What is an Exocet Missile?

Exocet is an anti-ship missile developed and manufactured by France. It has a variety of launch methods including ship-launched, submarine-launched, and air-launched. Fly less than 5 meters without touching the water surface ^[1] .

Flying fish anti-ship missile

Exocet is an anti-ship missile developed and manufactured by France. It has a variety of launch methods including ship-launched, submarine-launched, and air-launched. Fly below 5 meters without touching the water surface ^[1]

After the flying fish anti-ship missile officially entered service in the 1980s, it has gone through many practical experiences and is an anti-ship missile system with excellent overall performance evaluation. ^[2]

The Flying Fish anti-ship missile was developed and manufactured by the famous European arms manufacturer Aérospatiale. There are various versions according to the launch method. The serial versions and the year of launch are as follows:

MM38: Ship-firing version, research and development began in 1967.

AM39: Air-launched version, developed in 1974 and commissioned in 1979.

SM39: Submarine-launched version. In addition to the missile body, it uses a motor-powered auxiliary power module to sail under the water.

MM40: Improved ship-launched version. ^[1]

The main goal of the flying fish anti-ship missile is to attack large water surfaces

The incident that most made the Flying Fish missile famous is the one that broke out in 1982

Countries currently using flying fish missiles include France, Germany, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Singapore, South Africa, Brazil, Oman, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar and Peru, and other countries that use legal equipment . The British Navy has also used flying fish missiles. One of the last several ships equipped with this type of missile is the Boxer class frigate (also known as the Batch 2 Type 22/22 second batch of frigates), the Sheffield ( HMS Sheffield F 96) and its sister ship HMS Coventry F 98 are recalled in the name of two Type 42 destroyers that were sunk during the Fukushima War. The two frigates were retired in 2002 and sold to Chile and Romania, becoming Almirante Williams FFG19 and Regele Ferdinand, but long before the two warships were decommissioned, In October 1997, the Royal Navy began to deactivate the flying fish missiles in the fleet, and officially deactivated them completely in 1999. Although the two military ships had reached the end of their service life at that time, the British military did not dismantle the four single-type MM 38 flying fish missile launchers of the two ships and replaced them with other weapon systems. In the past, most of the discontinued flying fish systems were replaced by the newer Harpoon SSM system.