Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has stated that Britain is considering sending additional lethal aid to Ukraine to assist in repelling the Russian invasion. This would be in addition to the 4,000 anti-tank weaponry known as Next-Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapons Systems (NLAWs) and a small number of Javelins previously provided by Britain. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a weapons specialist and fellow at Magdalene College in Cambridge, told Express.co.uk that these weapons have had a “big influence.”
“I believe the Javelin and the NLAW, and of course, the UK has done a lot of training of the Ukrainian military over the last several years, has had a major influence that should not be ignored,” he added.
“Teaching people how to fight in densely populated regions is a difficult talent to master, yet Ukrainians excel at it.”
“Whereas the Russians appear to be at a loss.” It is suicide for Russian tanks to operate on their own in cities and villages.
“That’s exactly what’s going on. It’s incredible that they don’t know how to fight, especially after they trained for months in Belarus.
The UK’s NLAWS, which enable close-range tank defence, are meter-long disposable weapons that weigh only 27.5 pounds.
They are capable of launching a single 150-millimeter-diameter missile to an effective range of 20 to 600 metres, or up to 400 metres for moving targets.
Newer variants, owing to improved guiding algorithms, are said to have an accurate range of up to 800 metres.
The missile, according to the British Army, can kill “any main battle tank in a single shot by attacking it from above.”
Javelins are British surface-to-air missiles that can be launched from the shoulder by a single person and can destroy tanks on the battlefield.
And, according to Mr. de Bretton-Gordon, the Ukrainians have been “hugely effective” with these short-range anti-tank weaponry.
He also stated that the US and UK had “very competent” drones.
However, he warned that learning how to utilise them would take the Ukrainians months.
Fortunately, he emphasised that the West has “overestimated” Russia’s force.
“It’s not all terrible if the Ukrainian army can effectively destroy what is claimed to be the strongest force in the world right now,” he remarked.
