What Are Hellfire Missiles? The Weapon Used By US Strike To Attack MT Jalveer

The United States military fired two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles into the engine room of the MT Jalveer, a Guinea-Bissau-flagged tanker, on Thursday, injuring all 20 Indian crew members aboard. The strike follows a pattern of US naval enforcement actions against vessels attempting to breach Washington’s blockade of Iranian ports, which has been in place since April 13.

What Is The AGM-114 Hellfire?

The Hellfire is a short-range air-to-surface missile manufactured by Lockheed Martin and first fielded by the US Army in 1984. Originally developed for anti-armour use, it was later adapted for precision strikes against a wider range of targets, including high-value individuals. Its full name derives from “Heliborne laser, fire-and-forget missile.”

Size, Speed And Power

Each Hellfire weighs between 100

and 108 pounds (45 to 49 kg), including a 20-pound (9 kg) warhead. The missile is 64 inches long, 7 inches in diameter, and travels at up to Mach 1.3, or roughly 995 mph. Its Circular Error Probable is under three feet, meaning it lands within 0.91 metres of its designated point at maximum range.

The Hellfire carries a conical shaped-charge warhead with a copper-lined jet designed for armour penetration. The high-explosive, shaped charge and blast-fragmentation warhead is effective against reactive armour. Against a ship’s engine room, that concentrated penetrating force is designed to disable propulsion without destroying the vessel outright, a tactic the US has used to immobilise vessels rather than sink them.

Range And Guidance

The Hellfire’s operational range runs from 500 metres out to 11 kilometres, depending on trajectory. It operates in adverse weather conditions, including smoke and fog, that would prevent a laser from forming a detectable reflection on a target.

Guidance options include semi-active laser homing and millimetre-wave radar seeker. In semi-active laser mode, a designator illuminates the target and the missile homes in on the reflected energy. The millimetre-wave variant used on the AGM-114L Longbow is fire-and-forget, locking onto targets after launch without requiring continuous illumination.

What Platforms Fire It

The US military deploys the Hellfire from the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter as its primary carrier, as well as from MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles. The US Navy launches the missile from MH-60R/S Seahawk helicopters for anti-ship missions. Special forces use it on the AC-130 Spectre gunship.

Its Use Against Tankers In The Current Conflict

On June 2, CENTCOM confirmed it had fired a Hellfire missile into the engine room of the Botswana-flagged MT Lexie, which had been attempting to reach an Iranian port in defiance of the US blockade. The ship’s crew had ignored repeated warnings over a 24-hour period before the strike. The same day, a US F/A-18 Super Hornet operating from the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln disabled the Palau-flagged MT Marivex in the Gulf of Oman under the same enforcement basis.

Since April 13, the blockade has seen six commercial vessels disabled and 122 redirected by US forces. Thursday’s strike on the MT Jalveer, with its crew of 20 Indians, is the third, and most recent such action, and the first in which Indian nationals have been reported injured.