History:
The Delilah its a cruise missile/loitering ammunition made by Israel Military Industries (IMI). It first started in 1970s as an attempt to develop an aerial decoy with the objective to saturate enemy air defenses, but later Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) saw the potential of the delilah as a precision guided weapon to strike enemy air defenses at long ranges, so they worked in the 80s to turn the aerial decoy into an offensive missile. In early 1990s was born the first prototype of the Delilah with a turbofan engine, loitering capability and INS/GPS guidance system (a weapon with rare capabilities in that era).
It entered service (and still being used) in the Israel Air Force (IAF) at mid 1990s, equipped in the F-16C/D Barak and F-4E Kurnass 2000 initially (later in the F-16I Sufa). The Delilah officialy was first used during the Lebanon War (2006), but there is no more information about Delilah’s combat service. In the internet there are multiple sources and videos of the delilah combat service (like used against trucks or Iran’s air defenses, but none are official or confirmed as true.
Specifications:
- Weight: 187 kg
- Warhead and their weight: High-Explosive Fragmentation (30 - 54 kg)
- Lenght: 2.71 m
- Diameter: 33 cm
- Wingspan: 1.15 m
- Engine: BS-175 turbo-jet engine
- Maximum range: 250 km
- Speed: Mach 0.5 - 0.7 (Dive: Mach 0.85)
- Guidance: INS/GPS (intermediate phase) and Electro-optical (EO)/Imaging Infrared (IIR) (terminal phase). With man-in-the-loop capability.
Platforms:
- F-16I Sufa
- F-16C/D Barak
- F-4E Kurnass 2000
