MIM-23 Hawk

The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK (HAWK is an acronym for homing all the way killer) is a surface-to-air missile. It has been designed to destroy both aircraft and other missiles in flight. It is the oldest missile still in service in the United States military (over 30 years), and is unusual in that it has never been fired by US troops in combat.

The missile system has undergone substantial improvement since its inception in 1962. However, only the United States Marine Corps still uses the system.

HAWK chronology

1960s

• The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 14 – November 20, 1962) necessitates a request for a total of 304 missiles to be delivered at an average turnaround of 3 days per missile.

• The missile is subsequently submitted for an "improvement" project, the Improved HAWK.

• Raytheon is asked to provide a self-propelled HAWK firing unit, the HAWK Assault Fire Unit.

• The United States Marine Corps gets interested in the HAWK, placing them at Da Nang and Hill 327, which was west of Da Nang airbase. This was both the first USMC deployment of the HAWK, and also the first deployment of the HAWK in Vietnam.

• A HAWK battalion is deployed to Israel.

• Raytheon is awarded a contract to "improve" the HAWK. The improvements are subsequently approved, and the first improved HAWK (or SP HAWK) is delivered in February 1967.

• Israel successfully used the HAWK to down Egyptian jets during the Six-Day War (June 5 – June 11, 1967).

1970s

• All activity on the SP HAWK is terminated in favor of the Improved HAWK.

• Improved HAWK systems are deployed in West Germany.

• 24 batteries of Improved HAWK missiles are sold to Iran for $280 million.

• The 1st and 7th Air Defense Artillery (ADA) Battalions are activated at Fort Bliss, Texas.

• Both HAWK and PATRIOT missile systems are tested at White Sands Missile Range in a severe countermeasures environment. Both PATRIOT and HAWK (although the latter at a lower altitude) systems performed adequately.

• Following the Iran hostage crisis (November 14, 1979 – January 20, 1981) , the United States Department of State formally suspended the Iranian HAWK program. No further communication occurred between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force on the missile system.

1980s

• The decision was made by the Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army to retain the HAWK indefinitely.

• Experiments combining the Sparrow missile with the HAWK are conducted.

• The United States Department of Defense approved the development of an anti-tactical-missile mission for the HAWK.

• HAWK demonstrated its capability to receive and use PATRIOT acquisition data to engage a short-range ballistic missile. A PATRIOT test target programmed to fly a trajectory characteristic of a Soviet Union short-range tactical ballistic missile (TBM) was intercepted and destroyed at White Sands Missile Range. To add the ATM capability to the HAWK on a permanent basis, an effort requiring primarily software changes was under way.

1990s

• The United States Marine Corps successfully demonstrated the HAWK Get Light concept at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. The purpose of the Get Light program was to minimize the amount of equipment needed to fire a HAWK missile and to use data from the HAWK Continuous Wave Acquisition Radar (CWAR) to cue Short Range Air Defense Systems (SHORADs) such as STINGER.

• An engineering change proposal (ECP) approved this year gave the HAWK missile an improved Short Range Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile (SRATBM) capability.

• The 11th Brigade at Fort Bliss, Texas requested that modifications be made to HAWK equipment so that it could be used by the United States Army to support the Drug Enforcement Agency in its drug interdiction efforts. The first radar was modified and tested at WSMR in September, 1992.

• A SAFE AIR demonstration was conducted at WSMR to display the effectiveness and versatility of several existing and new United States Army weapon systems in providing air and surface defense. Emphasis was placed on defeating cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The HAWK system successfully engaged two surrogate cruise missiles, one UAV, and one fixed wing drone.

• Northrop developed a secondary imagery dissemination system called "Point View," which it made available to the 11th Brigade for its role in drug interdiction exercises. This system allowed the transmission of Video Tracking Group (VTG) imagery and textual reports gathered by field units to the headquarters or other batteries. This system consisted of low cost, commercially available hardware and existing communication links.

• The 2nd and 1st ADA Battalions at Fort Bliss deactivated in April of 1994. This left only Air National Guard and United States Marine Corps deployments, as well as deployments in 20 foreign countries.

• The United States Marine Corps successfully tested its HAWK Mobility and theater missile defense (TMD) software upgrades at White Sands Missile Range. HAWK acquired the three LANCE targets, two of which were successfully engaged and destroyed. This was the first time the entire USMC ATBM system had been tested.

• In 1997, both the New Mexico and Ohio ARNG ADA Battalions deactivated.

note: chronology liberally borrowed from US Army documents available online.