February 8, 2010; The UAE (United Arab Emirates) have bought a thousand American AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles. These cost about $160,000 each. The UAE is getting the infrared version, which works well at night or in bad weather. Maverick is a "fire and forget" missile. Once the pilot picks out the target on a TV screen, the missile continues to home in on the designated target without any continued pilot assistance. The 300 kg (660 pound) missile can carry a warhead of up to 138 kg (300 pounds). The UAE will most likely use the Mavericks from their F-16s, which train to attack Iranian targets.
The Maverick has been in service since 1972. Since then, about 6,000 have been used in combat (8 percent of those manufactured), with 93 percent of those hitting their targets. Maverick was originally designed to take out armored vehicles. In the last decade, it has largely been replaced by cheaper GPS guided bombs and smaller missiles like Hellfire.
