motion of the launching aircraft or the target. After confirming lock-on, all the operator had to do was to press the firing button to send the missile on its way, and the firing aircraft was free to maneuver or evade. All models of Maverick are very accurate. If the missile functions properly, it should place the warhead well within 5 feet/1.5 meters of the aimpoint, which makes it a deadly anti-tank weapon.
Early combat Maverick shots went extremely well, helped by favorable environmental conditions. About sixty were fired in North Vietnam in December 1972 (fairly cool, clear air), and hundreds more by the Israelis in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War (good contrast background, along with dry, clear air). Both situations favored the TV seeker of the — A model Maverick. But in the hazy, muggy summer weather of Central Europe, its effective range was often reduced; an E/O TV tracker had a hard time seeing the camouflaged tanks of the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe. Combined with the different lighting conditions and heavy air pollution, this limited the effectiveness of the AGM-65A. From a pilot's point of view, these conditions forced the user to get much closer to the target than is desirable. This problem was partially solved by reducing the FOV on the next version, the AGM-65B, to only 2.5deg, which allowed for twice the magnification of the target scene by the missile optics. Also, for AGM-65s produced in FY-1981 and later, the rocket motor was replaced with an improved reduced smoke model. Nevertheless, the TV- series Mavericks remained difficult to use, especially in conditions of haze or ground cover, particularly by single- seat aircraft like the A-10 (the Warthog) and the F-16.
New versions of the Maverick were already on the way by the late 1970s. One idea was to make it into a laser-guided weapon like an LGB. A developmental version with a laser seeker, designated AGM-65C, was built by Rockwell. But the Air Force did not choose to put it into production (the USMC did, as the AGM-65E). This version also introduced a 300 lb./136.4 kg. blast fragmentation warhead with excellent penetration against everything from warships and bunkers to armored vehicles.
What everyone did want — including the Navy and a variety of foreign air forces — was a missile with a seeker that was immune to the problems of a visible-light TV tracking system. The answer was something entirely new — an Imaging Infrared (IIR) seeker. Like the Sidewinder missile, it would see the infrared (IR) energy given off by an engine or the body heat of a human being. However, instead of using a single detector element like the Sidewinder's seeker, the new Hughes seeker would use multiple elements clustered into a matrix called an imaging array. This array is similar to the photo-electronic pickups used in a home video camcorder. This made the seeker head, designated WGU-10/B, essentially a 'poor man's' FLIR. Hughes designed the WGU-10/B to be a 'common' seeker, which eventually was used on the IIR versions of the GBU-15, AGM-130, and the AGM-84E Standoff, Land Attack Missile (SLAM).
The IIR seeker integrated into a Maverick airframe proved to be a winner. The seeker was sensitive enough to see through smoke, haze, and fog to find its targets. Initially, the Air Force simply installed the new seeker onto the existing AGM-65B airframe with its 125 lb./56.8 kg. shaped charge warhead. Weighing in at 485 lb./220 kg., the AGM-65D, as it was designated, first arrived in service in 1983 and was very popular, especially in the A-10 community. They even found it could be used as a sensor during Desert Storm, when they would power up one missile on the rack and use its IIR seeker head video to help them navigate on night missions! The Navy and Marine Corps were also quick to see the advantages of the IIR seeker; and as soon as the production of the laser-guided — E model was completed in 1985, Hughes began production of the Navy variant, the AGM-65F. This model utilized the large 300 lb./136 kg. blast fragmentation/penetrator warhead of the AGM-65E and was designed to provide U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft with a serious punch against heavy land targets or ships like patrol craft and amphibious vessels. It too was a great success during Desert Storm. IIR Mavericks can be distinguished from their earlier TV E/O brethren by their drab green or gray paint (versus white for the TV Mavericks); and they have either a milky silver or translucent amber colored optical seeker window (the TV seeker uses a clear optical window).
The latest IIR Maverick variant, the AGM-65G, is still being produced for the U.S. Air Force. Weighing in at 670 lb./304.5 kg., this version takes advantage of everything that has been learned about building Mavericks to date. The AGM-65G's features include the WGU-10/B IIR seeker head, the 300 lb./136.4 kg. warhead, more reliable and accurate pneumatic control surface actuators, a digital autopilot, and the TX-633 reduced smoke rocket motor. Additionally, the — G model Maverick has a ship track 'aimpoint biasing' mode, which allows the operator to pick an exact spot on a target where the missile will hit. This allows a pilot to designate the missile to hit at the water-line of a target vessel, greatly increasing the chance of critical flooding. When tied to a FLIR-based targeting system like LANTIRN, the AGM-65G is a weapon of deadly capability. (The unit price is $50,000 per missile in FY- 1991 dollars.)
