The Seacat 2 became an immediate success. Germany ordered it for its new Fast Patrol Boats and
both Luftwaffe and Marineflieger bases received Tigercat 2. The Netherlands helped with the fire control systems and with Belgium ordered both Seacat and Tigercat 2. Canada decided that it was just the weapon it needed for its frigates and two new build supply ships. The US looked closely at both systems.
Shorts soon built on success. Using technology borrowed from its Blowpipe missile, it developed a vertical launch folding fin version with a tube launcher. Because of the shape of the launcher tube and its venting housing the name "Stovepipe" came into use. Both land and seabased versions were offered, with the missiles now being known as "Starcat".
When "Starcat" beat BAC's "Seawolf" for the Royal Navy's next point defence missile system for the 70s and 80s, the family had really come of age. The RN, Dutch Navy and German Navy developed a new Standard frigate design around the weapon and the Westland Lynx helicopter. It was also handy that the Dutch fire control system could be used with the Oto Melara 76mm gun. HMS Broadsword, the first Royal Navy Standard frigate entered service on time in 1979. "Starcat" had already been introduced into service on the Type 21s. Canada adopted the system for bothj it new Halifax frigates and a wheeled air defence carrier for its forces in Germany and the CAST Brigade. Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Greece followed, some using the Standard frigate as well.
Shorts were not finished yet. By the mid-80s the threat from a new generation of Soviet missiles and fighter-bombers was calling for a High Velocity Kinetic missile. Shorts rose to the occasion and its missile was designed to fit the existing Stovepipe launchers. The RN Type 23 frigates entered service with this missile in the late 80s. The Netherlands adopted it for their new Karel Doorman M class frigates and the Germans for their Type 123s. Arguments over ASW fittings had prevented a repeat of the Standard class, but Shorts had beaten off both the Raytheon Seasparrow and the BAe Starburst. This time the US Navy decided that with RAM proving an expensive failure (the Germans had preferred to stick with Shorts), and ordered Stovepipe for its carriers and other ships.
At a ceremony in Norfolk Virginia the first Stovepipe system was unveiled on the "Abraham Lincoln " and painted an appropriate shade of black in honour of the great man's celebrated hat.
BAe were not slow to learn from the private company. In the late 1970s its engineers developed a version of "Stovepipe" in the form of a vertical launched Sea and Land Dart missile. Shorts nicknamed the bigger tube launched system the Hornpipe, though there were less polite references.
Starstreak as the final version was called, in its Stovepipe launchers still serves with all three British services and numerous others. Shorts, the company that can!, has played a crucial role in the peace accords in Northern Ireland and retains its somewhat cavalier attitude to British Aerospace or as Shorts people call it "The Camel Club" (BAe has only sold missiles in any quantities to Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia). Neither Swingfire nor the Dart family remain in service with British forces, but BAE has finally achieved success with some of its air launched weapons.
Of course all could have been very different if a British Government had not backed Shorts and decided to prop up the various bits of BAC in England. But that is just a what -if?
