Javelin Missile

The Javelin, designated FGM-148, is an American man-portable anti-tank guided missile jointly produced by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, entering service in 1996 as a replacement for the M47 Dragon. It is a fire-and-forget weapon with automatic infrared guidance, a tandem-charge warhead designed to defeat reactive armor, and a top-attack flight profile that strikes a tank's thinner upper armor, all carried in a launcher weighing about 22.3 kilograms when ready to fire. The Javelin was first used operationally during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but it became internationally prominent through the Russo-Ukrainian War, where Ukraine received thousands of the systems from NATO allies; Pentagon assessments found that of the first 112 Javelins Ukrainian forces fired, 100 hit their targets. The weapon's cultural profile in that conflict grew large enough that an image known as Saint Javelin, depicting the Virgin Mary holding a launcher, became a popular symbol of Ukrainian resistance.