![]() They chose the latter, a decision Solly Zuckerman found rather questionable. Īs budget pressures escalated in the early 1960s, the Army was given the choice of picking either PT.428 or their Blue Water nuclear missile. ![]() The system was quite advanced, including automated search and track radars, a separate television camera for target identification, and eighteen missiles in two nine-round boxes. The system was deliberately designed to fit, when taken apart, as a single load in the Fairey Rotodyne. The firing unit was a single piece that could be taken off for firing, or fired from the truck in an emergency. This called for a system that could be carried on a single 4-ton Bedford TK truck. The initial design contest was won by British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) in 1960, and given the development name PT.428. For their immediate needs they purchased the new Bofors 40/L70, and for the longer term began a new missile development for a short-range, rapid-reaction weapon, known as the Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) system. In spite of some progress, in 1959, the General Staff concluded that guns were no longer useful against modern aircraft. This used a large 42 mm (1.7 in) round in a rotary cannon arrangement for high rates of fire. To improve this, the Army began the development of a massively improved weapon known as " Red Queen". However, the relatively short range of their Bofors 40/L56 guns meant they had only a very short period of time in which the aircraft was close enough to fire on. Against low-flying aircraft, only anti-aircraft guns were suitable, as they could be quickly swung and fired in seconds. īy the late 1950s, the British Army considered this threat considerable as new aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-7 became common and higher performance designs were in the pipeline. In response, air forces began introducing aircraft and weapons meant to be used at low altitudes, in nap-of-the-earth flying that used landforms to block the view of the aircraft from the radar systems on the missiles. The introduction of medium-range surface-to-air missiles, or surface-to-air guided weapons (SAGW) as they are known in the UK, had made flying at medium or high altitudes anywhere near the front line near suicidal. History A Rapier FSC Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) system at Blackheath, London on Earlier systems In October 2021, it was replaced as one of the UK's primary air-defence weapons by Sky Sabre. Rapier was later selected by the RAF Regiment to replace their Bofors guns and Tigercat missiles. As the expected air threat moved from medium-altitude strategic missions to low-altitude strikes, the fast reaction time and high manoeuvrability of the Rapier made it more effective than either of these weapons, replacing most of them by 1977. This results in a high level of accuracy, therefore a large warhead is not required.Įntering service in 1971, it eventually replaced all other anti-aircraft weapons in British Army service both the Bofors guns used against low-altitude targets and the Thunderbird missile used against longer-range and higher-altitude targets. The system is unusual as it uses a manual optical guidance system, sending guidance commands to the missile in flight over a radio link. Rapier is a surface-to-air missile developed for the British Army to replace their towed Bofors 40/L70 anti-aircraft guns.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |