The Penguin missile, US designation AGM-119 is a short-range anti-ship missile designed by Kongsberg Defense, originally for the Norwegian Navy. It has since been adopted by several other countries including the USA, Australia, Turkey and Greece. The missile is able to be launched from ships, helicopters, patrol aircraft and fighter or bomber aircraft. It was initially produced in the 1970s and has been steadily upgraded since then. In the 1990s, the US Navy adopted a helicopter-launched version to improve the capabilities of their Seahawk helicopters. The US Air Force certified the missile for use from the F-16 shortly thereafter. It can be mounted on the F/A-18 as well, though the AGM-84D Harpoon II is generally preferred.
The missile is visually distinctive, with large tail fins that don't extend all the way to the aft end of the fuselage and forward steering canards clustered around the clear nose. It uses a solid-fuel rocket motor and a combination inertial and infrared guidance system, plus a radar altimeter that allows it to skim over the wavetops at altitudes as low as one meter. Flying at low supersonic speeds (Mach 1.2 maximum), the missile strikes its target near the waterline and detonates a 130kg semi-armor-piercing warhead (similar to that on Exocet). This is enough to destroy most missile boats and corvettes in one strike, and will do heavy damage to frigate and destroyer-sized ships. It has a maximum range of about 55km in the latest versions, and can be fired from over the horizon. Also, it performs terminal evasive maneuvers similar to the SS-N-22 Sunburn, making it more difficult for enemy air defenses, especially point-defense guns, to hit. Since the weapon uses a completely passive seeker, point defense weapons like RAM Block 0 and SA-N-11 Grisom can't effectively home in on it.