MIM-23 Hawk

MIM-23 Hawk
TypeSurface-to-air missile
Place of originUnited States
Service history
In serviceAugust 1960[1]–present
Wars
Production history
ManufacturerRaytheon Company
Specifications
Mass1,290 pounds (590 kg)
Length16 feet 8 inches (5.08 m)
Diameter14.5 inches (370 mm)
Wingspan3 feet 11 inches (1.19 m)
Warhead119 pounds (54 kg) blast fragmentation warhead

Enginesolid-fuel rocket engine
Operational
range
28–31 mi (45–50 km)
Flight ceiling65,000 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Hawk was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in US Army service by 1994.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.

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ "MDA News". US Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ "Iran mass produces ground-to-air guided missile". www.payvand.com. Archived from the original on 2013-05-24. Retrieved 2010-11-23.