Word: antiship
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Iraqi warplanes firing antiship Exocet missiles set a Cypriot tanker ablaze in Iranian waters, one day after an Iraqi air attack on a shrimp trawler killed its Australian skipper...
...Senate voted 73 to 22 last month to block the sale, which included Stinger antiaircraft missiles, Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and Harpoon antiship missiles. The House of Representatives also opposed the sale, by a vote of 356 to 62. Reagan vetoed the congressional resolution but cut from the package another $89 million worth of Stingers after opponents charged that the shoulder-fired weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used for shooting down airliners. But at that point the President began to lobby hard to turn the vote around. During a White House breakfast...
...purchase of twelve Black Hawk helicopters, "enhancement kits" to upgrade 60 F-15 fighter planes, and about a dozen new F-15s. The Administration did accede, however, to the Saudis' $354 million offer to buy 800 shoulder-fired antiaircraft Stinger missiles, 1,650 air-to- air Sidewinders and 100 antiship Harpoons. The scaled-down deal seemed safe enough, since Congress had approved the sale of all three types of missiles to the desert kingdom in the past...
...Iraqi strikes that preceded the Iranian aerial campaign were apparently carried out by French-built Mirage F1 fighter-bombers equipped to fire Exocet missiles. Iraq took delivery of 28 such F1 models last summer, all specially modified to use the standoff antiship missile that first made its mark during the Falklands war. With a range of up to 1,000 miles, the Mirages are also capable of venturing deeper into the gulf than aircraft used by the Iraqis in the past. Iraq's aim: to interdict oil shipments from the Iranian oil port at Kharg Island, thus pressing Tehran...
...avoided only by throwing out decoys like big air bubbles, using acoustic countermeasures like sonar jamming or, better yet, sinking the attacking submarine. But deep-diving nuclear attack submarines and the noiseless Tigerfish are hard to detect until it is too late. Similarly, the Sea Skua and Exocet antiship missiles are almost impossible to evade. A would-be victim can use electronic countermeasures like radar jamming to confuse the attacking missile's guidance system. A ship can also launch clouds of metallic strips from a special mortar to decoy its radar. Perhaps the best defenses are computer-guided antiaircraft...