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| MIM-23 Hawk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Surface-to-air missile |
| Place of origin | United States |
| Service history | |
| In service | August 1960[1]–present |
| Wars | |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | Raytheon Company |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 1,290 pounds (590 kg) |
| Length | 16 feet 8 inches (5.08 m) |
| Diameter | 14.5 inches (370 mm) |
| Wingspan | 3 feet 11 inches (1.19 m) |
| Warhead | 119 pounds (54 kg) blast fragmentation warhead |
| Engine | solid-fuel rocket engine |
Operational range | 28–31 mi (45–50 km) |
| Flight ceiling | 65,000 feet (20,000 m) |
| Maximum speed | Mach 2.4 |
Guidance system | Semi-active radar homing |
The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK ("Homing All the Way Killer")[2] is an American medium-range surface-to-air missile. It was designed to be a much more mobile counterpart to the MIM-14 Nike Hercules, trading off range and altitude capability for a much smaller size and weight. Its low-level performance was greatly improved over Nike through the adoption of new radars and a continuous wave semi-active radar homing guidance system. It entered service with the US Army in 1959.
In 1971 it underwent a major improvement program as the Improved Hawk, or I-Hawk, which made several improvements to the missile and replaced all of the radar systems with new models. Improvements continued throughout the next twenty years, adding improved ECCM, a potential home-on-jam feature, and in 1995, a new warhead that made it capable against short-range tactical ballistic missiles. Jane's reported that the original system's single shot kill probability was 0.56; I-Hawk improved this to 0.85.[3]
Hawk was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in US Army service by 1994. The last US user was the US Marine Corps, who used theirs until 2002 when they were replaced with the man-portable short-range FIM-92 Stinger. The missile was also produced outside the US in Western Europe, Japan and Iran.[4] The US never used the Hawk in combat, but it has been employed numerous times by other nations. Approximately 40,000 of the missiles were produced.
- ^ As given in Jane's Land-Based Air Defence 1996–97. Site designation-systems.net Archived 2005-12-10 at the Wayback Machine gives the initial operational capability as August 1959 with the U.S. Army.
- ^ "MDA News". US Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
- ^ Tony Cullen and Christopher F. Foss (Eds), Jane's Land-Based Air Defence Ninth Edition 1996–97, p. 296, Coulsdon: Jane's Information Group, 1996.
- ^ "Iran mass produces ground-to-air guided missile". www.payvand.com. Archived from the original on 2013-05-24. Retrieved 2010-11-23.