The BGM-71 TOW is a long-serving American heavy anti-tank guided missile family, launched from tripods, vehicles and helicopters and fielded in wire-guided and radio-frequency variants.
A wire-guided missile that requires its operator to hold the crosshair on a tank for the whole flight — up to four kilometres, several seconds, motionless. In a battlefield watched continuously by drones, that is the hardest thing a soldier can be asked to do.
Ukraine's home-built tank-killer — a tripod ATGM with one defining trick: the crew fires it by cable from up to 50 m away, in cover, while the launcher sits exposed. Cheaper than a Javelin, it became famous for killing tanks and, on video, shooting down Russian helicopters.
Israel's multi-platform electro-optical anti-tank and precision-strike missile family — from the shoulder-fired Spike SR to the 50 km helicopter-launched Spike NLOS, the most-exported Western ATGM, in service with 39 nations.
Shoulder-fired, single-use anti-tank missile with overfly top-attack and fire-and-forget PLOS guidance — the weapon that defined Ukraine's close-quarters tank-killing in 2022.
China's man-portable, fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile — a Javelin-class top-attack system with imaging-infrared guidance, a tandem HEAT warhead, and no confirmed combat use.
Russia's primary man-portable anti-tank guided missile — a SACLOS laser-beam-rider with a tandem-HEAT warhead, fielded since 1998 and exported widely to over 20 countries and non-state actors.
The FGM-148 Javelin is a man-portable fire-and-forget top-attack anti-tank guided missile — a Raytheon–Lockheed Martin joint venture, the symbolic anti-armor weapon of the war in Ukraine, and the NATO-standard infantry ATGM fielded by more than 20 operators worldwide.