British long range shipborne anti ship and surface missiles 1962-70

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uk 75

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In the 60s the RN looked at using missiles possibly derived from Blue Water or similar as a replacement for carrier aircraft. Nothing came of it and Exocet was bought in 1970. Was any serious work ever done?
 
AWA was funded 1955-62 to develop an SSM, intended aft on Counties, supplementing (I suggest), not displacing CVA Groups; Seaslug SAM probably survived its glacial gestation (1944 NST; Mk.I at sea, 1962) only to sustain resources for Blue Slug: its Blue Fox/Indigo Hammer warhead was also for Blue Water. BAOR kept Honest John(W-31), later took Lance(W-70), in part to release AWRE/ROFs in 1962 for (to be)WE177 family. I suggest that after Blue Water was chopped 8/62, an RN BW, like a TSR.2 ASM variant, were desperate BAC doodles. No warhead. UK 1960s' GW technology did not include the guidance accuracy which MM38 Exocet later displayed: SSMs were nuclear. So, 9/64, it was settled that CVAs would have (HE) ASMs, AS.37/AJ.168 Martel, and lay-down WE177A(N), on Bucc. S.2.
 
Back in 1996 I made some notes from the cva 01 files at Greenwich as well as Wettern's British seapower and various German mags. The latter mentioned Blue Water. R.N looking at long range shipborne missiles to replace carriers. Sorry that all I found.
 
Looked at my notes again. One role was "shore bombardment"-blue waterish? The other was "over the horizon anti-ship"- a sort of rn Shaddock? Initially thought too expensive compared with carrier but picked up again in 1966 when cva01 ditched.
 
Moore, Nuclear Reality,P.222 has nuclear Seaslug SAGW chop 6/62, but with (P.128) 1959/60 comments that nuclear Seaslug 2 "would be prohibitively expensive for use against many of the surface targets which a cruiser would normally be expected to engage, and would normally be useless in the army support role". So, SLL, Moore's earlier book deleting Blue Slug: 1956 might have settled on multi-mode use of one name, (to be) Seaslug Mk.2. We might think that airships and lordships were sometimes confused about tactical nukes: "doubtful whether the use of such a weapon would ever be allowed in limited war".
 
Gentlemen Thank you for the clarifications. In essence despite looking at replacing carrier air power with long range missiles in theory nothing much happened until Exocet.
 
Dated 1st Sept 1960, the Admiralty submitted a memo to the Chiefs of Staff Committee outlining the case for nuclear-armed Seaslug Mk.IIW. In addition to improved performance against up to two Mach 2 targets, low-flying targets (Neither Seaslug Mk.1 nor MkII with HE warheads could cope with targets below 1 degree angle-of-sight) and formations, they said:

"Against surface targets it is a decisive weapon, with a range far greater than that of any gun."

So they seemed quite keen on Seaslug Mk.IIW as an SAGW, but also as an AShM, to enter service around 1965.

Chris
 
"Rebuilding the Royal Navy: warship design since 1945 also carries a Blue Slug description."

Hmmm...my notes from Kew way back in the last century describe Blue Slug as being a Sea Slug without main wings, a Red Dean homer and a Red Angel warhead for upturning, underwater hits. It was to be capable of being handled by existing Sea Slug systems.

So, sounds like an active homer and sea-skimmer (50ft according to Brown and Moore) with a range in excess of 16 nautical miles, so quite interesting.

I'll check it out when I'm at Kew next week. I should be there from Tuesday to Thursday if anyone fancies a coffee and a blah. Or a pint in London after work. PM me if interested.

Chris
 
I have dug out my notes for the SSM section of BSP4.

Blue Slug possibly superseded EXPERT, a low-trajectory, supersonic ship-to-ship missile for the Navy. Designed for underwater impact, EXPERT was intended to inflict as much damage as a 16in shell.

The Blue Slug SSM was intended to allow giuided missile destroyers without carrier support to outrange large Soviet cruisers. Designed to use the same equipment as Sea Slug; i.e. same launcher and Type 901 beam-guidance radar, it has been described as being a Sea Slug without the main wings, carrying a Red Angel Warhead and a Red Dean seeker. Blue Slug was cancelled to allow Armstrong Whitworth to concentrate on Sea Slug. Blue Slug would give Sea Slug air-defence destroyers a powerful anti-ship punch and outrange the 6in guns of Soviet Sverdlov-class cruisers, thus avoiding a need to replace a large force of aging British 6in gun cruisers. Sea Slug Mk2W with a limited nuclear anti-ship capability was thought an acceptable compromise.


I think GD.105/55 was the Naval requirement for a nuclear warhead for Blue Slug SSM, with the Red Beard warhead being proposed, but found to be too big.

Chris
 
That description, in the sense that it represents one stage, fits with the very rough and brief programmatic description given in The Royal Navy and nuclear weapons By Richard Moore which suggests that the nuclear warhead concept came about later, following a draft staff target being drawn up by the Admiralty Gunnery Division in the summer of 1945. Friedman claims in British Destroyers and Frigates claims it was to use the same shipboard guidance equipment as Sea Slug. I must admit that this is the first I have heard of blue Slug using a Red Dean seeker, a fascinating piece of information.

Blue Slug was not Sea Slug, it was its own programme for a dedicated surface to surface version and it died in 1956. Nuclear Sea Slug Mk2 is a different weapon. See also The Royal Navy, 1930-2000: innovation and defence pg.197. Rebuilding the Royal Navy: warship design since 1945 also carries a Blue Slug description.

"would be prohibitively expensive for use against many of the surface targets which a cruiser would normally be expected to engage, and would normally be useless in the army support role"
Click to expand...

This sums up why I dont believe that anyone ever looked at a large UK AShM after about 1960, Green Cheese / Blue Slug were designed as Sverdlov killers, after Stalin dies the Sverdlov fleet started to decline and the Soviets emphasised smaller combatants.
 
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Chris
Sorry not to see your post earlier. I would have loved to have joined you for a drink.

I have finally found my copies of Friedman's British Carrier Aviation (BCA) and British Destroyers and Frigates (BDF), which for a variety of reasons were in store.

In BCA Friedman notes at the end of the section on British postwar carriers that a missile to replace carriers was found in 1962 to require a fast 250 nautical mile range ramjet missile weighing
20,000lb and 35 feet long, 2ft 6in diameter. Its primary role would be to kill Kynda type destroyers before they could fire their Shaddocks. A surface to air version would be needed to tackle Soviet bombers. I think this is the weapon that is also referred to elsewhere for shore bombardment (a kind of UK Talos/Triton?).

In BDF Friedman has a footnote on page 275 which answers the question I posed in this thread
( I really must read footnotes). In 1966 the UK Future Fleet working party described requirements for a short, medium and long range shipborne (and air and subborne) missile. The short range missile (SS12, Penguin etc) could be met off the shelf. The medium range missile which was the subject of the "Fleetfoot" study of available weapons, was met in 1969 by Exocet. A 2,500lb long range, 100 nm missile with data link midcourse guidance could be met by Otomat. This missile requirement was played up by politicians but in fact never met.
 
I suspect it is a real launcher, but one intended only for land-based testing.

A Flight International article in 1958 referred to a single-round launcher used for Sea Slug testing at Woomera and Aberporth, and also notes that a zero-length rail launcher was rejected in favor of the caged system eventually adopted to better control the missile in heavy seas. You can just see the rail shoe on the side of the booster facing the camera, so the missile seems to date from after that decision was made. Possibly there was a cage that was removed for clarity or possibly one was not used for the single-round test launcher.

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1958/1958-1-%20-%200788.html
 

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