Vigilante T249/T250 AA System

[sferrin]

If you thought the GAU-8 on the A-10 was something this was a 37mm gatling gun. ISTR they tested up to 40mm but it didn't ever make it on a chassis.

 

[hermankeil]

In 1958 I worked as a contract draftsman at Sperry Utah on the Vigilante. It has only taken me 48 years to see what the complete vehicle looked like. Thank you.
Herman

 

[JohnR]

Couple of questions about the Vigilante:

What was the rate of fire of the 37mm gun ?

What would it's effective range have been ?

What chassis was it based on an M113 ?

Did G.E. produce the gun and was the GAU8 derived from it ?

Regards

 

[RP1]

Some details on Vigilante and similar weapons:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/RED%20QUEEN.htm

RP1

 

[bsmart]

If you thought the GAU-8 on the A-10 was something this was a 37mm gatling gun. ISTR they tested up to 40mm but it didn't ever make it on a chassis.

I just found this site after having a thread on it mentioned another discussion board I visit. This picture of the T249 is at least 5 years old and I think actually many more. This picture was taken on the old 'Mile of Tanks' at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The old Mile was disassembelled for reasons I won't go into now. Although in some ways it was a shame that such an impressive display is gone it did make some of the deterioration of the vehicles obvious and has enabled some to be put through the 'refurb facility' at Aberdeen (No they don't make them run but they do cleanup, patch, clean up environmentally dangerous paint and lubricants and repaint them with modern (non lead based) paint)

The T249 has been through refurb and last time I was at Aberdeen ( a couple weeks ago) ws sitting outside the refurb facility. I get up there on a semi-regular basis and volunteer at the Ordnance Museum so if anyone is interested I can see what is in the records there (some of the vehicle records are pretty thin, some are better)

Bob Smart (bsmart@xecu.net)

 

[Rickshaw]

Sorry to re-awaken an old thread but I was wondering, does anybody have a three-view drawing of the T249 Vigilante?

 

[CostasTT]

Sorry to re-awaken an old thread but I was wondering, does anybody have a three-view drawing of the T249 Vigilante?

Hunnicutt's Bradley book has a three-view of the chassis, but without the turret.

 

[Rickshaw]

Thanks! Just need the turret now.

 

[CostasTT]

You're welcome. I went over the book again, just in case, but there was no three-view of the turret.

 

[xiaofan]

Found this long ago on http://www.primeportal.net/home.htm. I think is T249 chassis, or at least look like it.

 

[Rickshaw]

Found this long ago on http://www.primeportal.net/home.htm. I think is T249 chassis, or at least look like it.

Similar but not the same. Note the lack of an elevated driver's position in this photo as against the picture at the start of the thread.

 

[Jemiba]

Similar but not the same. Note the lack of an elevated driver's position in this photo as against the picture at the start of the thread.

That driver's position made me wonder, if it perhaps could be lowered ? If used against ground targets rotation of
the turret would have been hindered, and according to the linked site the gun was intended to be used against
such targets, too.

 

[CostasTT]

It's not a T249 chassis, but a M474 Pershing 1 system vehicle.

MGM-31 Pershing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/Foxerjr/M474%20Missile%20Carrier/?start=all

 

[Rickshaw]

Was there any radar associated with the US Vigilante system or was it visual sights only? Do you know of any drawings of this vehicle? I assume its an M113 chassis?

 

[Tony Williams]

No mention of radar in anything I can recall seeing, and I have no drawings. As my article says, the Vigilante used a stretched M113 chassis.

 

[Madurai]

Vigilante had an onboard radar, mounted just above the missile pod--though the intent was to provide an all-in-one-vehicle search and engagement capability, it's likely that this would have been supplemented by a dedicated early-warning radar set accompanying the battery.

The test vehicle was M113-based, though the plan was to move the system onto a chassis based on the M551 Sheridan.

 

[Sea Skimmer]

You are confusing Vigilante, which was a 37mm galting gun system, with Mauler which was the radar command guided missile.


Vigilante didn't have radar, just like the M42 duster it was supposed to replace didn't. The horrendous US Army experience with the on mount radar of Skysweeper was almost certainly a factor in that. Chassis was indeed a M113, though I'm not sure it really was lengthened as some sources have claimed. If it was, I've seen it in person before they removed one from Aberdeen, it wasn't by much and it still had five road wheels per side, unlike the planned six wheeled version for the operational Mauler.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

“Bradley: A History of American Fighting and Support Vehicles” by R. P. Hunnicutt has a section on air defence versions of the M113 which provides some Vigilante details including quite a bit of information and imagery. It mentions and portrays the Vigilante B (self propelled version, Vigilante A was the towed version) with the “XM17 radar target alarm” (aka surveillance radar). There is quite a bit more information and pictures about Vigilante from this source that I can follow up in another post but don’t have the time right now.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Some info here: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/RED%20QUEEN.htm

 

[tround]

enjoy

 

[tround]

other informations

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I haven't had a chance to read it yet but six pages and a .pdf including PH data on the Vigilante. Good work that man! Or in this case: Good work that Tround!

 

[tround]

thank you

 

[tround]

I've found a new DTIC document on the cook off of the t250.

