Exocet

[Daryl J.]

Could it have been carried by the Sea Vixen or Javelin?   

What does the U.S. have along the same line?


Thanks,
Daryl J.

[pyro-manic]

I'd say it's possible, though it's a bit late for either aircraft (air-launched version wasn't developed until the mid 70s). They'd need to be wired for it, which may or may not have been a problem (would depend on how much money you could throw at it I suspect).

US equivalent is the Harpoon.

[Weaver]

It needs an anti-ship surface-search radar on the carrying plane to cue it in, normally the French Agave. I'm not sure what the surface search capabilities of the Javelin/Vixen radars were, nor whether it would be feasible to convert them to produce output that the Exocet would understand. It would be dead easy to fit them with Agave of course (it's a tiny unit), but then you'd lose much of their air-to-air capability.

If you were doing a lot of conversions, Thomson-CSF might be pursuaded to make a "Super Agave" with a bigger aerial and a more powerful transmitter. The original Agave has also been fitted in the nose of a drop tank (Jaguar centreline) before now, so it might be feasible to fit it in the nose of a Sea Vixen FAW.2's extended boom: the radome on the Indian air force's Jaguar Ms is really tiny.

The US equivalent of Exocet is AGM-84 Harpoon. Much the same sort of thing, except Harpoon is powered by a turbojet rather than a rocket, so it has more range. It also has a bigger warhead and, until recently, a smarter guidance system than any Exocet of the same age. The latest Exocet has a turbojet and claims smarter guidance.

[deathjester]

Wouldn't Martel suit better?  What would that require on the launch aircraft?

[rickshaw]

Wouldn't Martel suit better?  What would that require on the launch aircraft?

Depends upon which version.  The TV Guided one requires a datalink, usually in a pod, to allow the carrying aircraft to guide it.  The anti-radiation one needs some electronic interfacing with the carrying aircraft's ECM suite.   I suspect, in theory you could fire the ARM version "blind" and it would then pick up the most powerful emitter in the wavelength which is the default settng but you'd need to be very certain on the bearing to the target.

[Cliffy B]

What about the Sea Eagle, derived from the Martel?  They added an active seeker and hung it under SHARs, Buccs, Tornadoes, and Sea Kings.  Not sure what kind of interface was needed with the bird though.  Just a thought.

[deathjester]

Wouldn't Martel suit better?  What would that require on the launch aircraft?

Depends upon which version.  The TV Guided one requires a datalink, usually in a pod, to allow the carrying aircraft to guide it.  The anti-radiation one needs some electronic interfacing with the carrying aircraft's ECM suite.   I suspect, in theory you could fire the ARM version "blind" and it would then pick up the most powerful emitter in the wavelength which is the default settng but you'd need to be very certain on the bearing to the target.

Wasn't there an actual radar guided ASMa version of Martel?  I see where Cliffy B is going with Sea Eagle, but I was thinking that Martel was somewhere near the required time frame...

[Daryl J.]

Don't worry so much about the time frame.....it could be as late as the late 1980's in the OP. 

[deathjester]

There is also Kormorant - similar in size to Sea Eagle/Harpoon/etc...

[Weaver]

There was a "Radar Martel" proposed, but even the earliest versions of it had a turbojet: increasing the range was a requirement right from the beginning.

The original AS.37 Martel had a seeker that was tuned to a specific radar emitter before take-off, and the choice of emitters was biased towards Soviet Naval forces. As far as I know, it didn't require much from the launch aircraft other than a small control panel. The French later developed AS.137 Martel unilaterally, which could be re-programmed in flight and was more biased towards land-based radars. This version obviously required a rather more sophisticated interface with the aircraft.

Thinking about Sea Eagle on the Buccaneer, which was basically a digital missile being cued by a "steam" radar, it might not be that out of the question to make Exocet work with the Javelin/Sea Vixen radars, always assuming that they can generate useful data, of course....

Kormoran was developed before Exocet as a joint French/German project. MM-38 Exocet is essentially a surface-launched Kormoran with a longer motor.

[rickshaw]

Wouldn't Martel suit better?  What would that require on the launch aircraft?

Depends upon which version.  The TV Guided one requires a datalink, usually in a pod, to allow the carrying aircraft to guide it.  The anti-radiation one needs some electronic interfacing with the carrying aircraft's ECM suite.   I suspect, in theory you could fire the ARM version "blind" and it would then pick up the most powerful emitter in the wavelength which is the default settng but you'd need to be very certain on the bearing to the target.

Wasn't there an actual radar guided ASMa version of Martel?  I see where Cliffy B is going with Sea Eagle, but I was thinking that Martel was somewhere near the required time frame...

Yes, they called it Sea Eagle.   

There may have been a projected version of Martel but only the TV and ARM versions entered service.

[rickshaw]

There is also Kormorant - similar in size to Sea Eagle/Harpoon/etc...

There was also Jumbo.  Built but never fielded by the Germans.  It's pretty much a West European version of a Soviet anti-ship missile - big! 

[jcf]

Don't forget the Swedish Robot 04 for an earlier system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RB_04


Greg Goebel's vectorsite on Antiship missiles, a decent primer.
http://www.vectorsite.net/twaship.html

[PR19_Kit]

And the Rb04 beats them all on 'coolness' from a visual point of view. 

[I still can't believe I'm using the word 'cool' at my age............  ]

[Daryl J.]

The same thought occurred to me.