I don’t know about the TOW2, but I was an Infantry tester in 1988 when the Army was evaluating the TOW replacement contenders; I was in the Bofur’s Bill team. No wires, and double the range of the wired alternatives.
The Army went with the TOW2, in the end, which surprised none of us. And Bofur’s was tight-lipped about the technology, but us gunners were fairly sure that it was fly-by-laser.
That was so long ago, I wonder if any details have been published in the meanwhile. They acted as if there construction was a state secret, at the time.
It was waaay before any sort of flexible fiber optics; copper wire seems like it’d be cheaper.
Same reason the TOW antitank operator guided missile was produced in 1968 which works on the same principle for precisely the same reasons.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW
This is an old strategy reborn.
I don’t know about the TOW2, but I was an Infantry tester in 1988 when the Army was evaluating the TOW replacement contenders; I was in the Bofur’s Bill team. No wires, and double the range of the wired alternatives.
The Army went with the TOW2, in the end, which surprised none of us. And Bofur’s was tight-lipped about the technology, but us gunners were fairly sure that it was fly-by-laser.
That was so long ago, I wonder if any details have been published in the meanwhile. They acted as if there construction was a state secret, at the time.
It was waaay before any sort of flexible fiber optics; copper wire seems like it’d be cheaper.