This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Military History, Navy, U.S. Air Force, Vietnam Rings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
The AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile was created during the vietnam war to counter the damage that NVA SAM missiles were causing to US aircraft.
The shrike is named after a bird of prey which impales its prey on thorns to help to devour it more efficiently. The shrike was used as part of an air defense system for friendly fighters. Wild weasel pilots would come in prior to the aerial attack and detect enemy radar as it was turned on to track them to fire the surface to air missiles at them.
Once the enemys radar was turned on the shrike would track it right to where it was and hopefully destroy it. It didn’t always work but it was worth using to save our aircraft.
The shrike was developed by mating a seeker warhead to an Aim-7 Sparrow missile and was inexpensive to produce.
It had its shortcomings, one of which was its relatively slow speed. The SAM if launched before the shrike would be able to take out the airplane which was firing the srike. This missile was used largely during the Vietnam War era so our Vietnam ring customers would be familiar with its use.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.