Designation: Raytheon Stiletto (A, B)

The Stiletto was the first production multi-purpose missile designed on Earth. Because of the make up of the Zentraedi forces, where every soldier was equipped with armor resistant to cluster bomblets (be it in the form of a Battlepod or a personal armor suit) but for which a heavy anti-armor weapon was overkill, and also because of the flight profiles of the new VF-1 Valkyrie fighters, which could fly at multi- mach speeds but also hover and land, a new missile with, for its time, unique capabilities was required. The new missile was required to be able to be fired from a hover at a few feet above the ground, but also at multi-mach speeds dozens of kilometers high in the atmosphere, and was also required to be space capable, and thus needed an additional thrust vectoring steering system. Additionally, the missile needed a guidance system that could lock onto ground targets as easily as on airborne targets. On the other hand, the missile did not require the heavy warhead found on standard air-to-surface missiles such as the Maverick; instead, a modified Hellfire warhead would suffice for almost all Zentraedi mecha and infantry targets. As a final demand, the missile had to be capable of hypervelocity speeds to intercept high speed targets, although the procurement office understood that this speed would cut range down to about a third of what otherwise could be reached.

The result was the Stiletto. The missile was small and light enough to be carried in large numbers on multiple ejector racks, and was the most important Terran airborne medium range missile during the First Robotech War. Indeed, until the Hammerhead entered service, the Stiletto was nearly the only missile used by the RDF Air Force and Naval Air squadrons.

Two versions were built in enormous numbers from 2007 through 2018. From 2007 to 2009 the A version was built on Earth and on board the Macross SDF-1. In 2009 the B version, with an improved seeker and engine resulting in more accuracy, faster lock-on rates and longer range, replaced it on the production lines.

Go to RDF Multipurpose Missile Index.

Go to the Robotech Reference Guide Home Page.

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Copyright © 1997 Robert Morgenstern, Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen
Last Updated: Friday, February 27, 1998 12:10 PM