ThInside the US military program to arm Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missilese Javelin

3.3.22
As the Russians learned that Ukraine now had Javelins, their T-72 tanks in Donbas became less aggressive, and pulled further back from the frontlines, the U.S. military official said. Eventually, the Multinational Training Group-Ukraine was established in the Western part of the country, where battalions and then entire brigades were trained by the U.S. Military on a quarterly basis. Part of that training also included learning how to use the Javelin. The U.S. Military source that Connecting Vets spoke to stated that the intelligence community was concerned about Russian troops on Ukraine's borders starting in the summer of 2021 and that the Javelins themselves were likely taken out of the storage facility and issued to units that fall. With war breaking out in late February, initial reports indicate a weak Russian performance during the opening salvo of their campaign. However, the numbers of tanks killed by Ukrainian soldiers, with the Javelin or other anti-tank weapons, are difficult to take seriously. Mostly appearing on social media, these numbers are likely to be exaggerated by the Ukrainians and downplayed by the Russians. The usual fog of war makes it even more difficult to ascertain accurate numbers. However, a U.S. Special Operations official monitoring the conflict in Ukraine told Connecting Vets that he had seen estimates of 280 Russian armored vehicles taken out by the Javelin as of this writing, out of 300 total missiles fired.

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Rogue Valley said:

Inside the US military program to arm Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles

For the past two years, US trainers have taught Ukrainian soldiers how to use the Javelin anti-tank misssile system at the Yavoriv Combat Training Center in western Ukraine. Lockheed Martin recommends 72 hours of training, but IMO soldiers can be trained in a four hour cram session. Each Javelin system usually requires a team of at least two. A Javelin can also be used to take a helicopter out of the sky. Whether the West waited too long to flood Ukraine with the Javelin (and Stinger) remains to be seen. It will be very close either way.

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PirateMk1 said:

If in fact 280 vehicles were taken by 300 Javelins, that is excellent performance.

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Rogue Valley said:

Inside the US military program to arm Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles

For the past two years, US trainers have taught Ukrainian soldiers how to use the Javelin anti-tank misssile system at the Yavoriv Combat Training Center in western Ukraine. Lockheed Martin recommends 72 hours of training, but IMO soldiers can be trained in a four hour cram session. Each Javelin system usually requires a team of at least two. A Javelin can also be used to take a helicopter out of the sky. Whether the West waited too long to flood Ukraine with the Javelin (and Stinger) remains to be seen. It will be very close either way.

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maxparrish said:

In retrospect the years of debate over whether or not Ukraine should get more than MRE meals and bandaids, followed the trepidation over more than a few hundred defensive Javelins, was astoundingly short sighted and absurd. The WEST was so afraid of making Putin and a then less prepared Russia upset, the restraint and meek sanctions accomplished nothing.

Those seven or eight years could have been spent turning Ukraine into a well-trained and modern army. NATO and the US completely failed at proactive self defense.

A year ago, when this started, should have been an awakening and an urgent call to feed far more weapons into Ukraine.

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