MH-60R Romeo’s Hellfire missile accepted into Navy service

Aircraft 902 from NUSQN 725 fires the first Hellfire missile. — A July 2014 firing of a Hellfire missile from a RAN MH-60R while based in the US.

The Navy has accepted the Lockheed Martin AGM-114N Hellfire air-to-ground missile into service with the weapon to equip the Fleet Air Arm’s MH-60R ‘Romeo’ Seahawk helicopters.

Navy says the first live firing of the Hellfire N in Australia in is planned to occur early next year.

“Although the Australian Navy now has experience firing the weapon in the US, completion of the first exercise firings at an Australian weapons range will establish the foundations for future firings in support of training and test and evaluation for the life of the system,” 725 Squadron Commanding Officer, Commander Dave Frost, told Navy Daily. “The ability to deliver the weapon in a number of modes, either as a single aircraft or a section, greatly supports the Navy’s mission of fighting and winning at sea.”

The chemical composition of the AGM-114N’s metal augmented charge thermobaric warhead is substantially more effective in attacks against enclosed structures, like ships, than the blast and fragment variants used by the Army’s Tiger ARH, which employs the AGM-114M and AGM-114R variants.