Swingfire
Contents
Description
The FV438 Swingfire is a Rank V British tank destroyer
with a battle rating of 8.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.63 "Desert Hunters".
Swingfire is the first dedicated ATGM of British nation tree. It doesn't have any cannons, just a mediocre machine gun. Instead, it has two ATGM launchers that are reloaded separately and fire upwards with missiles that are guided by mouse. Missiles are slow and relatively easy to control, as long as they are visible by the ATGM camera. You can only directly control the missile that you fired last.
The main point is that you can fire while being completely concealed and fire on people that try to hide from you, whether they are hiding behind rocks (vertically) or houses (horizontally). You just need to turn the missile into their cover, which surprises people who expect you to just fire from 2 km range like other ATGMs. But other side of that is, it's very easy to see your missiles coming and hide from them, making it twice as hard for you to hit enemy with them, unless you can judge distance well and drop missile right on them.
Because of that, main purpose of the Swingfire is either control of hills, castles, streets and so on to block enemy offensive pushes or assist in team assaults by hiding behind teammates or rocks and blasting enemy out of covers, without having someone to get shot.
General info
Survivability and armour
Swingfire's hull can be easily damaged by anything, as it has almost no armour. This leads people to thinking you are useless in close combat and firing just MG at you, or ignoring you altogether, but as long as your front is facing the enemy you will be first set on a very long fire. This fire may not kill you for a minute, if left unchecked, so you can actually fire up to 6 shots before your engine gets melted or you actually explode. Soviet HMG can potentially destroy you immediately, so try to avoid provoking them too hard.
Armour type:
- Rolled homogeneous armour
| Armour | Front | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 12 mm (42°) Front glacis 10 mm (38°) Lower glacis |
12 mm Top 12 mm (13°) Bottom |
10 mm (2°) | 10 mm |
| Turret | 10 mm | 10 mm | 10 mm | 12 mm |
Notes:
- Suspension wheels and tracks are 15 mm thick, though the torsion bars are 10 mm thick.
Mobility
Mobility of this vehicle is low. It can't go fast backwards and it has very poor turn rate. If someone flanks you at close range, you won't be able to turn your launcher in time. It can follow heavy and some medium tanks, when goes forward.
| Mobility characteristic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Weight (tons) | Add-on Armor weight (tons) |
Max speed (km/h) |
| 15.9 | N/A | 57 (AB) |
| 52 (RB/SB) | ||
| Engine power (horsepower) | ||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded |
| Arcade | 341 | ___ |
| Realistic/Simulator | 212 | ___ |
| Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | ||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded |
| Arcade | 21.44 | __.__ |
| Realistic/Simulator | 13.33 | __.__ |
Armaments
Main armament
The Swingfire is a giant box, which has two enormous launcher tubes on it's left, that face upwards and a big control camera near to them, which is also your gunner's camera. Whenever you want to fire, you want that camera to see as much as possible, as losing the sight of missile will make you lose control over it. You also can only initially launch missiles forward.
Because of how this is, missiles cannot be fired precisely backwards or close to your sides, even though they can turn that hard. If your target is far enough, you can try and use Third Person view to force missile into sharp turn behind you. If you can't allow yourself to miss - make sure your opponent is at least 100m away from you, turn your hull until you can aim camera directly at your enemy in sniper mode, then launch missile in opposite direction and only then aim straight at them in sniper mode. Firing such shot without sniper aim is only as precise as calling artillery strike, which makes hitting people behind you more of a miracle than skill, since you cannot control missile after it went behind you, and it's not guaranteed, that it will be aimed straight at them, or just fly into space by that point.
Each launcher has 7 missiles, that reload separately. In AB, if you spent entire magazine for one launcher, game will rearm exactly that magazine completely. In RB you can only rearm at capture points. Rearms can happen for both launchers at the same time, but you only see one timer at once.
People may think, that your missiles inside launchers explode violently when shot by MG, but it won't destroy you even if that happens. Exposing them doesn't end your life, but they are still very fragile and they are a large target, that can be easily shot by HE, instantly destroying you in process.
| 170 mm BAe Swingfire ATGM | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Fire rate (shots/minute) |
Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance |
Stabilizer | |
| 14 | 3 | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| Turret rotation speed (°/s) | |||||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded | Prior + Full crew | Prior + Expert qualif. | Prior + Ace qualif. |
| Arcade | 15.54 | No upgrades | 18.87 | 20.87 | 22.2 |
| Realistic | 10.5 | No upgrades | 12.75 | 14.1 | 15.0 |
| Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||
| Stock | Prior + Full crew | Prior + Expert qualif. | Prior + Ace qualif. | ||
| 13.00 | 11.5 | 10.6 | 10.0 | ||
- Turret is represented by camera to the right of missile launchers. Improving it's rotation speed affects responsiveness of missile, whether you see or don't see the target directly.
