Chapter 30: AGM-88 Hamm Anti-Radiation Missile
After the U.S. Army abandoned the "Adats" air defense missile program, the U.S. Army transplanted the "Avengers" air defense missile system to the "Bradley" M2A2 combat vehicle in 1997, replacing the original on-board TOW anti-aircraft missile system. Tank missile system, also known as the "Bradley-Defender" short-range air defense vehicle.
And retain all other weapon systems, including the 25mm M242 "Viper" electric chain-fed cannon, and after modification, the "Bradley-Defender" can be used to provide fire support, strike lightly armored targets and air defense. combat purpose.
This shows that the design ideas of the "Adac" missile system still meet the needs of combat.
The abandonment of the U.S. Army led the Canadian Army to adopt the Adaz missile system, also known as the Low-Level Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) system, in 1988.
With operational networking and real-time information sharing, the Canadian Army will combine several separate Adaz missile systems into a combat network and operate together.
The "Adats" missile system is the main component of the "Canadian low-level air defense system" and is installed on M113 armored vehicles. A total of 36 systems were procured by the Canadian Army, with the first system delivered in 1988 and all completed in 1994.
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Under the control of several Hydra drivers, three ADATS anti-aircraft and anti-tank tracked armored vehicles drove out of the building, and while driving out, the pulsed Doppler X-band on the armored vehicles The dual-beam radar has captured and locked the signal of the Super Eagle F-117A.
However, the Super Eagle is not comparable to those F-117As that are about to retire. Although the Super Eagle was captured and locked by radar at an altitude of 300 meters, the Super Eagle still opened the magazine and quickly threw 6 AGM- After the 88A Hamm high-speed anti-radiation missile, it quickly turned into a human shape. In the no-landing mode, it forcibly landed at the ground exit of an underground parking lot and slid into the underground parking lot.
In the case of losing the target, several Hydra drivers had to point the "Adaz" air defense and anti-tank tracked armored vehicle at the 6 AGM-88A Hamm high-speed anti-radiation missiles that flew in. After launching the "Adaz" air defense missile, quickly turned off the radar and started maneuvering.
But he didn't want to, the trick of "Adaz" turned off was of no use to the 6 AGM-88A Hamm high-speed anti-radiation missiles.
AGM-88 anti-radiation missile, referred to as: HARM, also known as: "HARM", is the third-generation anti-radiation missile of the US military.
Before that, the US military's first and second generation anti-radiation missiles were based on the AGM-45 "Mozu" series developed on the basis of the "Sparrow" III air-to-air missile, and the AGM-78 "standard" ship-to-air missile developed. Standard" series.
As the first generation of anti-radiation missiles, Mozu has obvious shortcomings:
The frequency band covered by the seeker is too narrow: Although all models of the "Mozu" use a common equiangular four-arm planar helical antenna that can reduce the size of the world to less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the target radar, the frequency band covered by the seeker is too narrow. , In order to deal with radars working in different frequency bands, many seekers have to be developed and selected according to known information before the attack.
The early model of "Mozu" relied on as many as 18 seekers to cover the D~J band (1~20 GHz), and the later model did not improve significantly in this regard, which is the most important reason why her model is particularly large reason.
Single Guidance Method: The "Mozu" series can only fly to the target along the electromagnetic waves emitted by the radar. Once the opponent's radar takes measures such as shutting down, the missile will lose the source of guidance information and cannot hit the target.
During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese army had repeatedly adopted measures such as shutting down, turning on multiple radars alternately, swinging the radar antenna at a large angle and other measures to "tame" the missile, plus measures such as rapidly changing the operating frequency of the radar for the defect of the seeker. , the Mozu hit rate dropped to 6% in 1970.
Low guidance accuracy and insufficient warhead power: Even if the opponent does not take countermeasures, most of the "mouse" in actual combat are more than 20 meters away from the target, and her warhead destroys soft targets without armor protection The radius is only 5 to 15 meters.
This shows that "Mozu" needs to improve the direction finding accuracy of the seeker and the power of the warhead, so the AGM-78 "standard" missile was developed in response to the shortcomings of the "Mozu" and new threats.
The AGM-78 "standard" prime contractor is General Dynamics, which only entered service in 1968, and only produced more than 1,300 pieces when production ceased in 1978. The average unit price is about 164,000 US dollars, which is very expensive.
And it only includes A-D types, which were used in actual combat operations such as the Vietnam War and Israel's 1982 attack on the Bekaa Valley.
Compared with the first-generation anti-radiation missile "Mozu", the main improvements of the second-generation anti-radiation missile "standard" are:
Substantially improved seeker's frequency band coverage, sensitivity and field of view: The "standard" seeker has the same antenna as the "Mozu", but covers a much wider frequency band, using only two The seeker covered the frequency range of the main Soviet air defense radars at that time.
The increase in the sensitivity of the seeker enables the use of radar side lobe beam guidance with weak signal strength, while the "mouse" must enter from the main beam of the radar with the strongest signal, which is easy to be detected by the enemy and take countermeasures.
The seeker antenna is installed on the gyro ring frame, and the tracking field of view reaches +/- 25°, which expands the flight envelope of the carrier aircraft to search and attack the target, while the fixed antenna field of view of the "Mozu" is only 8°. The missile must be dived towards the target.
The guidance method is more flexible: the "standard" guidance system has a target frequency and target position memory device. When the enemy radar is turned off, it can attack according to the target position memorized before shutting down. Once the target radar is turned on again, it can use the target frequency memory device. It recaptures and attacks.
The power of the warhead has been increased: while the accuracy of the seeker has been improved, the damage radius of the "standard" warhead to the radar antenna has also been increased to 25-30 meters.
Although the performance ratio of the second-generation anti-radiation missile "standard" is greatly improved compared with that of the first-generation anti-radiation missile "Mozu".
However, the average unit price of the "standard" is 6 times that of the "Mozu", and the weight is more than 3 times that of the "Mozu". It can only be equipped with a limited carrier aircraft, and the bomb load of the carrier aircraft is also limited.
At the same time, it has been proved by actual combat that despite the use of target position and target frequency memory devices, the "standard" still cannot deal with the sudden shutdown of the radar.
So under this situation and background, the AGM-88 Hamm anti-radiation missile was born.
Chapter 31 Predicting the U.S. Army on the Road