Bofors BILL 2

I have  a soft spot for the Swedish defense manufacturer Bofors. Not so much because they make great products (they do) but mostly because they make great marketing videos with lots of explosions.

The Bofors BILL 2 Anti Tank Guided Missile is very similar to our own TOW 2B missile, if somewhat smaller and lighter, with a reduced range. That makes it somewhat more portable than TOW. 

Generally, the thinnest armor on a tank is on the top of the turret. Incidentally, the most vulnerable components of the tank tend to be in the turret as well, that is, the majority of the crew, and the main gun ammunition. The front of the turret tends to be very heavily armored, but you can’t have thick armor everywhere, and so the turret roof tends to be thin. And so, missile designers came up with a solution that allows for missiles to attack that vulnerable top armor.

BILL 2, like TOW, is a semiautomatic, command to line of sight (SACLOS)  guidance system.  The missile has a flare or beacon at its rear. The gunner’s sight spots the flare or beacon. Basically, the sight divides into four quadrants. Upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right. Spotting the flare in the upper right quadrant causes the missile guidance system to generate a command to steer down and left. All the gunner has to do is keep the crosshairs on the target. This works even if the target is moving, though of course, a shot at a stationary target is easier.

With a top attack missile, the system works the same, but a slight bias is introduced to maintain the missile a given distance above the actual line of sight. That bias is generally the optimum standoff distance for the installed shape charge warheads, and might be about one or two meters.

Tank designers aren’t dumb, and realizing that the top armor is vulnerable, some have installed Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) on the top of the tank. And missile designers aren’t dumb either. BILL 2 has two warheads. The first is a “precursor” warhead designed to set off any ERA. The second, main warhead, is designed to fire at the spot where the precursor has stripped away the ERA.

Comments

[Krag]

Question from an infantry guy - is it now SOP for US tankers to fight buttoned up? Some of the remote weapon gear I've seen on Army M1s looks like it completely blocks the view from the commander's hatch anyway, and I imagine turret mounted ERA isn't fun to be close to. (Does the US used turret mounted ERA?)

[timactual]

Great video. Thanks.