So, how do you fire a Maverick? Suppose that you are flying in the backseat of an F-15E Strike Eagle equipped with LANTIRN pods and carrying four AGM-65G IIR Mavericks. You are told to attack a column of enemy armor, stopping them for other aircraft following you to finish them off. You ingress (pilot talk for 'approach') the target area and locate the armored column along a road. Using the LANTIRN hand controller, you target the lead vehicle in the column and automatically 'hand-off' to the seeker the first missile. Then you repeat this setup for the last vehicle in the column (effectively trapping the vehicles in the middle of the column). Closing in for the attack run, you verify that both missiles are tracking their assigned targets, set the MASTER ARM switch to ON, wait for the missiles to come into range (up to 14 nm./25.6 km. at higher launch altitudes), and launch the missiles as fast as your finger can cycle on the firing button. The missiles should now be on their way to their targets. When each missile impacts, the AN/ AAQ-14 will record the result (to provide BDA footage of the event). Before you say this sounds like an advertisement for Hughes and Raytheon (the primary and secondary source contractors respectively), be aware that over 90 % of the Mavericks fired during the Gulf War successfully hit their targets, and most of these were TV E/O and early IIR versions of the missile.
Today, the Maverick missile program is going strong, with fairly bright prospects for the future, given the current defense budget climate worldwide. A number of other nations have continuing Maverick procurement programs of their own, with orders continuing to come in. As for new Maverick developments, there are several ideas being kicked around the engineering shops of Hughes's Tucson, Arizona, plant. Under evaluation is a variant with a new seeker that uses an active millimeter wave (MMW) radar to determine the exact shape of a target in virtually any weather conditions. Millimeter wave guidance uses radar waves small enough (less than a centimeter/0.4 inch) to resolve fine details on a target. The Maverick MMW seeker is only 9.45 in./24 cm. in diameter, so it fits neatly within the current dimensions of the AGM-65. Another option under consideration is to replace the rocket motor used on all previous versions of the Maverick with a turbojet power plant. Called the Longhorn project, it could triple the range of the AGM-65 without increasing the weight or significantly reducing the explosive payload. Neither modification is currently planned for production. Nevertheless, with over thirty thousand Mavericks built to date, the weapon has to be considered a success, with a long career still ahead of it.
AGM-88 HARM
On May 1st, 1960, over the farmlands of central Russia, a small air battle took place that forever changed the nature of air warfare. Almost 13 miles/21 kilometers in the sky, PVO-Strany was desperately trying to shoot down one of their most hated enemies, a CIA Lockheed U-2 spy plane. It was a costly battle. Several of their own fighters were lost to 'friendly fire,' and the American intruder almost escaped. What won the day for them was the first success of a new tactical weapon, the surface-to-air missile (SAM). When Francis Gary Powers's U-2 was shot down by the proximity detonation of an S-75 Dvina/SA-2 SAM (NATO code-named Guideline), it set off a scramble to counter this new and lethal weapons technology.
'The best ECM in the world,' said an Israeli general famously, 'is a 500 lb./ 227.3 kg. bomb down the feedhorn of the missile-tracking radar.' He was right. But how many aircraft would he lose getting into position to hit a given SAM radar? Fixed SAM sites tend to be protected by layers of optically tracked AAA guns. Thus early USAF plans to hit such sites in Cuba (during the 1962 missile crisis) with tactical fighter bombers loaded with unguided rockets and canisters of napalm would have undoubtedly exacted a high price.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy, long a leader in SAM technology, began to think about the problem of suppressing SAM sites. In 1961, out at the same Naval Ordnance Test Station laboratory that had developed the Sidewinder and Sparrow AAMs, an idea was born that might provide a remedy. Known as an anti-radiation missile (ARM), it was quite simply a missile designed to home in on the emissions of the SAM tracking radar, guiding in to kill the radar. By killing the radar, and hopefully its skilled operators, the SAM site would effectively be 'blinded' and
