Guardian Rocket Launcher

WC Anti Vehicle Soldier — A Western Coalition anti-vehicle class soldier armed with a Guardian rocket launcher

The Guardian is a highly-advanced, man-portable guided missile designed to engage virtually any hard target that infantry would face - including both armored ground vehicles and low-flying aircraft.

As such it fills a role formerly filled by a collection of small, shoulder-launched weapons - including the Javelin anti-tank and the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

It is a high-performance fire-and-forget (FAF) guided missile: the operator aims at and nominates a target, and the missile uses a combination of infrared, magnetic, and optical pattern-recognition to remember the target. Thus, upon firing, the weapon 'remembers' the target it was given by the gunner and guides itself to impact with it. The gunner, meanwhile, is free to do something else, such as move to another location or get under cover.

The Guardian deals devastating damage to whatever target it hits. One major difference from its predecessors is that the operator is able to 'pick a trajectory' of the rocket as it fires.

After a successful target lock-on, pointing up and then firing will fire the weapon in a top-down arc. Troops are beginning to use the weapon to stay in cover while firing around a corner, and letting the homing system do the rest.

If the Guardian detects its target to be an aircraft, it will detonate its tandem warheads in an airburst manner, the body of the missile and the sheer force of its explosion creating a potent 'flak' and blast effect. This is usually enough to take down a nearby air vehicle.

The Guardian entered service in 2015 after a long development period.

-- Field Guide text entry

Overview[]

The Guardian is a highly sophisticated fire-and-forget rocket launcher used by the Western Coalition. The Guardian fills the role of anti-vehicle launcher for both ground and air vehicles.

The Guardian is given to Coalition players in the anti-vehicle class.