User Guide

7: SPECIFICATIONS
7.17
(f) AGM-114K Hellfire II – US Army and Marine Corps version with digital autopilot,
improved semi-active laser seeker (that is, hardened against electro-optical
jammers) and tandem warhead designed to defeat explosive reactive armour.
The main 178 mm shaped charge warhead is similar to earlier models but
has a different primary ignition charge to cater for the Magnavox electronic
safety and arming unit. The comparatively large 100 mm precursor warhead
is fitted with a molybdenum liner.
Hellfire was originally developed by the US Army to destroy MBTs. One of the
requirements, though, was to hit manoeuvring targets at up to 20° to the right or
left of the launch azimuth at distances of up to 1000m from the firing platform.
This meant that Hellfire had to be designed with manoeuvrability features normally
seen in anti-aircraft weapons rather than anti-tank missiles. At the same time the
warhead was required to provide adequate margins of lethality against all forms of
evolving armour. The result is a multiple purpose weapon capable of destroying
virtually all tactical point targets from manoeuvring helicopters to MBTs to fixed
installations.
There are also two millimetre wave radar seekers in development or about to
begin development: the Longbow and the Brimstone configurations. It is envis-
aged that the AGM-114 Longbow Hellfire with its active millimetric-wave seeker
will be the next production example for use with AH-64D Apache helicopters.
SPECIFICATIONS
Type multiple purpose with semi-active lasing homing seeker
Warhead HE unitary shaped charge (AGM-114A/B/C)
AGM-114A/B/C IIR
Length 1.626m 1.778m
Diameter 0.178m 0.178m
Wing span 0.33m 0.33m
Launch weight 45.7kg 47.88kg
Range 1500-8000m n/av
Speed Mach 1.4 n/av