Tacit Rainbow: Northrop AGM/BGM-136 Anti-Radar Drone

I don't know if Paul will approve of these images going here, but they are too much fun to toss. My wife was going through a box of old pix and pulled these out; she was Admin Assistant to Fred Corey, Northrop Ventura's VP and Program Manager for Tacit Rainbow. He was obviously sent these by the SPO after the program was cancelled and are dated June of '91. They depict the funeral of TR held outside the SPO office in Dayton. I am sure these days this would be frowned upon but I believe the statute of limitations has run out! I do not know the names of any of these Air Force folks.

The epitaph reads:
1981-1991
In Remembrance of
The Tacit Rainbow Missile

Here it lies all broken and shattered
Tried to fly but just got battered

Hit it's target but too late
SAF/AQ had already decided its fate

Laid to rest without a user
Scorned and shamed like some kind of loser

So now we say goodbye with heavy heart
A lump in our throat and the urge to depart.
 

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I identify with that and Dunsany’s hearth god Jabim…the god of lost and broken things…
 
BillRo said:
I don't know if Paul will approve of these images going here, but they are too much fun to toss. My wife was going through a box of old pix and pulled these out; she was Admin Assistant to Fred Corey, Northrop Ventura's VP and Program Manager for Tacit Rainbow. He was obviously sent these by the SPO after the program was cancelled and are dated June of '91. They depict the funeral of TR held outside the SPO office in Dayton. I am sure these days this would be frowned upon but I believe the statute of limitations has run out! I do not know the names of any of these Air Force folks.

The epitaph reads:
1981-1991
In Remembrance of
The Tacit Rainbow Missile

Here it lies all broken and shattered
Tried to fly but just got battered

Hit it's target but too late
SAF/AQ had already decided its fate

Laid to rest without a user
Scorned and shamed like some kind of loser

So now we say goodbye with heavy heart
A lump in our throat and the urge to depart.
Click to expand...
Any information about SAF/AQ ?
 
elmayerle said:
Ground-launched TSSAM was in the first round of development flight tests. The final test of this round was due to go the day after the US Army cancelled it's participation in the program. This test would've tested a number of fixes from problems we'd found in the previous tests. Believe me, the test footage of the launch was always quite impressive; the footage of the last actual test flight was rather less so due to problems that were found and subsequently corrected. The test previous to that one was nearly picture perfect. I know, I was on that program with special responsibilities for the Army variant. If the Army hadn't pulled out, there was also an extended-range variant under preliminary design that traded a modest drop in payload for significantly more range.

Now, yes, I know the differences between the air-launched and ground-launched versions, but I'm not at all sure if I'm yet allowed to get too detailed here.

Oh, there was also a very preliminary study on combining aspects of the ground-launched and air-launched vehicles to produce a ship-launched one.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that TSSAM was the aerodynamic bus vehicle for War Breaker and the flattened box design of the available drawings was to accommodate both very large fuel tanks and the payload bays for the TGSM like mini-missile Kill Effectors which the missile's complex, costly and autonomous (AI like or maybe early Satcomms?) MMW/LiDAR system assigned targets to over the course of a 15-18hr missile endurance.

When Saber/Spider went away with START/INF, the missile became redundant.

I've also heard that LLAD/LOCPOD was testing the _upwards_ ejection system for TSSAM, as early as 1980-83. If so, doesn't this strongly imply a VLO theater delivery system using Have Slick conformal carriage because TSSAM is a really awkward shape for CSRL or Clipping and HSAB would be limited to 4 Stations.

True/False?

TSSAM

War Breaker
 
LEG said:
My understanding is that TSSAM was the aerodynamic bus vehicle for War Breaker and the flattened box design of the available drawings was to accommodate both very large fuel tanks and the payload bays for the TGSM like mini-missile Kill Effectors which the missile's complex, costly and autonomous (AI like or maybe early Satcomms?) MMW/LiDAR system assigned targets to over the course of a 15-18hr missile endurance.

When Saber/Spider went away with START/INF, the missile became redundant.

I've also heard that LLAD/LOCPOD was testing the _upwards_ ejection system for TSSAM, as early as 1980-83. If so, doesn't this strongly imply a VLO theater delivery system using Have Slick conformal carriage because TSSAM is a really awkward shape for CSRL or Clipping and HSAB would be limited to 4 Stations.

True/False?

TSSAM

War Breaker
Click to expand...
It was part of Assault Breaker since the 80s and was, as far is i know, supposed to deploy the Brilliant Anti Tank. It used inertial navigation with GPS updates. It used an IIR seeker with pattern recognition algorithms, no MMW/LiDAR.

