Ships Ahoy! The Harpoon Missile Family

Harpoon in flight
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The sub-sonic, wave-skimming *GM-84 Harpoon is the US Navy’s sole anti-shipping missile, with the minor exception of small AGM-119B Penguin missiles and anti-tank Hellfires carried on some H-60 helicopters. The Harpoon has been adapted into several variants, and exported to a wide variety of world navies. Its best known competitor is the French/MBDA *M39/40 Exocet, but recent years have witnessed a growing competitive roster at both the subsonic (Israel’s Gabriel family, Russia’s SS-N-27 Klub family, Saab’s RBS15, Kongsberg’s stealthy NSM, China’s YJ-82/C-802 used recently in Lebanon) and supersonic (Russia’s SS-N-22 Sunburn/Moskit and some SS-N-27 Klub variants, India’s PJ-10 BrahMos derived from Russia’s SS-N-26) levels.

At present, the Harpoon family includes air, sea/land, and submarine-launched versions of the GM-84 missile. Variants such as the land attack SLAM variant and the modern AGM-84K Joint Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) will also be covered in this DID FOCUS Article, which describes the missiles themselves and covers global contracts involving this family since Oct 1/06.