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Gabriel Mk 3 A/S

The Gabriel has been successively updated to the current "Gabriel III" missile, with twice the range and a substantially different external appearance from the Gabriel I. It is available in both ship-launched and air-launched versions, with the air-launched version known as the Gabriel III "A/S" (Air to Surface).

The Gabriel III A/S is powered by a stubby cruciform wings fitted to the midsection and cruciform tailfins for guidance. It has boost-sustain solid rocket motor and is fitted with a SAP warhead.

While the Gabriel I used a semiactive radar homing seeker that required the launch platform to keep the target illuminated by radar, the Gabriel III has a dual-mode seeker that can be operated in "fire and forget" or "fire and update" modes.

In the "fire and forget" mode, the Gabriel III is guided by an INS into the target area, with altitude maintained by a radar altimeter. It then turns on its active radar seeker to lock onto and attack the target after a search. In the "fire and update" mode, the missile can receive course corrections from the launch aircraft while it is cruising towards the target, allowing it to keep its radar seeker off until the last moment.

The Israeli Gabriel III A/S is an advanced offshoot of the original Gabriel ship-to-ship missile system. The original Gabriel was a small, canister fired sea skimmer, designed to attack enemy vessels at wavetop level, making its approach extremely hard to detect. This newer, air-launched version is larger, with a range of 60+ km, and carries a high-explosive warhead weighing 150 kg. The guidance system of the Gabriel III/AS enables it to fly so low that it must be pre-set according to the current size of the waves.

	Gabriel Mk 3	Gabriel Mk 3 A/S
Category	Anti-Ship	Anti-Ship (Air Launch)
Length	375 cm	378 cm
Span	132 cm	108 cm
Body	33 cm	33 cm
Weight	560 kg (warhead 150 kg)	590 kg (warhead 150 kg)
Guidance	IAI	IAI
Guidance Type	Active	Active
Model	2-stage spr.	1-stage spr.
Range	36 km	60+ km
Speed	0.7 Mach	0.7 Mach
Status	Antiship sea skimmer	Air launch version Entered Service 1982

Gabriel IV

There is apparently a new long-range turbojet-powered version of the Gabriel, the "Gabriel IVLR", and some sources state that Denel of South Africa has also built a 150 kilogram submunition warhead for the Gabriel. This unusual warhead has a main charge and 35 fragmenting submunitions that detonate in sequence at 5 millisecond intervals, with the fragments heavy enough to penetrate bulkheads.

	Gabriel IV
Range	200 km
Weight	960 kg (warhead 240 kg)
Length	470 cm
Core Diameter	44 cm
Span	160 cm