Sea skimming is a technique many anti-ship missiles use to avoid radar and infrared detection during their approach.
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Sea skimming anti-ship missiles try to fly as low as is practically achievable, which is almost always below 50 meters (150 ft), and is often down towards 5 meters (15 ft).[1]
By flying low to the sea, missiles decrease the range at which the target ships can detect them by a significant amount. Flying at a lower altitude increases the amount of time the missile is under the horizon from the perspective of the target ship, making it harder to detect due to radar clutter from the sea and similar effects. The real-life success of sea skimming depends on its exact implementation, the sophistication of the detection equipment, as well as the infrared and radar signature of the missile. Sea skimming shaves seconds or even minutes from the available response time that a ship's missile defenses have to work within, making these missiles significantly harder to defend against. Sea skimming can also increase the range of a missile, by relying on ground effects.
The use of sea skimming increases the risk of water impact with the missile before reaching the target, due to weather conditions, rogue waves, software bugs and other factors. Sea skimming also hinders target acquisition, as many of the principles that hinder the target's detection of the missile also hinder the missile's detection of the target. Furthermore, sea skimming involves a significant computational load, increasing the required processing power and cost.
French-made Exocet missiles were used by Argentina in the Falklands War (including the sinking of HMS Sheffield) and by Iraq against the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War. The Argentinian pilots of the Super Étendard planes that attacked the HMS Sheffield were also skimming the sea at very low level. They increased their altitude only for a very short period to get final target information for the attack with their Agave radars.