- Inability to see your target and missile at same time disables automatic guidance system, forcing you into manual mode.
Ammunition
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration in mm @ 90° | |||||
| 10m | 100m | 500m | 1000m | 1500m | 2000m | ||
| BAe Swingfire | ATGM | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 |
| Shell details | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Initial Velocity in m/s | Acceleration in straight line, m/s | Maximum Velocity in m/s |
Projectile Mass in kg |
Range (m) | Fuse delay
in m: |
Fuse sensitivity
in mm: |
Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent): |
Normalization At 30° from horizontal: |
Ricochet: | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | |||||||||||
| BAe Swingfire | ATGM | 89 | ~14 | 185 | 37 | 4,000 | 0.0 | 0.01 | 3,470 | +0° | 80° | 82° | 90° |
- BAe Swingfire missiles are specifically designed for cover-busting and attacking out of unexpected places, so it's initially slower than most ATGMs out there, and it's max speed isn't very impressive.
- Missile tends to fall down after flying about 150 m forward, so if you aren't attacking someone in their cover, but need to fire relatively close (about 250 m) you might need to aim highter, to avoid dropping it on the ground.
- In case you are firing at range <150 m, missile will fly roughly double the distance you aimed for. (so if you fire at target that stands in 50 m range, you should aim at ground before it in 25 m .)
- Deadzone of launcher is ~5 m, but even if someone got that close to you, it's still possible to aim reticle right below you, to force missile to drop straight down, resulting in generally fatal turret roof shot, assuming you hit the target and it doesn't ricochet.
- Despite it's low speed, this model of BAe Swingfire is one of few ATGMs that can fly for 4 kilometers. This means, that you can snipe across the map and even attack ATGM helicopters in hover mode, even if they are out of map bounds, because it has 4 km range and they like to sit at about 3 km. Beware of instant retaliation, since maxiumum speed of this missile is also below average, and helicopter pilot must be very busy to not notice your attack, dodge it and attempt to fire back at you.
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 5 (+9) | 2 (+12) | No |
Machine guns
| 7.62 mm L3A1 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pintle mount | ||||||
| Capacity (Belt capacity) | Fire rate (shots/minute) |
Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance | |||
| 2,500 (250) | 500 | -5°/+25° | ±45° | |||
Usage in the battles
Whatever you do, always try to hide behind something, whether it is terrain, allies, or indestructible obstacle.
The most important quirk of your missiles, is that when you target someone on your level and they are too close, your missile initially drop really hard on ground and may detonate. To avoid this aim your reticle a bit higher than your target, at least initially. Alternatively - have the high ground, which will solve this problem, but adds a problem of firing precisely. If you need to duel someone at 100 meters or closer you can abuse the quirk of missile and aim your reticle into the ground in Third person view. This will force missile to land in front of you. Any more precise firing will require practice.
To fire at enemy in cover or above hills you just need to fire above it, then, when missile is actually near to them and above cover, aim straight at enemy or below them, depending on how close missile is to them. It is possible to do so from long range. In case if your aim is bad, just expose your camera and aim straight at them in sniper mode.
If you must fire at enemy behind a building or a high rock, that makes you unable to fire at them directly or from above, first take about 100 m distance from the corner of their cover, then fire a bit away from it and force missile to take sharp horizontal turn into enemy. If done right, enemy will get hit by missile in their side. After a bit of practice you will always hit someone. The further away is the cover, the sharper the turn you can make. For point-blank fights its usually better to just face the passageway or the corner with your camera before firing, since you can wiggle the missile in between houses, even if your launcher faces house, as long as you have control and at least 40m away.
It's very tempting to fire second launcher immediately in case of a miss, but if you are alone you should let first launcher to reload at least half-way before firing again, so you wont get overrun if you miss again. If they are already rushing you - fire at will. This is very important against fast targets.
In RB it's possible to destroy planes with missiles, achieving "unguided" reward. It's not recommended to do in AB, since planes there can do harder maneuvers without crushing themselves into ground or ripping their wings off.
If enemy can be hullbroken - just hit them with missile anywhere. But be aware, that all hullbreakable SPGs, most light tanks and SPAAs can instantly destroy you by just firing in your general direction. Do not leave your cover.
If enemy is behind smokes: in AB try to fire closer to ground, that way you at least de-track it. In RB you might want to fire at turret, because if takes out gun barrel it makes enemy very uncomfortable with chances of exploding themselves by firing cannon back at you, and you sort of know where they are now.
Specific enemies worth noting
Soviet tanks: You should aim for hull, as hits there are usually deadly and their turrets have way too high ricochet chance. If you can't angle missile right, at least hit their track when they try to move, so they turn over and expose their side to your fast follow-up shot, or unable to chase you, while your second launcher reloads. If you have to fire at turret - aim for it's back or top, but don't expect it to destroy them, it will probably just take out tank commander or loader, or even miss and hit the engine instead.
