page_title: FGM-148 Javelin
section_title: Warhead
hierarchical_section_title: FGM-148 Javelin / Components / Missile / Warhead
caption_attribution_description: English: Javelin FGM-148 Missile Deutsch: Javelin FGM-148 Lenkflugkörper
context_page_description: The FGM-148 Javelin is an American man-portable fire-and-forget anti-tank missile fielded to replace the M47 Dragon anti-tank missile in US service. It uses automatic infrared guidance that allows the user to seek cover immediately after launch, as opposed to wire-guided systems, like the Dragon, which require the user to actively guide the weapon throughout the engagement. The Javelin's HEAT warhead is capable of defeating modern tanks by attacking them from above where their armor is thinnest, and is also useful against fortifications in a direct attack flight.
  As of January 2019, over 5,000 Javelin missiles have been fired in combat.
context_section_description: The Javelin missile's tandem warhead is a HEAT type. This round utilizes an explosive shaped charge to create a stream of superplastically deformed metal formed from trumpet-shaped metallic liners. The result is a narrow high velocity particle stream that can penetrate armor.
  The Javelin counters the advent of explosive reactive armor (ERA). ERA boxes or tiles lying over a vehicle's main armor explode when struck by a warhead. This explosion does not harm the vehicle's main armor, but causes steel panels to fly across the path of a HEAT round's narrow particle stream, disrupting its focus and leaving it unable to cut through the main armor. The Javelin uses two shaped-charge warheads in tandem. The weak, smaller diameter HEAT precursor charge pushes through the ERA without setting it off, and punches a channel through it for the much larger diameter HEAT warhead, which then penetrates the target's primary armor.
  A two-layered molybdenum liner is used for the precursor and a copper liner for the main warhead.
  To protect the main charge from the explosive blast, shock, and debris caused by the impact of the missile's nose and the detonation of the precursor charge, a blast shield is used between the two charges. This was the first composite material blast shield and the first that had a hole through the middle to provide a jet that is less diffuse.
  A newer main charge liner produces a higher velocity jet. While making the warhead smaller, this change makes it more effective, leaving more room for propellant for the main rocket motor, and thus increasing the missile's range.
  Electronic arming and fusing, called Electronic Safe Arming and Fire (ESAF), is used. The ESAF system enables the firing and arming process to proceed, while imposing a series of safety checks on the missile. ESAF cues the launch motor after the trigger is pulled. When the missile reaches a key acceleration point (indicating that it has cleared the launch tube), the ESAF initiates a second arming signal to fire the flight motor. After another check on missile conditions (target lock check), ESAF initiates final arming to enable the warheads for detonation upon target impact. When the missile strikes the target, ESAF enables the tandem warhead function (provide appropriate time between the detonation of the precursor charge and the detonation of the main charge).
  Though the Javelin's tandem HEAT warhead has proven efficient at destroying tanks, most threats it was employed against in Iraq and Afghanistan were weapon crews and teams, buildings, and lightly armored and unarmored vehicles. To make the Javelin more useful in these scenarios, the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center developed a multi-purpose warhead (MPWH) for the FGM-148F. While it is still lethal against tanks, the new warhead has a naturally fragmenting steel warhead case that doubles the effectiveness against personnel due to enhanced fragmentation. The MPWH does not add weight or cost and has a lighter composite missile mid-body to enable drop-in replacement to existing Javelin tubes. The Javelin F-model is planned to begin deliveries in early 2020; the improved missile design, along with new lighter CLU with an improved target tracker, entered production in May 2020.
caption: Missile components
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