jfb@ihlpm.att.com (Joseph F Baugher) (07/24/90)
From: jfb@ihlpm.att.com (Joseph F Baugher) Scott Silvey asked about the Hughes AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile. Here are a few notes on this weapon, summarized from "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft Armament" by Bill Gunston and from an article by Jim Rawles which appeared in the Nov. 1988 issue of Defense Electronics. The Maverick missiles are all "fire and forget" weapons; that is, they need no further guidance input from the attacking aircraft once they are launched. There are three different types: the TV Maverick, the laser Maverick, and the infrared Maverick. The missile was produced in seven versions, A through G. AGM-65A: This was the first production version of the Maverick. It had a TV camera in its nose with a 5-degree field of view. The pilot or weapons officer of the attacking aircraft first sees the target visually and then selects it for attack. The aircraft is then turned toward the target. A Maverick is then activated, and its TV camera is turned on. An image of the target appears on the screen in the cockpit, and the pilot either steers his aircraft or else slews the camera until the target is centered in the crosshairs on the screen. The pilot then locks the camera onto the target and fires the missile. The missile then homes in on its target by means of a centroid tracker. Once the missile leaves its launcher, no further guidance is provided by the attacking aircraft. The AGM-65A is equipped with a 130-lb conical shaped-charged warhead, designed to attack hard land targets such as tanks, bunkers, and fortified positions. The total weight of the missile is 463 pounds. The rocket motor powering the Maverick is the Thiokol TX-633 solid engine. The Maverick has a maximum range of about 40 miles, but the practical range at which the TV guidance system can be used effectively to hit a target is much shorter (probably less than 10 miles). Nearly 19,000 of these A-versions had been built by 1984, when production ceased. AGM-65B: This was an improved version of the TV Maverick, designed to overcome some of the weaknesses of the earlier version. It had a "scene magnification" camera with a narrower field of view, plus an improved set of cockpit video symbols that made it easier to handle. The smaller field of view is said to provide better target recognition and discrimination at long range, as well as the ability to lock onto the target at greater range. The pilot or weapons officer need not actually see the target, but can instead use the seeker TV camera in the nose of the Maverick to identify and select the target by looking at the cockpit display rather than out the window. The enlarged and clearer picture enables the pilot to identify the target and fire the missile at a greater distance and from a greater slant range. AGM-65C: This was the first of the laser-guided Mavericks. It was designed to home in on light reflected from a laser-designated target. The laser used to designate the target can be carried either by the attacking aircraft itself, by another aircraft, or by someone on the ground. The infrared lasers used for the illumination are the Army AN/TVQ-2 or the Marine Corps AN/PAQ-3 designators used by soldiers on the ground or the airborne Pave Knife, Pave Penney, Pave Spike, or Pave Tack systems carried by such aircraft as the OV-10D Bronco, the F-4, RF-4, F-111, and EF-111. The laser beams used for the target illumination can be pulse-coded in such a way that each Maverick missile launched will home in only on its intended target, enabling several laser Mavericks to be in the air simultaneously. Only a few of the C-version of the Maverick were built. It never went into large-scale production. AGM-65D: This was the first of the infrared Mavericks. It has a passive infrared imaging detector in place of the television camera. It operates in much the same way as the TV Maverick does, only it uses infrared rather than visible light for the target imaging and tracking. Infrared detection can supposedly "see" through battlefield dust and smoke which visible light cannot penetrate. In addition, it enables the missile to operate at night. It can also spot camouflaged targets which are almost invisible to the eye but which nevertheless emit heat. It is claimed that targets can be distinguished at approximately twice the range of the earlier TV Mavericks. The infrared sensor consists of a cryogenically-cooled detector mounted on a gimbal. The detectors use a rotating faceted mirror to create a television- like image which is displayed on a cockpit screen. Once launched, the infrared Maverick uses a digital centroid seeker to automatically guide the missile to the center of the target rather than to the point of greatest temperature differential, thereby increasing the probability of a kill. It is claimed that at close range the infrared seeker can regularly discriminate between valid target vehicles and cold (destroyed) vehicles based on their respective infrared signatures. The infrared Maverick can be slaved to an aircraft-mounted sensor such as a FLIR, a laser pod, or the APR-38 radar warning system, enabling it to attack targets at great range, at night or in bad weather. The missile can be used in conjunction with the Lantirn night and bad-weather sensor and navigation pod now being fitted to F-16 and A-10 aircraft. It is claimed that the infrared Maverick can attack targets at ranges of up to 25 miles when released from an aircraft at altitude. The D-version was the first to introduce a new, reduced-smoke rocket engine. Earlier models left a distinct trail in the sky from launch to burnout. By 1989, 13,800 D-model Mavericks had been delivered. This version is still in production. Raytheon is a second source for this missile. Combined production by Hughes and Raytheon may ultimately add up to over 60,000 missiles. AGM-65E: This is the mass-production version of the laser