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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 2131.PDF
British Missiles 1959 r1 1 li ji 1 ' s -r' SIR W. G. ARMSTRONG WHITWORTH AIRCRAFT LTD. WUtley, Coventry. Telephone: Tollbar 3271 Seaslug Chosen by the Royal Navy as the standard ship-to-air guided weapon forinstallation on larger ships, Seaslug has been planned to achieve maximum accuracy and lethality within an overall package of minimum size; and it forms part of an integratedweapon system which includes storage magazines, powered handling equipment, auto- matic check-out facilities and an automatically stabilized launcher. Development of thecomplete system has been managed jointly by Armstrong Whitworth, the General Electric Company and S perry Gyroscope Company, who have respectively been responsible forthe missile itself, the guidance system and the control system. It can now be stated that Seaslug is a beam-rider. Powerful shipborne radar illuminates the target in a locked-onpencil beam; the Seaslug flies up the centre of the beam, the guidance system containing circuits which immediately detea any departure of the flight path from the beam's axis.Firing trials have been taking place from shore establishments, from the Clausen Rolling Platform and from H.M.S. Girdle Ness. The latter has been conducting firingsboth in the Mediterranean and in home waters, and results have been most successful; according to Armstrong Whitworth "when a salvo of two Seaslugs was fired . . . the firstmissile hit the target aircraft and the second veered off and hit the largest piece of the remaining wreckage." The first ships to be armed with the Seaslug system will be largeCounty-class ships, the first of which—H.M.S. Hampshire—has been under con- struction for some months. Armstrong Whitworth S*»lug (photograph above, drawing left) Four wrap-round boost motors, internalsustainer. Length, about 20ft, body diameter, about 16in; wing span, about 63m; control-surface span, about 63in. Avro Blue Steel Vehicle basically of aeroplane configuration, with canard foraplane, rear-mounted midwing and fixed upper and folding lower fins. The powerplant of this weapon is a de HaVilland Double Spectre rocket engine, with an aggregate sea-level thrust of 16,000 Ib. Length, at least 35ft; wing span, probably less than 20ft. -#.- •;, .. -.•",.£'•._•.•: "
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