Texas Instuments - Sea Ray

Graham1973

Graham1973

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Texas Instruments Sea Ray

Sea Ray is a laser-guided missile suitable for launch from surface ships, helicopters, or coastal defence batteries. Development of the weapon and the associated Sea Tiger director started in 1981. This work was partly funded by Texas Instruments and partly by a potential foreign customer (who insisted that no announcement be made at the time). The nation concerned has not been identified by Texas Instruments, but is probably South Korea.

The Sea Ray round is 3m long, 20cm in diameter, and weighs 180kg. It makes maximum use of existing hardware to reduce development risk. The guidance and control unit (GCU), which houses the laser and guidance system, was taken from the Paveway III laser-guided bomb, while the rocket motor is the Mk.78 used on the Shrike anti-radar missile. The missile has a relatively short range, flying an unguided ballistic trajectory until the laser designator is turned on about ten seconds before impact. The warhead is of the fragmentation type and weighs 68kg.
Click to expand...

https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1988/1988%20-%202815.PDF

https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1988/1988%20-%202816.PDF

This rather obscure project gained a certain measure of fame when author Dale Brown 'gave' this weapon to the Philippines Navy in the novel "Sky Masters" (Published 1991) (This is also the one that refers to the "B-1B Excalibur"...) however what I have quoted above and an entry in a book "A Compendium of Armaments and Military Hardware" by Christopher Chant (Published 1987) which gives much the same details and gives the weapons range as 7km, seem to be the only available information (at least online.) If anyone has any more information, especially pictures I would be very interested. I am guessing that it never went into production due to the end of the Cold War.
 

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