MIM-23A Hawk American Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) System
MIM-23A Hawk
The Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk (or 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. Hawk was originally intended to attack aircraft, especially those flying at medium and low altitudes. It entered service with the Army in this role 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 missiles. Jane's reported that the original system's single shot kill probability was 0.56; I-Hawk improved this to 0.85. A typical Basic Hawk battery consists of: 1 × PAR: Pulse Acquisition Radar—a search radar with a 20 rpm rotation, for high/medium altitude target detection. 1 × CWAR: Continuous Wave Acquisition Radar—a search doppler radar with a 20 rpm rotation, for low altitude target detection. 2 × HPIR: High Power Illuminator doppler Radar—target tracking, illumination and missile guidance. 1 × ROR: Range Only Radar—K-band pulse radar which provides range information when the other systems are jammed or unavailable. 1 × ICC: Information Coordination Central 1 × BCC: Battery Control Central 1 × AFCC: Assault Fire Command Console—miniature battery control central for remote control of one firing section of the battery. The AFCC controls one CWAR, one HPI, and three launchers with a total of nine missiles. 1 × PCP: Platoon Command Post 2 × LCS: Launcher Section Controls 6 × M-192: Launchers with 18 missiles. 6 × SEA: Generators 56 kVA (400 Hz) each. 12 × M-390: Missile transport pallets with 36 missiles 3 × M-501: Missile loading tractors. 1 × [bucket loader] 1 × Missile test shop AN/MSM-43.