Hawk missile battery on static display

The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK is an American medium range surface-to-air missile. HAWK is an acronym or possibly a backronym for Homing All the Way Killer. The HAWK was initially designed to destroy aircraft and was later adapted to destroy other missiles in flight. The missile entered service in 1960, and a program of extensive upgrades has kept it from becoming obsolete. It was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in US Army service by 1994. It was finally phased out of US service in 2002, the last users, the US Marine Corps replacing it with the man-portable ir-guided visual range FIM-92 Stinger. The missile was also produced outside the US in Western Europe and Japan.

It saw combat in a variety of wars, although it was never fired in anger by US forces which have rarely been attacked from the air since WWII. Approximately 40,000 of the missiles were produced.

Janes reports that the original systems single shot kill probability was 0.56, I-HAWK improved this to 0.85.

Similar Soviet systems are the SA-3 and SA-6.