As for the implied theater VLO delivery system, it seems unlikely that a new airplane would have been developed. If anything, the Air Force would have just haphazardly bolted a TSSAM to the belly of an F-117. As for its shape, Northrop had Tacit Blue, which, when flipped upside down, looks remarkably like a TSSAM. Of course, Northrop had the even stealthier B-2 going at the time, but trying to make a cruise missile as a flying wing presents two problems.

One is control. The B-2 was only made possible because of the advances in fly-by-wire technology. Unless you are ready to waste potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of a missiles price on its autopilot, a flying wing does not offer much of an advantage over other stealthy shapes.

The second is packaging. One thing that is immediately noticeable when looking at any air-launched guided munition is that they are longer than they are wide because it is easier to fit them in parallel, especially when carried internally. The wider your munition is, the less of them you can carry because of space limitations.

What i am trying to say here is that the TSSAM was the shape it was because it was the most practical shape Northrop had at the time, not because of a conformal carriage VLO delivery platform.
 
NMaude said:
So is Tacit Rainbow being dusted off and updated for the 21st century?
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There is a 21st century equivalent I'm aware of: IAI Harpy/Harop.


1744100243296.png

As far as I'm aware, it's still in service with the IDF. In contrast with the more popular IAI Harop, the Harpy is first and foremost an ARM.

Tactically, I think it's relegated to increasingly niche missions.
On one hand, drones are much easier to shoot down today than 20-30 years ago, and also far easier to detect. On the other hand, they're still about as slow, unless you turn them into a proper missile and then that kinda loses the point.
Deploying them at anything that isn't across the border, will give an enemy lots of prep time. Specifically in the Israel-Iran exchanges, the IAF shifted to using ALBMs for both strike and DEAD.

For someone like the US, I'm guessing they'll require something that has very high terminal speed, and a more novel way of allowing the missile to loiter without burning all its fuel.
 
iwantmoresources said:
It was part of Assault Breaker since the 80s and was, as far is i know, supposed to deploy the Brilliant Anti Tank. It used inertial navigation with GPS updates. It used an IIR seeker with pattern recognition algorithms, no MMW/LiDAR.

As for the implied theater VLO delivery system, it seems unlikely that a new airplane would have been developed. If anything, the Air Force would have just haphazardly bolted a TSSAM to the belly of an F-117. As for its shape, Northrop had Tacit Blue, which, when flipped upside down, looks remarkably like a TSSAM. Of course, Northrop had the even stealthier B-2 going at the time, but trying to make a cruise missile as a flying wing presents two problems.

One is control. The B-2 was only made possible because of the advances in fly-by-wire technology. Unless you are ready to waste potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of a missiles price on its autopilot, a flying wing does not offer much of an advantage over other stealthy shapes.

The second is packaging. One thing that is immediately noticeable when looking at any air-launched guided munition is that they are longer than they are wide because it is easier to fit them in parallel, especially when carried internally. The wider your munition is, the less of them you can carry because of space limitations.

What i am trying to say here is that the TSSAM was the shape it was because it was the most practical shape Northrop had at the time, not because of a conformal carriage VLO delivery platform.
Click to expand...
As an addendum, TACIT BLUE would have been what was providing targeting to whatever was carrying TSSAMs etc.
 
Scott Kenny said:
As an addendum, TACIT BLUE would have been what was providing targeting to whatever was carrying TSSAMs etc.
Click to expand...

TACIT BLUE was a demonstrator and was never intended to be operational. Northrop and Hughes proposed an operational derivative but DoD was not interested.
 
quellish said:
TACIT BLUE was a demonstrator and was never intended to be operational. Northrop and Hughes proposed an operational derivative but DoD was not interested.
Click to expand...
Okay, granted.

But if I call something TACIT BLUE everyone hears "stealthy radar ISR plane" and it makes a really convenient shorthand.
 
Scott Kenny said:
But if I call something TACIT BLUE everyone hears "stealthy radar ISR plane" and it makes a really convenient shorthand.
Click to expand...
Not many people knows of the connection between TACIT BLUE and BSAX, lemme tell you, even on some of the places where special access projects are routinely discussed.
 
NMaude said:
What WAR BREAKER and THIRSTY SABER as this is the first time I've heard of them?
Click to expand...

If someone were to compose a Google query for, say, “thirsty saber” among the search results they might see documents like “DARPA's Role in Fostering an Emerging Revolution in Military Affairs” which are full of fascinating information.

…. Or someone could ask a stranger to do that for them and summarize it, missing out on all that fascinating information.
 

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