Maverick. It has a 300-pound penetrator blast/fragmentation warhead that can instantly be rendered inert while the missile is in flight if it happens to lose its lock on the target. The warhead is optimized for destroying hardened targets such as bunkers, and features a fuse that can be set either to explode upon impact or delayed until after penetration. In addition, it has an improved laser tracking system and digital computer processing capability. The total weight of the missile is 680 pounds. AGM-65F: This is the Navy version of the infrared Maverick. It is similar to the D version, but has modified computer programs onboard that make it capable of attacking ships instead of ground targets. In addition, it carries an 300-pound antiship warhead capable of either exploding on impact or after passing through armor. AGM-65G: This is an improved variant of the D version infrared Maverick. It has the larger and more effective 300-pound warhead fitted to the E-version, combined with the infrared sensor package fitted to the D-version. This G- variant is still under development by Hughes. New software is under development which will optimize the tracker for targets such as bunkers and aircraft hangers. The software will make it possible for the Maverick to use a lower trajectory, reducing the likelihood of the missile passing through clouds and obscuring the seeker. There is some talk of developing a millimeter-wave terminal seeker for the Maverick, enabling it to attack moving targets such as tanks. Hughes claims that over 3200 Mavericks have been fired, with an overall 85 percent success rate. The Air Force says that the infrared version of the Maverick is the most accurate, having a success rate over 90 percent. I don't know under what conditions these tests were carried out, or upon what kinds of targets the missiles were fired. I don't know how how easy it is for an enemy on the ground to fool the Maverick or to make it lose its lock on the target. I remember hearing some stories (sorry, don't remember where) about people on the ground being able to fool the TV Maverick into attacking two-dimensional drawings of tanks propped up on sticks or else into homing in on cardboard mockups of real military vehicles. The TV Maverick requires good daylight visibility in order to be effective, and lighting anomalies such as glare from sunlight reflected off water can cause the missile to lose its lock on the target. The laser Maverick has its own set of disadvantages. The primary one is of course that it depends on a laser designator that must remain shining on the target until the missile finally strikes. This places the designator itself in danger of attack. So, the laser Maverick isn't REALLY fire and forget. In addition, an enemy aware of the threat of the laser Maverick could easily devise means of detecting the laser illumination, quickly alerting him that something deadly may soon be heading his way. I suspect that the laser Maverick may be more difficult to "spoof" than the other versions of the missile, especially because the laser Maverick can be arranged to home in only on a reflected infrared source that is pulsing according to a prearranged code. However, I also assume that the degree of coordination between laser designator (either ground or air) and attacking aircraft that is required for a successful laser Maverick attack must be quite high. I suspect that this would be difficult to achieve in an actual battlefield situation. The infrared Maverick is considerably more expensive than the other versions. I remember hearing on "Sixty Minutes" that during tests out West, the infrared Maverick was easily fooled into attacking burning bushes rather than tanks. I also wonder how easy it would be for a determined enemy to fool the infrared Maverick by using decoys such as flares. Also, I wonder how immune the infrared Maverick is to infrared countermeasures gear such as that which is carried aboard aircraft to thwart attacks from surface-to-air infrared homers. I would also expect that it must be quite difficult for a pilot flying in a low- altitude, high-speed, high-threat environment to be able to watch the TV screen, line up his plane, lock onto the target, and fire the Maverick and at the same time keep from flying into mountains, duck enemy missiles, and avoid colliding with other friendly aircraft. I would therefore suppose that the necessity of doing all of these things at the same time would make a second crewman (e. g. the weapons officer in a F-4 Phantom) quite useful. Perhaps there are readers of sci.military who have some experience in working with the Maverick who can provide some details. The Maverick missile has been used by the air forces of Egypt, Greece, Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Portugal, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, Singapore, Kuwait, Switzerland, Israel, South Korea, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, and West Germany, as well as the United States. A wide variety of aircraft are capable of carrying the Maverick. These include the A-4, A-6, A-7, A-10, AV-8B, F-4, F-5, F-16, F/A-18, F-111, F-15E, JA 37 Viggen, and the Hawker Hunter Mk 58A of Switzerland. I don't have any details about experiences with the Maverick when used in actual combat. I suppose that Mavericks were used by Iran in the recent Iran-Iraq war, but I have no information on how effective they were. The Israelis used the TV Maverick operationally during the Yom Kippur War. I don't know if the Maverick was ever used in Vietnam. Perhaps someone else who reads this group can provide further information. Joe Baugher ************************************** AT&T Bell Laboratories * "Of all the gin joints in all the * 200 Park Plaza * towns in all the world, she walks * Naperville, Illinois 60566-7050 * into mine." * (708) 713 4548 ************************************** ihlpm!jfb jfb200@cbnewsd.att.com Who, me? Speak for AT&T? Surely you jest!