SS.11

SS.11 at the US Army Redstone testing ground

SS.11 is the designation of the Nord Aviation MCLOS wire-guided anti-tank missile. In American service the missile was designated the AGM-22. The missile entered service with the French army in 1956. Production of the missile ceased some time in the 1980s after 180,000 missiles had been produced.

Contents

1 Development
2 History
3 Description
4 General characteristics
5 Models
6 Users
7 References

Development

Development of an improved version of the SS.10 (Nord-5203) began in 1953 as the Nord-5210. The missile was intended as a heavy version of the SS.10 for use from vehicles, ships and helicopters. The missile entered service with the French army under the designation SS.11.

The later B model of the missile replaces some of the original electronics with solid state components.

History

After the cancellation of the SSM-A-23 Dart in 1958 the United States began evaluating the SS.11, and accepted it into service in 1961. The missile was deployed from UH-1B Huey helicopters.

The missile was used in combat for the first time in 1966 during the Vietnam War. The missile was phased out by 1976, having been replaced by the BGM-71 TOW. The British Royal Air Force fired at least four of the missiles in the Falklands war against an Argentine battery of 105mm guns, during the fight for Wireless Ridge, to little apparent success.

Due to the manual nature of the guidance, performance of the missile was poor—requiring a highly trained operator—see MCLOS.

Description

A variety of warheads are available for the missile.

140AC hollow-charge - 600 mm versus RHA
140AP02 blast-fragmentation
140AP59 anti personnel
140CCN anti-shipping

On launch the rocket booster fired for 1.2 seconds, after which the sustainer engine fires for 20 seconds.

In flight the missile is steered by the vectoring of thrust from the engine. Since the missile spins in flight, a gyroscope is needed to determine the missiles relative orientation to the ground. This is very similar to the system used on AT-3 Sagger.

General characteristics

Length: 1190 mm
Wingspan: 500 mm
Diameter: 165 mm
Launch weight: 30 kg
Speed: 190 m/s
Range: 500 m to 3 km
Guidance: wire-guided MCLOS
Warhead: 6.8 kg Type 140AC anti-armour

Models

SS.11 / AGM-22
* SS.11A1 XAGM-22A
* SS.11B1 XAGM-22B
* SS.11B1 (training) XATM-22B

Users

France, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Germany, United Kingdom, United States

References

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ss11.htm
http://waronline.org/IDF/Articles/firstATGM.htm in Russian
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-22.html

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