MIM-23 Hawk
The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK ("Homing All the Way Killer") 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.
| MIM-23 Hawk | |
|---|---|
| Type | Surface-to-air missile |
| Place of origin | United States |
| Service history | |
| In service | August 1960–present |
| Wars | War of Attrition Chadian-Libyan War Iran-Iraq War Gulf War 2020 Turkish intervention in Libya Russo-Ukrainian War |
| 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 |
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.
Hawk was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in US Army service by 1994.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. 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.