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Air-to-Surface Missiles

Intro to Air-to-surface missiles

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Intro to Air-to-surface missiles

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Introduction
An air-to-surface missile (also, air-to-ground missile, ASM or AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft (bombers, attack aircraft, fighter aircraft or other kinds) and strike ground targets on land, at sea, or both. They are similar to guided glide bombs but to be considered a missile, they usually contain some form of propulsion system. The two most common propulsion systems for air-to-surface missiles are rocket motors and jet engines. These also tend to correspond to the range of the missiles - short and long, respectively. Some Soviet air-to-surface missiles are powered by ramjets, giving them both long range and high speed.

General Information
Guidance for air-to-surface missiles is typically via laser guidance, infrared guidance, optical guidance or via GPS signals. The type of guidance depends on the type of target. Ships, for example, may be detected via passive or active radar, while this wouldn't work very well against land targets which typically don't contain such a large mass of metal surrounded by empty space.

There is some cross-over between air-to-surface missiles and surface-to-surface missiles. For example, there was an air-launched version of the Tomahawk missile, although this has been superseded by the AGM-86 ALCM. Other missiles used in both roles include the Penguin anti-ship missile and AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile. Many air-to-surface missiles can be used against both ships and land targets, although some of them have to be modified to perform both roles effectively. For example, the Standoff Land Attack Missile is a land-attack version of the Harpoon.

One of the major advantages of air-to-surface missiles over other weapons available for aircraft to use to attack ground targets is the standoff distance they provide. This allows them to launch the weapons outside the most intense air defences around the target site. Most air-to-surface missiles are fire-and-forget in order to take most advantage of the standoff distance - they allow the launching platform to turn away after launch. Some missiles have enough range to be launched over the horizon. These missiles (typically either cruise or anti-ship missiles) need to be able to find and home in on the target autonomously.

Sub-categories of air-to-surface missiles include:

air-launched anti-tank guided missiles (typically launched from helicopters
air-launched cruise missiles
air-launched anti-ship missiles
anti-radiation missiles

Typically, the higher and faster the launching aircraft is flying, the further away the missile's target can be. For long range missiles this difference can be small, but short range missiles (like the AGM-65 Maverick) often dramatically increase in range when launched at altitude.

These have been examples of air-launched ballistic missiles, but they are rare. Sometimes air-to-surface missiles are divided into the categories of tactical and strategic. Typically this indicates conventional explosive or small nuclear warhead (tactical) and large nuclear warhead (strategic).

List of air-to-surface missiles

India
Brahmos

France
MBDA AS 30
MBDA Apache
MBDA Exocet

France/UK
Brimstone
Storm Shadow

Norway
Penguin missile

South Africa
Mokopa

UK
Blue Steel missile
Brimstone missile
Green Cheese missile
AGM-48 Skybolt
ALARM

USA
AGM-12 Bullpup
AGM-22
AGM-28 Hound Dog
AGM-45 Shrike
AGM-48 Skybolt
AGM-53 Condor
AGM-62 Walleye
AGM-63
AGM-64 Hornet
AGM-65 Maverick
AGM-69 SRAM
AGM-76 Falcon
AGM-78 Standard ARM
AGM-79 Blue Eye
AGM-80 Viper
AGM-83 Bulldog
AGM-84 Harpoon
AGM-86 CALCM
AGM-87 Focus
AGM-88 HARM
AGM-112
AGM-114 Hellfire
AGM-122 Sidearm
AGM-123 Skipper
AGM-124 Wasp
AGM-129 ACM
AGM-130
AGM-131 SRAM II
AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow
AGM-137 TSSAM
AGM-142 Have Nap
AGM-153
AGM-154 JSOW
AGM-158 JASSM
AGM-159 JASSM

USSR/Russia
AS-1 Kennel (KS-1 Kometa)
AS-2 Kipper (K-10S Yen)
AS-3 Kangaroo (H-20)
AS-4 Kitchen (H-22 Burya)
AS-5 Kelt (H-11/KSR-2)
AS-6 Kingfish" (H-26/KSR-5)
AS-7 Kerry (H-66, H-23 Grom)
AS-8 (9M114V Sturm-V)
AS-9 Kyle (H-28)
AS-10 Karen (H-25)
AS-11 Kilter (H-58 Izdeliye)
AS-12 Kegler (H-25MP, H-27PS)
AS-13 Kingbolt (H-59 Ovod)
AS-14 Kedge (H-29)
AS-15 Kent (H-55/H-65S Izdeliye)
AS-16 Kickback (H-15)
AS-17 Krypton (H-31)
AS-18 Kazoo (H-59M Ovod-M)
AS-19 Koala (P-750 Grom)
AS-X-19 Koala (3M25A Meteorit-A)
AS-20 Kayak (H-35/H-37 Uran)
AS-X-21 (Kh-90 Gela)

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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