Old Bolt stuff

[JDR Dragoon]

As for being equip with Thermal i must disagree with you on that, one of the big differences between the ITOW and TOW2 was the thermal advantages the TOW2 missile brings, the fact that i flagged the 3 Jeep units now as having thermal in the Danish Bdes is a mistake and they should NOT have thermal.

No. The TOW2 (or BGM 71-D as it is also called) is the missile. It can be loaded and fired from any TOW launcher as long as the appropriate upgrades has been done to the launcher first (primarily upgrades to the sight and software). The Thermal Sight is added to the launcher independently of whatever missile that the launcher has been upgraded to fire. Whether or not a launcher has a Thermal Sight or not has nothing to with the type of missile it fires. A launcher fitted with or without a Thermal Sight could potentially fire the newest TOW2B or the 1970s era basic TOW with equal abandon as long as it had received the appropriate upgrades. Danish TOW launchers were fitted with Thermal Sights installed in 1987 (plus some more upgrades to the power supply, cradle and software, thus the launcher and its associated equipment is called "Raketstyr M/87"). It fired basic TOWs (mostly used for training in order to burn up old stocks) and ITOWs at the time and later it fired TOW2s and TOW2As with equal abandon. The sight was the US produced AN/TAS-4. The missile is not important (it is not the thing fitted with a Thermal Sight after all). The launcher is.

According to the Redstone Arsenals homepage the deployment of AN/TAS-4 Thermal Sights to US units started in september 1979. Yet the first TOW 2 missile isn´t delivered before May 1983. How can that be if the TOW 2 missile was supposed to "bring the Thermal Advantages"? Indeed the M901 w. its elevating TOW launcher w. TIS was introduced in the late 70s. How could that have been possible if the missiles it was supposed to fire didn´t work with the Thermal Sight?

http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/systems/TOW.html

The info on the AMX-30B2s was sent to me from Greg whos French and ill stick with it unless he tells me otherwise.

I have no doubt that some AMX 30B2s had Thermal Imaging Sights or that they could potentially be fitted with it. It is after all merely a question of switching the LLLTV camera mounted to the left of the barrel out with a Thermal camera and then doing the appropriate updates to the sight and its associated monitor. I just doubt that it was a universal upgrade. At best it might have been done on a couple of battalions or so (the ones who formed part of the french armys rapid reaction corps). Most of the AMX 30B2s would have had LLLTV in 1989. And of the total AMX 30 fleet, the upgraded B2 variants still only comprised about half. The other half would have been the early 1970s vintage AMX 30B. Apparently the speed of upgrading was rather slow.

but still the minors couldnt be trusted

Says who? ;)