Sea Eagle (missile)

The BAe Sea Eagle is a medium weight sea-skimming anti-ship missile designed and build by BAe Dynamics (now MBDA). It is designed to sink or disable ships up to the size of aircraft carriers in the face of jamming and other countermeasures including decoys. Its users include the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, the Royal Saudi Air Force, and the Indian Navy.

History

Sea Eagle stems from 1973 to 1975 studies to meet Air Staff Target (AST) 1226 and Naval Staff Target (NST) 6451 for a successor to the TV-guided AJ.168 version of the Martel missile. Initially called P3T, the airframe follows the Martel layout, but virtually all components differ, with a longer body, larger wings and totally different internal components. The Marconi (now SELEX Sistemi Integrati) active nose radar of Sea Eagle is derived from a British submarine-launched version of Martel dubbed USGW, development of which was abandoned in the mid-1970s in favour of Sub-Harpoon, and was also intended for Active Martel, which was to be similar to P3T in featuring a jet engine.