"No cook-off problem should exist in the T250 37mm Vigilante gun-system provided that no more than seven 48 round(336 rounds) bursts are fired continuously"
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/630357.pdf

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/forvfu

 

[Tony Williams]

Thanks for reviving this one. I would like to add another detailed source of information on this subject, from the Springfield Armory Museum: http://ww2.rediscov.com/spring/VFPC...g/DETAILS.IDC,SPECIFIC=10839,DATABASE=objects

I have been trying to resolve a question about the ammunition used for some time. and in particular the ballistics; there is some confusion because two different guns were developed, the T250X-1 and T250-X2. Also, two cartridges were developed, a "long" and a "short" one (37 x 255 and 37 x 217), both firing the same projectile. I have examples of both in my collection, as shown below:



Interestingly, the information in this Springfield document states that in July-Dec 1957 consideration was given to "shortening the ammunition case 1 1/2 inches" for the model X-2. That implies pretty clearly that the long round came in the X-1, the short one in the X-2.

However, the document posted by Tround in May 2013 includes a data sheet which quotes the muzzle velocities as 3,000 fps standard (I can't quite make out the designation - is it T423E-22?), or 3,600 fps for the "improved" version. This implies that the short round came before the long one, since the long one will obviously be associated with the higher muzzle velocity. Yet another oddity is the photo of the ammo in this report seems to be of the long-cased one.

I am inclined to believe the Springfield report, because my two examples are headstamped 1957 (long) and 1960 (short).

I understand that only two actual gun systems were built: one on a towed mounting, the other one on the tracked SPAAG mounting. I wonder if they both fired the 37 x 217 ammo or if one came in 37 x 255?

 

[thanos.massias]

Some good photos here:

Vigilante: That time the Army tried to make a 37mm Gatling gun (PHOTOS) :: Guns.com

While today we think of the 20mm Vulcan and 30mm Avenger as the go-to in brrrrt technology, back in the 1950s the Army planned for something even bigger

www.guns.com

 

[thanos.massias]

and walk around photos taken at the Aberdeen Proving Ground:

T249 Vigilante SPAAG Walk Around Page 1

 

[eltf177]

I thought all these vehicles were being moved to Fort Lee in Petersburg.

What exactly is left at Aberdeen? It's been at least 15 years since my brother and I went there, probably closer to 20. The Elephant was being refurbished at the time and wasn't available and the museum was undergoing renovation and wasn't available either...

 

[thanos.massias]

My understanding is that—out of three prototypes—the sole survivor is now at the Army Air Defense Artillery museum, Fort Sill. In the past, this same vehicle was at Aberdeen Army Ordnance Museum and the photos were taken there.

A few older pictures from Ft. Sill:

US Army Air Defense Artillery Museum - Backstage Tour - Vagabond Images

Thanks to the generosity of ADA Museum curator Jon Bernstein, we were fortunate enough to be given a tour of the storage area for the US Army ADA Museum. Wow!! What an amazing collection! The M42 outside comes from Fort Snelling and is in running condition. Inside the tent are many fascinating...

www.vgbimages.com

 

[Rickshaw]

I always thought that the use of an M113 hull was a mistake. It required the crew to operate outside in an NBC environment to reload or replenish the gun. They would have been better off with a proper link system and the use of a larger vehicle, such as an M109 to carry the gun and increased ammunition supply. They could have designed it with easily replaced magazines to carry the ammunition.

 

[thanos.massias]

Perhaps the magazine design was influenced by the one of the RED QUEEN and RED KING guns.

THE RED QUEEN AND THE VIGILANTE

 

[uk 75]

The competition between NATO and Warsaw Pact to develop effective anti aircraft vehicles is a fascinating one.
The Sovs actually introduced their designs into service whereas the US had to make do with inferior kit. Predictably the West Germans had the best stuff and the Brits b all.

 

[okakac]

T249 Vigilante - The Biggest Gatling Gun Ever Built -

The T249 Vigilante was armed with a six-barrelled 37 mm rotary cannon that could fire 3,000 half-meter-long rounds per minute!

tankhistoria.com

The link might essentially be the same as thanos.massias' at post #27. Can't open it in Turkey by the looks of it.

The conjecture will be Vought might or might not have taken this gun into consideration while developing the A-7. I have no doubts that it would be impossibly large.

 

[thanos.massias]

T249 Vigilante - The Biggest Gatling Gun Ever Built -

The T249 Vigilante was armed with a six-barrelled 37 mm rotary cannon that could fire 3,000 half-meter-long rounds per minute!

tankhistoria.com

The link might essentially be the same as thanos.massias' at post #27. Can't open it in Turkey by the looks of it.

The conjecture will be Vought might or might not have taken this gun into consideration while developing the A-7. I have no doubts that it would be impossibly large.

archive.org is your friend:

Vigilante: That time the Army tried to make a 37mm Gatling gun (PHOTOS) :: Guns.com

While today we think of the 20mm Vulcan and 30mm Avenger as the go-to in brrrrt technology, back in the 1950s the Army planned for something even bigger

web.archive.org

 

[okakac]

Thanks for that. Pictures might have been similar, the text was definitely new!