NATO big SSMs

[uk 75]

When the UK gave up carriers in the 60s the alternative was supposed to be a family of helicopter, ship and sub launched missiles. In the event while Wasp helicopters did get AS12s it took nearly a decade before Exocet equipped some destroyers and frigates. Sea Skua for Lynx did not arrive until 1982.
Martel was supposed to provide a Seaking and SSN launched Anti ship missile. India did eventually get Sea Eagle for its helos. Harpoon for US and NATO service arrived in the 80s.
These missiles did not pack the punch of the large Soviet anti-carrier missiles despite a growing number of cruisers and ASW carriers in the Soviet Navy.
Talos on US cruisers and Seaslug on County class destroyers did provide some large missiles but the Tomahawk cruise missile on US battleships, cruisers and SSNs (later on Spruance destroyers too) provided a long range solution though not with a large warhead.
A cannister launched large cruise missile similar to Regulus II might have been deployed earlier if the Sverdlov cruisers had been built in larger numbers and been given Albany style conversions.

 

[Dilandu]

Technically, there were no problems of NATO countries creating their own anti-ship missiles in 1950s-1960s. They simply did not feel it was necessary, due to much more pressing concerns of anit-submarine and anti-air warfare. USN experimented a lot with anti-ship missiles and torpedo-carrying missiles under "Kingfisher" project, but generally concluded that there are of low priority, due to Soviet surface navy being less a threat than submarines.

If actually pressed to develope anti-ship missiles, I suppose, they would most likely follow Sweden pattern and develope a surface-to-surface anti-ship missiles on the basic of the target drones. The Rb.08 was essentially a derivative of French-produced CT.20 target drone, equipped with active radar seeker, and warhead at the expense of much reduced fuel supply.

My IMHO is that USN would most likely create an anti-ship missile out of Ryan Firebee drone. There were actually several projects to do exactly that; Firebee was pretty reliable, commonplace, capable of both ship & air launch, and have sufficient range and speed to be taken seriously. If the program was initiated in late 1950s, I suppose the Firebee-derived anti-ship missile would be equipped with radar seeker. If later - then, I suppose, they would combine it with "Walleye" program, and would equipm missile with optical contrast seeker and radio datalink to the ship.

 

[Dilandu]

P.S. In one of my alternate history projects, when USSR started to create a carrier fleet post-war, USN started to develope its own anti-ship missiles to counter them. Two projects were implemented:

* RGM-34 Firebird missile - the derivative of Ryan Firebee BQM-34A target drone, equipped with active radar seeker and 500-pdr HE warhead. It was developed as ship-launched weapon, mainly to arm destroyers and frigates, and basically serve as counter to Soviet P-15 Termit missile.

* AGM-41 Wyvern missile - the Talos-based air-launched supersonic ramjet missile, designed to be launched from A-3 Skywarrior aircraft with about 100 miles range. Essentially, it's a version of Talos with smaller booster (since air-launched) and reduced maneuverability in exchange for larger nuclear warhead. The guidance system was based on Talos one, but redesigned to work with a single aircraft targeting radar; the missile ride the beam till close proximity to target, after which it switch to semi-active homing (since it's an anti-ship missile, using a single radar is not a concern).