German medium tanks: They rely less on machineguns and move fast. Spook them away with single missile shot, remember how it went to adjust your aim. After that, if you missed, keep second one just in case if they try to rush you. Ideally you want to disable the driver.
Heavy tanks in general: they will usually be afraid of you, but if they will manage to call in medium tank friend, and you aren't skilled enough, you should just run away, as it's not possible to fight both heavy and medium at same time as swingfire. You just cannot reload fast enough.
Fences and trees: If street is full of high fences, it's not worth defending that street. Destroy them all with your machinegun. If they are solid - you can't do anything about it yourself. Trees also obscure your vision, but you cannot do anything about them. If you use them as cover - do not push your launchers in front of one, it will make you waste ammo.
ATGM: Weak ATGMs can't destroy you, if hit you on your front-left. It sets you on fire and immobilizes you first time it hits, but any further attacks there won't set you on fire. it's best to not test your luck or their patience though, as on 7th try even worst players will try hard and hit you where it actually hurts. It is still better than being fired at by actual tanks, though.
Fighter planes: drive backwards and pray they wont hit the ammo in your back.
Counter-tactics
Swingfire cannot really damage vehicles that are directly behind it or on its sides. The closer you are to it, while being behind it, the harder it is for the gunner to pull off a miracle shot.
Explosives and SPAA guns destroy it easily. Same with artillery, if Swingfire is stuck facing it's cover.
Being in front of Swingfire in 200 meter range is a very bad idea, regardless of your cover, as if it's launchers will reload in time, you can suddenly be destroyed. If you have to do that, at least face it with your armor and never show your sides, so missiles have harder time destroying your tank. Having tall cover further improves your chances of survival. Forcing it to move around by dropping artillery on it or it's retreat route before pushing is also a good idea.
Don't think, that it cannot fire forward in 30 meter range, it actually can. It's just very hard to do accurately.
If you want to destroy it with machine guns from front - fire straight in middle around the place where camera is, then spray the bottom of it. It's more likely to break something important or disable the gunner that way.
If you see Swingfire driving around and going on a murder spree, while being on fire - it just means that someone was stupid enough to let it live long enough to fire back, even though it doesn't have FPE. Don't repeat someone's mistake and attack with everything you've got, before it set you on fire as well.
Any solid obstacle can stop missiles, and trees make it hard to see you, so the more things there are between you and Swingfire, the better.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Dual launchers, each reloading separately
- Can blast enemy out of covers, without having to deal with them personally
- Can fire at close to medium range, while being completely behind cover or allies
Cons:
- It's hard to see how long a reload will be, you have to guess by looking at launcher's animation
- Missiles are rather slow, which can be a problem at long range
- Missiles are facing upwards and have long reload rate, so if anyone rushes you, and you happened to spend all of your ammo, you are unable to defend yourself.
- Sluggish and unarmored, so if someone flanks you or calls artillery on you at opportune time, you are doomed
History
Developed in the early 1960’s, “Swingfire” was a relatively slow missile that would allow directional changes of 45 degrees on the horizontal and 20 degrees of elevation which created the apt name. It was a 60 pound (27 kg), 3.5 ft (1 m) long rocket with range of 2.5 miles (4 km), capable of penetrating up to 500 mm of enemy armour. The FV 438 was a British light anti-tank vehicle, equipped with the wired-guided “Swingfire” missile. The 438’s primary weapon was launched through two Swingfire ATGM launchers, or bins, which could be reloaded from inside the vehicle. Apart from the 2 missiles stored in launchers, it could carry up to 12 additional reloads. Its only secondary armament was a 7.62 mm M1919 General Purpose Machine-Gun.
FV 438 Swingfire was based on the FV432 armoured personnel carrier, a vehicle that was very lightly armoured - it was meant to deliver its crew to combat, while keeping it protected from machine-gun fire. This platform was used for several other modifications amongst which is its sister vehicle already in game - the Falcon. FV 438 “Swingfire” was powered by a Rolls-Royce K60 multifuel engine with maximum of 240 horsepower. It was a quick and nimble vehicle with weight slightly exceeding 16 tons, which could reach up to 32 mph (52 km/h).
Although the Swingfire missile was used during various engagements on other platforms, the 438 carrier was never used in combat and was decommissioned in the 90’s. The vehicle was built in rather smaller numbers.
Media
An excellent addition to the article will be video guides, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.
Read also
Sources
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| Britain tank destroyers | |
|---|---|
| Infantry tank derivatives | Archer · Gun Carrier (3-in) |
| Light tank derivatives | Alecto I |
| M10 Achilles | Achilles · Achilles (65 Rg.) |
| Centurion derivatives | FV4005 · Conway |
| ATGM | Swingfire · Striker |
| Other | Tortoise · ▄M109A1 |
| Canada | QF 3.7 Ram |
| South Africa | G6 · ZT3A2 |
