AIM-7E-2 Sparrow
Contents
Description
The AIM-7E-2 Sparrow is a medium-range, semi-active radar-homing air-to-air missile. It is an upgraded variant of the original AIM-7E Sparrow and was introduced in Update "Direct Hit".
Vehicles equipped with this weapon
General info
Tell us about the tactical and technical characteristics of the missile.
- Mass: 193 kg
- Guidance: SARH
- Signal: CW
- Lock range: 25 km
- Launch range: 50 km
- Maximum speed: 4.0 M
- Maximum overload: 25 G
- Maximum overload during launch: 4 G
- Missile guidance time: 40.0 s
- Explosive type: PBXN-4
- Explosive mass: 9 kg (11.52 kg TNTeq)
Effective damage
The AIM-7E-2 has a 30 kg (65 lb) MK 38 MOD 0 continuous rod warhead with 9 kg of PBXN-4 high explosive. It is capable of destroying fighter-sized targets with a single hit in most cases.
Comparison with analogues
The AIM-7E-2 is a significant improvement over the baseline AIM-7E and is comparable to the British Skyflash missile.
Usage in battles
As an immediate upgrade to the original AIM-7E Sparrow air-to-air missile, the AIM-7E-2 improves on a number of the AIM-7E's critical shortcomings. The most notable difference is the vastly improved manoeuvrability of the missile. With a 25G overload, the AIM-7E-2 can reliably engage, track, and defeat targets flying defensively even at close range and lower altitudes. It also features faster target acquisition, allowing the player to launch during limited engagement windows. This allows the AIM-7E-2 to engage targets flying at high speeds and oblique angles, a feat the AIM-7E struggles to perform. Coupled with more advanced radars such as the AN/APG-66J on the F-4EJ Kai Phantom II, the AIM-7E-2 is among the first SARH missiles capable of being reliably used in very low altitude dogfights while retaining the long-range effectiveness of the Sparrow at high altitude.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- All-weather
- All-aspect
- Begins tracking right off the rail
- Good manoeuvrability allows engagement of agile targets at ranges as close as 2 to 4 km
- High supersonic top speed
Cons:
- Can sometimes fail to track
- Radar lock must be maintained for the entire duration of the missile's flight
- Missile potential can be limited by radars with no look-down/shoot-down (LD/SD) capability
History
Examine the history of the creation and combat usage of the weapon in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the weapon and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Weapon-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />.
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the article about the variant of the weapon;
- references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
