Missile AGM-65 Maverick

The AGM-65 Maverick originated in a 1965 US Air Force program to replace the AGM-12 Bullpup. The Bullpup's radio command guidance required the launch aircraft to fly toward the target throughout the missile's flight, and its warhead did little damage to large structures such as the Thanh Hóa Bridge. Hughes and Rockwell competed to design a new fire-and-forget missile from 1966 to 1968, and Hughes, later absorbed by Raytheon, won the development contract. The first guided test, in December 1969, scored a direct hit on an M41 tank target at Holloman Air Force Base. The Maverick was the first missile to use an electronic contrast seeker and was declared operational on 30 August 1972.

The Maverick is a modular design. Guidance sections and warheads can be combined with a common solid-fuel rocket motor, and the airframe has long-chord delta wings on a cylindrical body. Its seekers include the following types:

• Electro-optical television: The AGM-65A used a television seeker. The AGM-65B added optical magnification after planners judged the original seeker unsuited to hazy Central European conditions.
• Imaging infrared: The AGM-65D introduced a nitrogen-cooled imaging infrared seeker, allowing night and adverse-weather use and doubling practical firing distance. It also introduced a reduced-smoke motor and reached initial operating capability in 1986. The AGM-65F is the naval version, with the infrared seeker tuned for ships. The AGM-65G adds software for tracking larger targets.
• Charge-coupled device: The AGM-65H, J and K use this seeker, which is optimized for desert operations.
• Laser: The laser-guided AGM-65E entered service with the US Marine Corps in 1985. The E2/L variant accepts designation from the launch aircraft, another aircraft or a ground source, and can engage small, fast, maneuvering targets on land and at sea.

Two warheads are used. The WDU-20/B shaped-charge warhead has a contact fuze. The heavier WDU-24/B penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead has a delayed fuze and is intended for large, hardened targets. The crew designates the target using the seeker video or a head-up display cue, and the missile then tracks autonomously. Laser variants use semi-active homing and are not fire-and-forget. In practice, the seeker is usually slaved to a targeting pod. Because it must be periodically boresighted to correct misalignment caused by flight loads, crews align it to the pod's sensor point of interest. Proposals for a millimeter-wave radar seeker and a turbojet-powered extended-range version were abandoned.

The Maverick first entered service on the F-4D/E and A-7. It saw combat in December 1972 during Operation Linebacker II. Israel used the missile against armored vehicles in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. Across these two conflicts, 99 were fired, with 84 reported successful.

In June 1975, Iranian F-4Es fired 12 Mavericks at Iraqi tanks during a border clash. During Operation Morvarid in 1980, Iranian F-4s sank three Osa II missile boats and four smaller combat craft. Under arms embargo, Iran integrated the missile on AH-1J helicopters, which fired 11 during Operation Fath ol-Mobin.

In Operation Desert Storm in 1991, more than 5,000 Mavericks were fired against armored targets, mainly from A-10s and F-16s. The AGM-65D was the most-used USAF variant. Reported hit rates were 80–90 percent for the USAF and 60 percent for the USMC. In October 1991, a Yugoslav MiG-29 fired a Maverick at Banski dvori, the Croatian government seat in Zagreb. US forces fired 918 during the 2003 Iraq War. On 28 March 2011, a USN P-3C engaged the Libyan Coast Guard vessel Vittoria at Misrata, the first Maverick firing from a P-3 at a hostile vessel.

US launch platforms include the following:

• A-10C
• F-16C
• F-15E
• F/A-18
• AV-8B
• AH-1W
• AH-64D/E
• SH-2G
• P-3C

The missile has been exported to more than 30 countries, including Australia, Canada, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. Former operators include the following:

• Germany, on F-4Fs retired in 2013
• New Zealand
• Sweden, as the RB 75 on the AJ37 Viggen and JAS 39 Gripen
• The United Kingdom
• Yugoslavia