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Vickers Vigilant
The Vickers Vigilant was a British 1960s era MCLOS wire-guided anti-tank missile used by the British Army. It was also licence-built in the United States by Clevite for the US Marine Corps, and sometimes known as Clevite rounds in this case.
Development began at Vickers-Armstrongs in 1956 as a private project to give the company's Weybridge Guided Missile Department something to do after the cancellation of Red Dean. By 1960 it had completed development and an extensive testing program, but the War Office remained disinterested as they wished for the Weybridge department to be disbanded as part of the ongoing formation of British Aircraft Corporation. On several occasions the Office explicitly stated they did not want to provide any encouragement to the team as this might make it harder to close the division down in the future.
After considerable debate spanning several years, the project eventually won an initial order as it was the only suitable design to arm the Ferret armoured car. By this time the War Office had already decided that their ultimate weapon for this role would be the Swingfire, but it would not be available until 1966 at the earliest. An order for several thousand Vigilant was placed late in 1961 as an "interim weapon". The order immediately resulted in several additional orders from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Abu Dhabi, along with Vigilant-armed Ferret sales to the UAE and Yemen. The order also sealed the US decision to license Vigilant for local production.
Swingfire did not arrive until 1969, and during that time the medium-range man portable version had been dropped. This left the Vigilant in use with the infantry and airborne forces well into the 1970s. Approximately 18,000 were produced in total.
Vickers-Armstrongs had been developing guided missiles from the earliest stages of UK research in the field, setting up the Guided Weapons Department at Weybridge (Brooklands) in Surrey. By the mid-1950s had been involved in four projects, all of which were cancelled. The last, the Red Dean/Red Hebe air-to-air missile was so delayed and over-designed that the company began to have a bad reputation with the Ministry of Supply, especially with John Clemow, the Director.
When Red Hebe was cancelled in the aftermath of the 1957 Defence White Paper, the company's guided missile department had no remaining projects. Unwilling to give up on the missile field, George Edwards led an effort to find a new project that could be undertaken with company funds alone. This led them to the ideas of John Housego and Jal Daboo for a lightweight anti-tank missile. They were already aware of the British Army's unhappiness with the recently deployed Malkara anti-tank missile, and felt there was an opportunity here. In 1956, Edwards convinced the board to take up the development of a replacement for Malkara using a new guidance system developed in-house.
Malkara was one of the earliest anti-tank missiles, and had several problems. Primary among these was the Army's ongoing interest in the use of large high-explosive squash head (HESH) warheads instead of the more common high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) used by most anti-tank weapons of the era. For any given level of penetration, HESH required much more explosive, and Malkara's need to deal with main battle tanks demanded a 57 pounds (26 kg) warhead. Combined with the long desired range, 3,000 yards (2,700 m), the missile ended up being 206 pounds (93 kg), far too heavy to make it man portable.
The guidance system was also less than ideal. This consisted of a small joystick that the operator used to guide the missile while visually comparing its position with the target, aided by a bright flare on the missile. When the operator pushed the stick to the right, for instance, it operated the control surfaces to turn the missile to the right. The problem was that the missile would continue moving to the right after the control was released, eventually crossing the line of sight, continuing onto the right side of the target, and then requiring left input to stop this motion. This often led to the operator repeatedly overcorrecting the path of the missile, which required significant amounts of training to overcome. The same basic guidance system was used by most contemporary designs like the ENTAC, SS.10 and SS.11, and the Cobra, as well as the US Army's experimental Dart that was not put into production.
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Vickers Vigilant
The Vickers Vigilant was a British 1960s era MCLOS wire-guided anti-tank missile used by the British Army. It was also licence-built in the United States by Clevite for the US Marine Corps, and sometimes known as Clevite rounds in this case.
Development began at Vickers-Armstrongs in 1956 as a private project to give the company's Weybridge Guided Missile Department something to do after the cancellation of Red Dean. By 1960 it had completed development and an extensive testing program, but the War Office remained disinterested as they wished for the Weybridge department to be disbanded as part of the ongoing formation of British Aircraft Corporation. On several occasions the Office explicitly stated they did not want to provide any encouragement to the team as this might make it harder to close the division down in the future.
After considerable debate spanning several years, the project eventually won an initial order as it was the only suitable design to arm the Ferret armoured car. By this time the War Office had already decided that their ultimate weapon for this role would be the Swingfire, but it would not be available until 1966 at the earliest. An order for several thousand Vigilant was placed late in 1961 as an "interim weapon". The order immediately resulted in several additional orders from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Abu Dhabi, along with Vigilant-armed Ferret sales to the UAE and Yemen. The order also sealed the US decision to license Vigilant for local production.
Swingfire did not arrive until 1969, and during that time the medium-range man portable version had been dropped. This left the Vigilant in use with the infantry and airborne forces well into the 1970s. Approximately 18,000 were produced in total.
Vickers-Armstrongs had been developing guided missiles from the earliest stages of UK research in the field, setting up the Guided Weapons Department at Weybridge (Brooklands) in Surrey. By the mid-1950s had been involved in four projects, all of which were cancelled. The last, the Red Dean/Red Hebe air-to-air missile was so delayed and over-designed that the company began to have a bad reputation with the Ministry of Supply, especially with John Clemow, the Director.
When Red Hebe was cancelled in the aftermath of the 1957 Defence White Paper, the company's guided missile department had no remaining projects. Unwilling to give up on the missile field, George Edwards led an effort to find a new project that could be undertaken with company funds alone. This led them to the ideas of John Housego and Jal Daboo for a lightweight anti-tank missile. They were already aware of the British Army's unhappiness with the recently deployed Malkara anti-tank missile, and felt there was an opportunity here. In 1956, Edwards convinced the board to take up the development of a replacement for Malkara using a new guidance system developed in-house.
Malkara was one of the earliest anti-tank missiles, and had several problems. Primary among these was the Army's ongoing interest in the use of large high-explosive squash head (HESH) warheads instead of the more common high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) used by most anti-tank weapons of the era. For any given level of penetration, HESH required much more explosive, and Malkara's need to deal with main battle tanks demanded a 57 pounds (26 kg) warhead. Combined with the long desired range, 3,000 yards (2,700 m), the missile ended up being 206 pounds (93 kg), far too heavy to make it man portable.
The guidance system was also less than ideal. This consisted of a small joystick that the operator used to guide the missile while visually comparing its position with the target, aided by a bright flare on the missile. When the operator pushed the stick to the right, for instance, it operated the control surfaces to turn the missile to the right. The problem was that the missile would continue moving to the right after the control was released, eventually crossing the line of sight, continuing onto the right side of the target, and then requiring left input to stop this motion. This often led to the operator repeatedly overcorrecting the path of the missile, which required significant amounts of training to overcome. The same basic guidance system was used by most contemporary designs like the ENTAC, SS.10 and SS.11, and the Cobra, as well as the US Army's experimental Dart that was not put into production.