AGM-122 Sidearm

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	Weapon: AGM-122 Sidearm Type: Air-to-Ground Missile Country of Origin: United States Year Adopted: 1986 Overall Length (mm): 2870.0 Overall Length (in): 112.99 Weight (kg): 88.00 Weight (pounds): 194.01

AGM-122 Sidearm - design & concept. The AGM-122 was a lightweight anti-radiation missile created by converting retired AIM-9C Sidewinder stocks into air-to-surface weapons. Conceived at NAWS China Lake and produced by Motorola, the conversion replaced the AIM-9C's semi-active radar seeker with a broader-band passive radar homing unit while retaining Sidewinder form-factor components (warhead, control surfaces, and Sidewinder-rail compatibility). Typical specs included a mass around 195 lb (89 kg), 5-inch (127 mm) diameter, a WDU-31/B blast-fragmentation warhead, a Hercules Mk 36 solid-fuel rocket motor, speeds over Mach 2, and an effective range in the mid-teens of kilometers-optimized for popping short-range fire-control radars rather than deep-strike SAM sites.

Production & fielding. After initial firings in 1981 and a 1984 conversion contract, production ran from 1986 to 1990. Sources tally "about 700" to roughly 717 missiles completed, with the U.S. Marine Corps as the principal user. Sidearm equipped AV-8B Harrier II and AH-1T/W SeaCobra units (with trials on other platforms and Sidewinder-rail interoperability), giving expeditionary aircraft and helicopters a compact, affordable SEAD/DEAD option. A proposed new-build/updated AGM-122B follow-on did not proceed once AIM-9C stocks were exhausted, and Sidearm subsequently left service.

Service history & legacy. Although far less capable than AGM-88 HARM, Sidearm's low cost, small size, and simplicity made it a clever "recycling" solution that filled a niche against short-range gun/SAM radars in low-to-medium threat environments. Its notoriety today stems from that inventive origin story and its role as a Marine Corps tool for close-in radar suppression; stocks have long since been depleted and no confirmed combat kill record is widely documented in open sources. In retrospect, Sidearm is remembered as a pragmatic bridge between legacy Sidewinders and modern lightweight ARMs, and as a precursor to later efforts (e.g., AARGM) to give smaller aircraft credible anti-emitter punch.