Vought
Vought was the name of several related American aerospace firms. These have included, in the past, Lewis and Vought Corporation, Chance Vought, Vought-Sikorsky, LTV Aerospace (part of Ling-Temco-Vought), Vought Aircraft Companies, and Vought Air ...
's HVM, short for Hyper-Velocity Missile, was an
anti-tank missile
An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. ATGMs range in size from shoulder ...
developed during the 1980s. The HVM carried no warhead and killed its targets with
kinetic energy
In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion.
It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acce ...
alone using a metal rod penetrator. Development as an air-launched weapon for the
A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republic ...
ended sometime in the late 1980s but continued for helicopter use into the 1990s along with ground-launched (
HMMWV
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the ori ...
) as the larger
MGM-166 LOSAT
The MGM-166 LOSAT (Line-of-Sight Anti-Tank) was a United States anti-tank missile system designed by Lockheed Martin (originally Vought) to defeat tanks and other individual targets. Instead of using a high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead like ...
. None of these systems was operationally deployed.
The HVM was intended as a fairly inexpensive weapon, compared to the
AGM-65 Maverick
The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground missile (AGM) designed for close air support. It is the most widely produced precision-guided missile in the Western world, and is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, ...
at least, offering the standoff performance while requiring a minimum of support electronics. The target was acquired using a
FLIR
Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras, typically used on military and civilian aircraft, use a thermographic camera that senses infrared radiation.
The sensors installed in forward-looking infrared cameras, as well as those of other thermal ...
system on the launch vehicle, and after launch the missile quickly accelerated to 1500 m/s (5,000 ft/s, 5,400 km/h, Mach 4.3) and into the view of the FLIR, which tracked both the target and missile from that point on. Corrections to the flight path were sent to the missile via a
laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
, and the missile included the electronics needed to guide itself back to the correct flight path.
The missile was just under 3 meters long and about 10 cm in diameter. The aft portion was flared out in a cone, which gives it some directional stability without requiring fold-out fins. Most of the stabilization was due to spin. Directional control was accomplished via
thrust vectoring
Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket, or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to control the attitude or angular velocity of the ve ...
. The penetrator was housed under an
ogive
An ogive ( ) is the roundly tapered end of a two-dimensional or three-dimensional object. Ogive curves and surfaces are used in engineering, architecture and woodworking.
Etymology
The earliest use of the word ''ogive'' is found in the 13th c ...
nose cone
A nose cone is the conically shaped forwardmost section of a rocket, guided missile or aircraft, designed to modulate oncoming airflow behaviors and minimize aerodynamic drag. Nose cones are also designed for submerged watercraft such as ...
.
The contract was initially sent to Vought Missiles and Space in late 1981, and the first unpowered drop tests were carried out in March 1983. A contract for joint development by the
US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sig ...
,
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
and
US Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through com ...
followed in October 1984, but the Air Force dropped out of the program sometime in the late 1980s (Janes' says '87-'89). In 1988,
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...
and Vought teamed up to enter a modified version of the HVM into the Army's new Advanced Anti-Tank Weapon System – Heavy (AAWS-H) competition, winning it as the MGM-166 LOSAT (or KEM, Kinetic Energy Missile) with a slightly enlarged and finned version of the basic HVM system.