blew up only 20-30 yards, which was an issue by itself because the TOW missile wasn't supposed to arm its warhead until it went over 50 yards. Here is my last issue about the TOW, they are way to accurate at short ranges. When you fired your TOW MISSILE after the missile leaves the launch tube the gunner is trying to reacquire its target, then while that's going on , the flight motors kick in and you can't see ****!!!!! around after 10-15 seconds now you can finally make sense out of everything, you can now see the target, see the IR light on the missile and now your heart is pumping hard now because in another 6-10 seconds, your target is getting ready to be obliterated, and they don't even know it!!!!

So if the BF Community can start making the Tows Less Accurate at shorter ranges would be a start, Say from 50 yards to 1,000 yards the hit rate should only be around 60 to 65 percent, From 1,000-2,000 yards the hit accuracy will now be getting better so I would say 70-90 percent, then from 2,000-just over 3,000 yards my percentage would go from 80-95 percent. During Desert Storm during the battle the M2-M3 Bradley had a Huge problems"

 

[Gorst]

I would guess this would be true of a lot of AT missiles.

 

[Nemesis]

I would guess this would be true of a lot of AT missiles.

I agree. But this raises the question of whether wire guided ATGMs are overpowered in CMCW.

How much do we really know about the combat accuracy of 70s and 80s ATGMs?

I wonder. There is not that much publically available information really.

 

[Sgt Joch]

first you need to run tests to see how effective they are in game.

been playing through one of the USA campaign mission and it seems to me about one third of TOW missile fires miss, usually falling well short of the target.

 

[holoween]

When you fired your TOW MISSILE after the missile leaves the launch tube the gunner is trying to reacquire its target, then while that's going on , the flight motors kick in and you can't see ****!!!!! around after 10-15 seconds now you can finally make sense out of everything, you can now see the target, see the IR light on the missile

Interestingly the milan gets a 400m minimum range for this in SF2.

 

[Lethaface]

Interestingly the milan gets a 400m minimum range for this in SF2.

and also still does a significant amount of nosedives. At least when my troops fire them ;-)

 

[holoween]

All missiles ive seen in Cm have this weird flight pattern where they fly straight for some time, then pull up and drop down again even without loosing guidance. Its especially strange when comparing to actual missile footage whre they usually simply fly in a straight line.

 

[Lethaface]

All missiles ive seen in Cm have this weird flight pattern where they fly straight for some time, then pull up and drop down again even without loosing guidance. Its especially strange when comparing to actual missile footage whre they usually simply fly in a straight line.

I have seen quite some footage of ATGM in Syria, which showed them often pulling it up at first and only lower later, while the missile circles around a bit. The guidance type probably influences such things though.

 

[holoween]

I have seen quite some footage of ATGM in Syria, which showed them often pulling it up at first and only lower later, while the missile circles around a bit. The guidance type probably influences such things though.

Yea they often pull up slightly immediately after launch so they dont slam into the ground. But cm missiles do it at the end of the flight rather than the beginning.