
The T-62 was put into service on the basis of outgunning it, and indeed, it would not be entirely inaccurate to consider the T-62’s most prominent highlight to be its 115mm smoothbore gun. It was accepted into service as a direct reaction to the new American M60 tank, which had been dispatched to the 3rd Armored Division in the USAREUR (U.S Army in Europe) in December 1960. 183 in Nizhniy Tagil, known as Uralvagonzavod. The tank was designed and built at Factory No. The T-62 medium tank, known under the factory index of Object 166, formally entered service in the Soviet Army on 12 August 1961. NLAW has since been rolled out to defence forces in countries including Luxembourg and Switzerland.Soviet Union/Russian Federation (1961-Present)


It was delivered to the British, Swedish and Finnish defence forces in 2009. Saab, who had considerable experience with both guided missiles and shoulder-fired ground-combat weapons, was chosen to develop the weapon, and NLAW was created with funds from the MOD, Sweden’s Department of Defence, and Saab. The weapon came about as a result of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) launching a program to source a Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) in the 1990s.Īt that time, both the UK and Sweden were looking to upgrade their anti-tank capabilities to deal with increasingly powerful main battle tanks being developed by their opponents. In fact, NLAW was designed by Saab in Sweden and is assembled in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by aeronautics company Thales, with components produced in a number of countries. Is it a British weapon? Or is it a Swedish one?Īs is so often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Many have been surprised just how effective NLAW is, even in the hands of soldiers with little prior training.īut there has also been a degree of confusion around the origins of the system. With a missile capable of penetrating 500 mm armour and a range of 20 to 800 metres, the system has won plenty of admirers in recent months thanks to its ability to defeat main battle tanks. But Saab’s NLAW anti-tank weapon also packs a powerful punch. It weighs just 12.5 kilograms and measures a fraction over a metre.
