Before the introduction and development of the Mk 41 VLS, could the pre SM Standard missiles can be used in a VLS Launch tube?
Tartar, Terrier, Talos, Typhon MR and LR, Sea Sparrow, Sea Mauler, Sea Chaparral?
Due ro the launchers, Sea Mauler/Sparrow/Chaparral was capable to my knowledge, Tartar maybe? Terrier and Talos not much as they require check ins before launch? Though therd was a vertically loaded Terrier launcher the Mark 4 so technically it might be possible? What about the Typhons?
Well, mostly no. There were several problems here:
* Without aerodynamic lifting force to help missile took off, the much more powerful - and bigger - booster would be required.
* Most of those missiles required either to be gathered into the radar beam, or at least oriented in general direction of the target immediately after launch. With rail launchers it was simple; just train and elevate the launcher in required direction. With vertical launcher... it would require some kind of control system, that would work during boost stage, to turn missile in required direction. Basically a separate booster autopilot would be required. And even with 1960s technology, it would be costly and pretty hard to implement.
To elaborate; the beam-riding missiles (like BT-terrier, Talos and Mauler) needed to be gathered by radar guidance beam immediately after launch. For Talos it isn't a big deal, because Talos used separate radars for tracking the target, and for guiding the missile. But Terrier and Mauler - they used the same radar to track the target AND guide the missile. They could not "gather" the vertically-launched missile without breaking the target tracking. So some kind of major fire control system alteration would be required.
The semi-active missiles (like Tartar, BH-terrier and Sea Sparrow) have their own problem. They needed to be aimed at least in general direction of the target to home on. And with uncontrolled vertical launch, you can't be sure in which direction exactly missile would be aimed after boosting. So some kind of boost-phase guidance would be required.
The track-via-missile missiles (i.e. MR and LR Typhoon) are better, since they could be just commanded to dive in required direction immediately after boost. It would require some kind of additional antenna, but it's not a big problem.
Finally, Sea Chaparral could not be launched without locking the missile on the target before launch. So vertical launch is out of question (purely theoretically you could stick the missile seeker head out of silo, manipulate the seeker by commands to look in target direction, and THEN attempt to launch... but I doubt it would work). And I'm not sure the range of vertically-launched Sidewinder would be of any value.
