HJ-73E

Description

HJ-73E（Chinese: 红箭-73E）is a tandem-warhead ATGM based on the HJ-73 (which is a clone of the Soviet's 9M14 ATGM found on BMP-1), first introduced in 1990s, it has changed the guidance method from the original MCLOS to SACLOS, with enhanced penetration capabilities.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• ZBD86 (Modification)

General info

Although the missile shares similarities to its predecessor, HJ-73, in terms of the appearance; but the major difference is a probe on the tip of the missile which serves as the tandem warhead of the missile and thus, giving it an whopping overall penetration of 900mm RHA within its firing range. As well as it is a SACLOS missile which in other words, mouse-controlled that gives players more control over the missile.

While there were some improvements over the older models, this missile still suffer from a relatively low velocity (120m/s, a little improvement over HJ-73's 115m/s); which means at longer ranges, the enemy might have some time to react over your missile by eliminating the player or the missile itself.

Effective damage

With its 1.83kg TNT equivalent explosives on it, for lighter vehicles it can cause some blast damage to the hull that might cause hull breaks; the nature of an ATGM also means it also causes penetration damages from it jet stream, melting anything that is on its way; thanks to the tandem warhead, even the heaviest targets with ERA might face some serious damage from it.

Comparison with analogues

It is unrivalled at its tier with the whopping 900mm penetration and TOPPED with ADATS's MIM-146 missile in ground vehicle-launched missiles.

Usage in battles

Since in the current game, Chinese's ZBD86 is the only vehicle to carry this missile via modifications, at its battle rating of 7.3, there's NOTHING that can stop this missile from melting a hole on its armor, even in higher tier battles, and currently very few tanks, according to the protection analyze, can take a hit from it up front.

But this missile still comes with a few draw backs, like low explosive mass and longer immure zone (that is, it flies for some distance before guidance); but the most lethal of all, the slow velocity of this missile at 120m/s (only shines over its predecessor for a mere 5m/s and Japanese's Type 60 MAT which was infamous for its 85m/s missile).

There the best way of using this missile is stay behind the lines and try to find a stationary targets since it would be way easier to defeat them and try to stay hidden as long as possible; with the slow velocity of this missile, the player might meet his own end before the missile even impact on the target.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Unrivalled penetration at 900mm RHA at its tier, topped along with MIM-146 found on tier VII ADATS.
• SACLOS (aka mouse-controlled) missile that can be handled easier than MCLOS.
• Tandem warhead which can defeat ERA-equipped tanks.

Cons:

• Low velocity at 120m/s.
• Can be countered by the active protection system (APS) found on T-90A and AMX-30B2 BRENUS.
• Low explosive mass.

History

Examine the history of the creation and combat usage of the weapon in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the weapon and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Weapon-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the article about the variant of the weapon;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the weapon;
• other literature.