According to a video posted by Hamas on Twitter on June 24, 2024, they attacked the side of Israel's "Female Tiger" armored engineering vehicle with Red Arrow-8L anti-tank missiles near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Territory, causing them to catch fire.
In 1970, the Chinese armored forces first proposed to develop a successor to the Red Arrow-73 anti-tank missile, and the product Red Arrow-8 was mass-produced in 1984. It is a second-generation optically tracked, wire-guided anti-tank missile weighing 25 kg, with a launch canister length of 1,566 mm, an ammunition diameter of 120 mm, a solid-fuel propellant, and an ammunition speed of 220 m/s. The initial version of the Red Arrow-8 is said to have a 90% chance of killing.
The missile is equipped with an optical sight with 12x magnification, an infrared receiver, and a ballistic computer. The missile body is divided into a post-launch discarded part and a flying part, with a rate of fire of 2-3 rounds per minute, and four nozzles on the outside of the missile will assist in the rotation and stabilization of the missile during flight. Semi-automatic command guidance is adopted, and the reticle of the sight before hitting the target should be aimed at the target at all times. The overall performance is analogous to second-generation anti-tank missiles such as "Dow".
This missile is carried on a number of air platforms, such as the Z-9WA gunship, Mi-17 and Gazelle helicopters, replacing the original imported "Hort" second-generation anti-tank missile equipped with Gazelle. The ground platforms that use it include 212 Jeep, BJ2020, Nanjing Yuejin NJ211B off-road vehicle, ZDF-89 anti-tank missile launcher, etc. China North Industries Co., Ltd. designed the SW-1 single-man turret for it, which can be modified with the chassis of the Type 89 armored transport vehicle, the ZBD-04 infantry fighting vehicle, etc., and carries four Red Arrow-8H models on the side, and later developed a remote-controlled weapon station version.
NJ211B
ZDF-89
SW-1
ZBD-04 chassis
Based on the experience of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the system needed to reduce weight, so a lightweight version of the Red Arrow-8L was born, and the launch/storage system was made of composite materials, reducing the weight to 22.5 kg and being able to be transported by two soldiers. The system has 2 missiles, the smaller one has a range of 3 km, and the larger one has a range of 4 km. The fire control system uses more advanced microelectronics for all-weather combat capability, and the new launcher with a periscope significantly reduces the chance of operator exposure and penetrates up to 1,000 mm of homogeneous steel armor. The Red Arrow-8 was also upgraded with the Red Arrow-11 semi-active laser-guided anti-tank missile.
Red Arrow-11
The missile has been exported to several countries, including Sri Lanka, Syria and Pakistan, and Malaysia has installed it on the chassis of the ACV-300 Adnan. Pakistan installed it on the chassis of the Land Rover off-road vehicle and the M113A1.
ACV-300 Adnan