Swingfire

Swingfire is a wire-guided anti-tank missile in service with the British Army.

Contents

1 History
2 Specification
3 Use
4 See also
5 External links
6 See also

History

Swingfire replaced the Vickers Vigilant missile in British service. It was a product of both its predecessor the Vigilant and the experimental Orange William missile.

The name comes from the ability of the missile to make a rapid turn of up to ninety degrees after firing to bring it onto the line of the sighting mechanism. This means that the launcher vehicle can be concealed and the operator, using a portable sight, placed at a distance in a more advantageous firing position.

Besides its use on the Striker armoured vehicle, Swingfire was developed to be launched from other platforms:

Beeswing - on a Land Rover;
Hawkswing - on a Lynx helicopter;
Golfswing - on a small trolley or Argocat vehicle.

A major review and procurement process was instituted in the late 1990s to update the British Army's entire anti-armour weapon systems; the candidates, as the replacement for Swingfire, included Hellfire, Starstreak and LOSAT.

Swingfire saw combat use in Operation Telic/Operation Iraqi Freedom

Specification

Diameter: 0.17 m
Length: 1.07 m
Weight: 27 kg
Warhead: HEAT
Range: 150 m to 4000 m
Velocity 26 seconds to 4000 metres (approx 300 mph)
Guidance: Wire-guided MCLOS with Thrust Vectored Control (TVC)
Penetration: 800 mm RHA

Use

British Army

FV102 Striker - 5 in ready-to-fire bins.
FV438 Swingfire - Two firing bins
Ferret Mk 5 - Four firing bins.

Belgian Army

FV102 Striker

External links

[RAF Museum]
[Global Defence]

Swingfire

History

Specification

Use

See also

External links

See also