Alternatives to the Bloodhound SAM in RAF service

[pathology_doc]

Which horse would you have backed in 1949? Ramjet? Rocket? My view is that when the Brakemine team and the talented Flt Lt Benson were wound up, UK GW lost a lot of ground.

Out of interest, what ceiling did Brakemine have?

Also, while looking around, I found this...

Ooh, neat. Proto-County Class!!


The air battle controllers see it as THE answer to the Kamikaze as the invasion of Japan begins in a non-nuclear alternative world. Meanwhile, crusty old sea dogs who are learning new tricks channel the ghost of Jacky Fisher and hunt for whatever Japanese destroyers might still be left to give it a shot in the SSM role...

 

[uk 75]

This thread has more info on possible UK land based SAMs. Perhaps they could be merged?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Is it true that Bloodhound's replacement was one of the victims of the Mason Defence Review of 1974-75? And is it also true that it was to have been a derivative of Sea Dart?

 

[Yellow Palace]

Is it true that Bloodhound's replacement was one of the victims of the Mason Defence Review of 1974-75? And is it also true that it was to have been a derivative of Sea Dart?

The only mention of Bloodhound, one way or the other, in the White Paper is in Chapter III, paragraph 27: Royal Air Force General Purpose Forces are at present [...] Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles in RAF Germany and NEAF.

There's no mention whatsoever of changing the force level, or of replacing it with anything.

 

[zen]

What needs to be added here is things not clear to all then.

Namely that Seaslug was actually quite successful and surprisingly accurate. Even out to 30nm in MkII form against a supersonic target at high altitude. Testament to the Type 901 guidance system I suspect.

That UK assessments of their domestic efforts is realistic and harsh but they suffer from 'grass is greener over there' attitudes towards US equipment. Essentially brochures are good if American....
This bleeds into our perception today and only digging into the then definitions of successful operation reveal to truth.

That France had lots of missile efforts, and hit a lot of similar problems. Some of them could be argued as having potential.
I suspect they lacked on the computer side mostly.

That in a similar period Sweden and Switzerland both researched various missile schemes. The Swiss even exporting a few.
Even Yugoslavia researched their own SAM effort, as did Japan.

We can also reiterate that Tartar doesn't meet RN perception of needs, to their bitter disappointment really.
That Terrier is a lot less compact than Seaslug.
That Sea Dart had potential it never realised.

And let's not forget that the US itself had lots of efforts which failed or were dropped in favour of others.
Most dramatically scrapping Mauler and cobbling something out of Sidewinders and Sparrows (sounds like a 50's Western musical).

 

[uk 75]

Apart from France with three Masurca (Terrier derived) long range shipboard SAMs the UK is the only Western European navy to develop its own long range weapon with 8 ships at sea by 1971.
Seadart eventually gets fitted to one T82, 14 T42 and three Invincibles. The other W European nations in the same period operate handfuls of Tartar/Standard MR ships.
Seawolf is unique to the UK as even the US has no comparable missile system. It equips a significant number of ships (Leander conversions, T22 and T23- not all at the same time but still in double figures).
Bloodhound and Thunderbird compare favourably with Nike and Hawk.
Apart from Roland Rapier is in a class of its own.
Blue Water was better than Honest John and Sergeant but Lance was in the offing.
Quite why W Germany got Sergeant and Pershing always puzzled me but somewhere there is a NATO doc which suggests UK was supposed to get Pershing too.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Which brings us to another point.

It was clear in the late 1940s that SAMs were feasible and that there would be different requirements from the different services. It strikes me that a more logical approach might be look at what such missiles had in common, such as the guidance system, and standardise on that. Instead, we had three different missiles being developed all using entirely different techniques.

It is the sort of thing that the Ministry of Supply should have grasped from the outset, but then we all know what we think of the MoS. That the DRPC didn't press for more commonality is more surprising.

However, it is easier for us to sit here sixty years later and say, 'I wouldn't have done it that way!'

Bloodhound and Thunderbird were probably as good as other contemporary systems. Seaslug, as you say, was marginally successful.

Combined response:

Absolutely, both Bloodhound and Thunderbird were technically successful and achieved reasonable foreign interest- both could be seen as successful programmes- in stark contrast to other UK missile efforts. I agree entirely that it seems odd that greater standardisation was not pursued.

In late 1940-early50s, it's not obvious what will prove to be the successful design path forward. I mean, who would think that we're still using AIM9s and Standard Missiles in 2024?

