Posted on 09/09/2008 7:32:01 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Pentagon notifies US Congress of missile sale to India
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said on Tuesday it has notified the US Congress of a possible sale to India of two dozen Harpoon air to ground anti-ship missiles.
Such a deal would be worth as much as 170 million dollars, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
"India intends to use the Harpoon missiles to modernize its air force anti-surface warfare mission capabilities and improve its naval operational flexibility," the agency said in a statement.
Boeing would be the prime contractor.
The 84L Harpoon Block II missiles are designed primarily as satellite guided anti-ship missiles.
Air to ground?
Gotta love Bulldogs.
It amazing those things can maintain level flight with such little wing area, even accounting for the airspeed and the thrust component.
Only if you screw up the launch! ;-)
I was wondering about that myself. But I just looked it up and the block 1E apparently includes an optical seeker (not just active radar) and GPS, enabling a land attack mission. How about that? Encroaching on its big brother, the SLAM...
With likely scenarios in mind, that’s a wise choice.
There are several variants, and one is an air-dropped version; there are ship and sub launched versions, and even a shore battery version. And while originally an anti-shipping missile, the navy uses it to attack surface targets on land as well.
Not a good idea to let India have these. The Harpoon is probably the best anti-ship missle in the world.
The Pakis and lots of Islamic nations operate the Harpoon-have been doing so for decades.
And its not exactly the best in the world-there are newer systems out there made by the Swedes,Norwegians and even the Israelis. Besides,India is building a supersonic weapon with the Russians which is the big for most aircraft(hence the small Harpoon buy).
Thanks. I didn’t know about the air launched version.
Somehow I missed that.
Makes sense since P-3’s (and presumably other ASW aircraft) can carry torpedoes and the Harpoon was specifically designed to fit a torpedo tube.
“Russian”
Spell check is my friend. Spell check is my friend. Spell check is —
Aircraft like the P-3 and S-3 carry their missiles on their underwing pylons.
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