A top attack weapon is designed to attack armoured vehicles from above as a form of plunging fire, as the armour is usually thinnest at the top. Ideally, it will penetrate perpendicular to the attacked surface. The device may be delivered (often as a submunition) by a missile, mortar or artillery shell, ATGM, or even an emplaced munition. Top attack munitions use either a high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead for direct impact or near impact, or an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) warhead for over-flight of the target.
The top attack concept is fairly new and was first put into service by the Swedish in 1988[1] with the Bofors RBS 56 BILL top-attack anti-tank missile.
Weapon systems using top attack[]
- AGM-114 Hellfire (U.S.)
- Mokopa (South Africa)
- BGM-71F/ TOW-2B (U.S.)
- BLU-108 (U.S.)
- CBU-97 (U.S.)
- PARS 3 LR (Germany)
- FGM-148 Javelin (U.S.)
- KSTAM (South Korea)
- M93 HORNET mine (U.S.)
- MBT LAW (Sweden)
- Nag (India)
- MPATGM (India)
- SADARM (U.S.)
- Spike (Israel)
- OMTAS (Turkey)
- Griffin LGB (Israel)
- SMArt 155 (Germany)
- HJ-12 (China)
- Type 01 LMAT (Japan)
- RBS 56 BILL (Sweden)
- RBS 56B BILL 2 (Sweden)
- Strix mortar round (Sweden)
- XM395 Precision Guided Mortar Munition (U.S.)
- Krasnopol (weapon system) (Russian Federation)
- Kitolov-2M (Russian Federation)
- KM-8 Gran (Russian Federation)
- Prospina (India)
- Raybolt (South Korea)
Sources[]
The original article can be found at Top attack and the edit history here.