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Originally Posted by SUBMAN1
A puzzling question for me is, why did the Russian make a gun launched anti-tank missile? To me that is just dumb when you have access to a 125 mm gun! Is this to make up for a lack of power in it's SABOT? Or a lack of good future target positioning electronics for their main gun? I could see something in the anti-air catagory for this, but anti-tank?
-S
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Actually, the Soviets, for many years, didn't really worry all that much about their sabot. In the 1960s and 70s, NATO armor is basically steel, and not all that thick (with the exception of Chieftain, and even that's steel), so either HEAT or sabot rounds mostly made of steel (plus a dib of tungsten, as opposed to the tungsten or DU designs today) were most adequate.
Also, in the 1970s, fire control wasn't as advanced as it is today. Besides, even a theoretically perfect FCS starts to have trouble when the flight time of the round exceeds one second, thus the target has an opportunity to deliberately or accidentally alter its vector. Especially if it is a helicopter. Unless, of course, the round is guided, so you can correct your own round's flight.