AGM-123 Skipper II is a short-range laser-guided missile developed by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. The Skipper was intended as an anti-ship weapon, capable of disabling the largest vessels with a 1,000-lb (450-kg) impact- fuzed warhead.

Design

The AGM-123 is composed out of a

Mk 83 The Mark 83 is part of the Mark 80 series of low-drag general-purpose bombs in United States service. Development and deployment The nominal weight of the bomb is 1,000 lb (454 kg), although its actual weight varies between 985 ...

low-drag general purpose bomb fitted with a

Paveway Paveway is a series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). ''Pave'' or PAVE is sometimes used as an acronym for ''precision avionics vectoring equipment''; literally, electronics for controlling the speed and direction of aircraft. Laser guidance is ...

guidance kit and one Aerojet Mk 78 solid propellant rocket that fires upon launch. The rocket allows the AGM-123 to be dropped farther away from the target than could free-fall bombs, which helps protect the delivery aircraft from

surface-to-air-missiles A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...

and anti-aircraft artillery near the target. The AGM-123 was developed at the

China Lake Naval Weapons Center Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake is a large military installation in California that supports the research, testing and evaluation programs of the United States Navy. It is part of Navy Region Southwest under Commander, Navy Installat ...

and was carried by the

A-6E Intruder The Grumman A-6 Intruder is an American twinjet all-weather attack aircraft developed and manufactured by American aircraft company Grumman Aerospace and operated by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. It was designed in response to a 1957 r ...

A-7 Corsair II The LTV A-7 Corsair II is an American carrier-capable subsonic light attack aircraft designed and manufactured by Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). The A-7 was developed during the early 1960s as replacement for the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. Its design w ...

, and

F/A-18 The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part ...

Operational history

Four Skipper missiles launched by A-6E Intruders contributed to sinking the Iranian frigate ''Sahand'' during

Operation Praying Mantis Operation Praying Mantis was an attack on 18 April 1988, by the United States Armed Forces within Iranian territorial waters in retaliation for the Iranian naval mining of the Persian Gulf during the Iran–Iraq War and the subsequent damage t ...

on April 18, 1988. Skipper missiles were also fired in

Operation Desert Storm Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

against Iraqi surface vessels by A-6s and U.S. Marine aircraft.

Gallery

File:AGM-123 A-7 China Lake 1985.jpeg, An AGM-123A Skipper II low-level laser-guided missile mounted on the wing pylon of a Vought A-7 File:AGM-123 Skipper II with chasing A-6 Intruder.jpg, A U.S. Navy Grumman A-6E Intruder (BuNo 155592) aircraft as its crew monitors the flight of two AGM-123A low-level, laser-guided missiles

References

External links

Designation systems
- Emerson Electric AGM-123 Skipper II

- AGM-123 Skipper II {{US missiles Cold War anti-ship missiles of the United States Cold War air-to-surface missiles of the United States Military equipment introduced in the 1980s