The recent discussion about the PGM/Hakim family of, er, PGMs in relation to a possible second-hand sale of the UAE’s M2000-9 fleet has made me wonder why it was not developed further or exported to more customers. According to the info I could find, Hakim is very similar in concept to the more recent (and highly acclaimed) AASM. Both are kits which use dumb bombs as warheads and are thus available in several sizes, both have multiple guidance options and both seem to have rocket motors to extend range*.
There are a few notable differences though: AASM has INS/GPS guidance while the Hakim can be fitted with laser (never actually seen the laser variant, though!) or man-in-the-loop TV seekers. Similar options are being mooted for the AASM however and the folding tail is also a useful feature since it makes the weapon compact enough to be carried on MERs, unlike the bulky PGMs.
So why was the Hakim not marketed more aggressively and upgraded with GPS/INS guidance (which should be very straight-forward) years ago? It is only quite recently that MBDA (which inherited the originally British PGM-family) acquired an interest in Sagem’s AASM via a cooperative project. What if the weapon had been integrated on the Typhoon to steal some of Rafale’s multirole-thunder? Or, less confrontationally, given the close Anglo-French cooperation in the air-launched weapons field that was brought about by the creation of MBDA, why fund AASM at all rather than putting Hakim on Rafale?
*like the AGM-123 & -130, although these missiles were not developed based on a common modular philosophy, so I’m ignoring them here.
Aouch VERY HOT topic (see discussions on Rafale thread :eek:)
Just a little precision (hope you appreciate the joke :rolleyes:) AASM exist in three versions (in service, others being developed) : GPS/INS ; GPS/INS/laser ; GPS/INS/IR (terminal ir image recognition guidance).
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