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Israeli air-to-surface missile From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nimrod is a long-range air-to-surface missile developed by Israel Aerospace Industries. While designed for mainly anti-tank warfare, it provides standoff strike ability against a variety of point targets such as armoured personnel carriers (APCs), ships, bunkers, personnel concentrations, and guerrillas.
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Nimrod has a semi-active laser guidance system, that operates day or night. Its flight trajectory can be set below obscuring cloud layers, while a forward reconnaissance scout team uses a laser designator to direct it from up to 26 km (16 mi).
Nimrod may be installed on a variety of towed launchers, light combat vehicle launchers, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. The primary helicopter launch platform for the Nimrod in the Israel Defense Forces is a modified Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter. The launching vehicle or aircraft may fire up to 4 Nimrods at once from a single pack.
Nimrod is a long-range semi-active laser-guided anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), developed by the MBT Weapon System Division. It has a solid-propellant rocket and can operate day or night. It can also serve as an anti-ship missile.
Nimrod allows a gunner to pre-select a flight trajectory mode. This can be direct trajectory, high cruise trajectory or low cruise trajectory, the cruise altitude being constant and between 300–1,500 m (980–4,920 ft).
Mid-course guidance is provided by an inertial navigation system, and terminal guidance by a semi-active laser homing seeker. The target can be illuminated either by a ground-based or airborne laser designator.
The gimballed and stabilised seeker head acquires, tracks and homes in on its target using localised proportional navigation. It is said to have a view angle of more than 30°. The seeker has a search area 5 km (3.1 mi) wide and deep. In the terminal flight phase, the weapon adopts a dive angle of approximately 45° to strike an armoured target on the thinner, more vulnerable upper surfaces.
The missile is stored in a sealed canister which also acts as the launcher. Total weight of the missile and canister is 150 kg (330 lb). It has five main sections: seeker, guidance and control, warhead, solid-propellant rocket motor, and servo. It is roll-stabilised in flight. Time to come into action at a launch site is less than 3 minutes; there is no need to survey the site for alignment or levelling, nor does it require a direct line of sight to a target. The weapon can be fired in single-round, ripple, or salvo modes.
As of 2022[update], three Nimrod versions exist:
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