Re obat 70 Chechnya

[Marcello]

"That's considering that these missiles are way more accurate than any HE(AT) tank round at ranges beyond 2km. And also that any guided missile round is way less expensive than a tnk and its crew.

I know the Russian way (particularly in the first Chechen war) would be more like "let's fall back and cover every square foot in a one-km radius from that damn sniper with one ton of arty shells", but hey."

Blasting ATGM positions with indirect fire is actually a good idea. Short of that a few HE shells in direct fire should do the trick. If you really want to go high tech using the Ainet system to get some airbusts will work nicely.
When I said these things are expensive, they really are.
The guidance suite for the missile represented 20% of the cost of a T-64B for example. And for the missiles themselves a small number of them was worth the price of a new tank.
The whole scheme makes some sense only if you are very careful about what you are shooting them at. Only high value targets or specific dangerous threats that could not be dealt with otherwise are worth the expenditure of such missiles.

[Marek_Tucan]

Good point about the cost, however I'd guess that the laser guided missiles are (relatively) cheaperwhen compared to Kobra?
Anyway, I recall reading somewhere that one of LAHAT potential tactical uses is accurate direct fire on enemz positions in urban terrain, reducing collateral damage and danger space for own troops.

[Marcello]

The idea behind the russian barrel fired ATGMs was to provide a limited, accurate long range capability against high value targets. This was very expensive, as I noted, but as long as it is limited (only a fraction of the tanks fitted with it and a limited number of rounds) still easier and cheaper than developing and deploying on every tank all the technologies necessary to ensure comparable performances with conventional rounds (very sophisticated FCS, tighter tulerances in gun manufacturing and what not). I also suppose that especially early on it provided capabilities that it would have simply been impossible to match otherwise.
The scheme basically makes sense only as long as you use them sparingly. Otherwise it is more cost effective investing into high end FCS and such.