So the UK in the interests of making the capabilities at home, has to develop all the different paths. Liquid fuel rockets, solid fuel rockets, ramjets, beam rider guidance, SARH, ARH, TVM, IR, TV, all the different warheads, proximity fuzes...

At the very least, all the propulsion needs to be developed to either flying prototypes or someone saying "like hell are you putting Red Fuming Nitric Acid on my ships!" or equivalent.​

​

Guidance needs someone to be able to say "Okay, we can do beam riding but that only works for point defenses, we need better guidance for crossing targets," and "you can't stick ARH in an 8-inch missile diameter and have it practically useful, so we're going to drop the idea for now."​

​

et sim for warheads and fuzes.​

And there's just no way around that problem. You gotta spend a crapton of money and some of it WILL be down dead ends (at least by 1950s tech).

Now, as to bolting an IR seeker onto a Bloodhound or whatever, that's a different discussion.

 

[Pioneer]

That in a similar period Sweden and Switzerland both researched various missile schemes. The Swiss even exporting a few.
Even Yugoslavia researched their own SAM effort, as did Japan.

That's interesting zen because I was just about to mention was there any possibility of Britian backing onto/partnering with the likes of Swiss companies Oerlikon-Buhrle and Contraves in developing and marketing their RSA/RSD/RSE SAM systems
I can't but help think how much different the sales trend of the RSA SAM system might have been, had a government/military like that of Britian employed it worldwide throught it's then Empire. Talking about 'employment', I'm picturing the RSA system being somewhat more deployable than the Bloodhound and Thunderbird, what with:

"The complete [RSD-58] system included a battery command post, target tracking radar, guidance beam transmitter and six twin railed trainable launchers and four diesel generator units.[4] The components were carried on single-axle trailers apart from the diesel generators that were built on two-axle trailers. The entire system, including the launchers, was readily transportable to new locations with mobility claimed to be similar to that of a heavy anti-aircraft gun system."
(Source: Missiles 1959. Flight International. 6 November 1959.)

Now I appreciate that one of the fundamental downsides of the earlier RSA/RSD was that they utilised liquid fuelled rocket motors, but this shortfall was proven possible to remedy as demonstrated in the development of the later RSE, which employed a solid fuel rocket motor.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[zen]

Certainly the RSA was sketched for installation on a export Cruiser design and that's somewhere on this site.

 

[Siberia]

My view is that when the Brakemine team and the talented Flt Lt Benson were wound up, UK GW lost a lot of ground.

This thread having been brought back to the front page by uk 75 I hope you won't mind my quoting a rather old post of yours, but how limited, if at all, was Brakemine by its multiple RP-3 solid rocket propulsion do you feel?

 

[CJGibson]

Not at all. The 3in rocket motor was available, reliable (fairly) and as I pointed out in an article in Aeromilitaria a few years ago, Brakemine (and the earlier Ben) was simpler and cheaper than the German systems such as Rheintochter, Enzian and Wasserfall. Only problem would be range, but if you have enough launchers, and the weapon can reach the altitude where German bombers operate, work with what's available - 3in motors.

Chris

 

[Scott Kenny]

This thread having been brought back to the front page by uk 75 I hope you won't mind my quoting a rather old post of yours, but how limited, if at all, was Brakemine by its multiple RP-3 solid rocket propulsion do you feel?

Only by the need to light them reliably. clustered, they have slightly off-axis thrust that the guidance would need to correct for until all 3 have lit. Stacked, you need to cleanly separate and then light the next motor. And model rockets using black powder motors have been pulling that off for at least the last 40 years.

 

[Siberia]

Not at all. The 3in rocket motor was available, reliable (fairly) and as I pointed out in an article in Aeromilitaria a few years ago, Brakemine (and the earlier Ben) was simpler and cheaper than the German systems such as Rheintochter, Enzian and Wasserfall. Only problem would be range, but if you have enough launchers, and the weapon can reach the altitude where German bombers operate, work with what's available - 3in motors.

Right. Previously been casting around for a way to nudge British missile development and one idea was a small rocket-assisted take-off programme in the second half of the 1930s which successfully develops something along to the lines of the de Havilland Sprite/Super Sprite but isn't introduced into service. A few years down the line someone pulls an old file out of a cabinet and suggests that people might be interested. If the solid propellant wasn't really a limiting factor then I need to look elsewhere. Thanks for your, and Scott's, reply.