Hughes JB-3 Tiamat Air-to-Air WW2

[Catch-22]

Very early Air-to-Air guided missile
Does any one have any more info on the guidance system?

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app1/jb.html

http://napoleon130.tripod.com/id822.html

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675046010_guided-missiles_JB-3-missile_air-to-air-missile_photograph-of-missile

 

[pathology_doc]

Those are fascinating links - thank you!

Does anyone else here agree with me that a lot of the WW2 missiles have a certain look to them - as if, being shown one you'd never seen before, you could say "I don't know who made that or what it is, but it definitely looks pre-1946" ?

 

[Jemiba]

Just triggered by hesham, I looked at this issue of popular mechanics
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=O-ADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA134&dq=Popular+Mechanics+MAR+1947&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WF6AVMO6G4KBabKpgdgJ&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Popular%20Mechanics%20MAR%201947&f=false
where a photo of a ground launched Tiamat is shown:

 

[Dilandu]

The sources are inconsistent; some of them claim than "Tiamat" was semi-active radar guided (with adapted "Pelican" glide bomb seeker), while others - that she was FM-beam rider, moving along the carrier plane radar beam.

It is possible, that on different stages of development different systems were envisioned. Anyway, I'm not sure that it was possible to fit semi-active seeker in "Tiamat" forward cone.

 

[Dilandu]

This is essentially the only image that at least somehow depict "Tiamat"internal arrangement, and frankly, it seems more consistent with beam-riding guidance. There are simply no space in nose to put a (relatively large) "Pelican" seeker, especially considering that on combat missiles part of this space was probably filled with 100-pdr warhead. On the other hands, beam-riding system could be made much more simple and compact.