"TOW ATGM performance in VN" Topic

Taken from: link

11 January 1973 The XM26 airborne TOW system remained in Vietnam until late this month. Between 30 April 72 and this date, the two HUEY gunships fired a total of 199 TOW missiles: 37 in training and 162 in combat. The training firings began on 30 April and continued through 7 August. Of the 162 airborne TOW missiles fired in combat, 151 (93 percent) were reliable and 124 (82 percent) scored hits on a variety of targets. These included: 27 tanks, 21 trucks, 5 armored personnel carriers, 3 artillery pieces, 1 antiaircraft gun, 1 122mm rocket launcher, 5 machine guns, 2 57mm guns, 5 caves, 8 bunkers, 2 bridges, 2 mortars, 2 ammunition storage dumps, 2 TOW jeeps (1 with launcher and 1 with missiles), and 1 house. There were 11 malfunctions and 4 misses. The latter occurred when the gunner fired the missile at a range in excess of 3000 meters and lost it when the guidance wire ran out. Although the HUEYs encountered considerable machine gun fire, neither of the gunships was hit by enemy fire because they stayed high.

21 May 1972 By this date, 28 missiles had been expended in training personnel of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 3rd Brigade/1st CD on the ground-based TOW weapon system. Gunners of the 82nd Airborne task force fired 12 training rounds against an artillery bunker at a range of about 2800 meters and scored 12 direct hits. Gunners of the 3rd Brigade/1st CD fired 16 training rounds, with 1 missile malfunction, 9 target hits, and 6 misses due to poor lighting conditions.

Wolfhag

Interesting stats from actual use that are always useful.

Would love to have seen what the TOW did to the ammo dump 💥

2 TOW jeeps (1 with launcher and 1 with missiles)

Was this a friendly fire incident?

When they lost havy weapon systems, they did everything in their power to take them out.

A captured jeep with a 106mm recoilless was nothing to sneaze at.

troopwo,
Yes, I've seen 106s in action. It was our Battalion Level AT weapon in the Marines until the late 1970's.

It has a .50cal spotting rifle matched to the 106 trajectory. When you hit the target with a spotting round, immediately fire the 106 round and then "Shoot & Scoot." The total engagement time is less than 10 seconds.

It's so accurate that at Khe Sanh they could drop an HE round into a sniper hole on the side of the mountain across from the base. It had flechette rounds too!

Like most weapon systems, the TOW had teething problems when it first entered combat.

Wolfhag

Yeah, those recoillesses were nown as quite accurate. Inculding the 57 and 75mm as well as the 106.
Those push-pull firing systems, hee hee hee,,
bang,,, bang,,, ping,,, BOOM.

Sorry to get off track.

I imagine the TOWs got rushed out to try out, in a a panic with the Easter Invasion of 1972. losing a TOW on a jeep back then would ave been a massive loss of tech.

Of curse then the next year in '73 the Egyptians and Syrians use so many Saggers it stunned the west.

I never understood why they went away from recoilless rifles. Yes you need missiles from some things, and they weren't super effective on more modern tanks, but for anything else they would be a very effective weapon. RR rounds are cheap as hell comparatively and useful for so much more than anti-armor. The Italians even had a scooter transport variant on a modified Vespa.

Seems like a useful and efficient weapon that could still find a lot of use today.

Not Buck Roger's enough? Why did we abandon them completely?

Why did we abandon them completely?

All RCL have two major disadvantages:

1. The back-blast throws up a lot of dust and debris. In practice that means firing one shot and then getting out of there before return fire comes in. In our 106mm SWB rovers there was no protection, so even an MG would finish us. 5/7RAR trialled mounting the 106mm on M113A1. That meant a lot of work so the aimer, loader and commander could work the weapon from inside the track, but in effect the track couldn't clear the position quickly enough- so it was effectively a one-shot weapon (the .50cal spotters excepted). (Note- only fire the weapon on a hot summer's day if you really like trying to put out the resulting BBDA bushfire.)

2. At the time the decision was made to retire the 106 (early 90's for us, from memory) the chemical energy warheads had developed as far as they could. Shortly after top-attack rounds may have been produced, but by then the decision was that MILAN and Javelin were better options.

Besides, Tgerritsen, it was a big, heavy and cumbersome weapon compared to the ATGM. If you ever had to manpack the 106mm you'd know what I mean. With a the standard four man crew you had the ground mount, barrel and sight, two 5-round spotting mags and two- just two- HESH/HEAT rounds. Even on the gun cars you only had room for eight or ten rounds. I don't know how many rounds the M113A1 mounted tubes had.