Talk:Seaslug (missile)

Naming

The weapon was actually called Seaslug and was all one word [1]. Same for the Short Seacat [2]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 20:27, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Sea Slugs design targets and accuracy of Mk 2 data

One could speculate that in the late 1940s the initial design of Seaslug was based on the expectation was its targets would be fighters and bombers of slightly enhanced performance over the jets of late WW2 and bombers of that period, targets with a speed of say 500mph. The performance of the Migs of the Korean war far exceeded these expectations and Soviet surveillance and maritime strike aircraft like the TU 95 Bear were probably also 150mph faster than expected. The Seaslug was also justified partly as an attempt to counter the early Soviet sea launched anti ship missiles which were large targets probably a bit quicker than WW2 doodlebugs. The Mk2 Seaslug theoretically would have had a capability against these large subsonic anti ship missiles and surface targets. In the anti ship and surface role some trial accounts were that it worked to a degree but in an actual war would have been impractical. The fitting of Exocets gave a limited capability against significant Soviet warships but most of them would have carried heavier long range anti ship missiles and Exocet was only a limited partial short term solution for the RN. The removal of the second 4.5 turret significantly reduced the surface, bombardment and even the anti missile capability. The original sealed ship design for the County class in 57/58 included two L70 twin bofors which would were estimated to be likely to have about 35% effectiveness against early Soviet sub and ship launched anti ship missiles, Probably better than Seaslug in either Mk 1 or 2 version or the Seacats, fitted, instead of the close in twin bofors mounts. HMS Glamorgan proved to have no soft or hard kill capability, against modern anti ship missiles when it was attacked by and hit by a shore launched Exocet from short range.

The early missiles such as Seaslug were intended for the defence of fleets or convoys in the North Atlantic (such as had then-recently been employed in the Battle of the Atlantic) where the value of the target to the enemy was likely to justify their use of bomber aircraft armed with a single large early nuclear weapon approaching at high altitude - well out of the range of the fleet's AA guns. The missile was intended to destroy the bomber at sufficient range such that if the bomber's nuclear weapon then detonated it would be well out of the range at which it would cause damage to the fleet. The British guided missiles of the time were all designed on the assumption that the Royal Navy would be escorting large merchant ship convoys and any attacker would be using nuclear weapons (which at the time were physically large and required a large bomber aircraft to carry them, which in turn had to be at high altitude to escape from the blast of its own weapon), anything else was of much lower importance and could be dealt with using other means, guns, etc. So Seaslug was quite specialised in the role it was designed for - defence of convoys against nuclear-armed large bombers. It could also have been used against aircraft doing what the Focke-Wulf Condor had done earlier, flying around out of the range of the convoy's guns, radioing convoy position reports back for the opposing side's submarines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.11.156 (talk) 19:41, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The original user requirement for Seaslug was for an anti-kamakazi weapon.-- Toddy1 (talk) 20:07, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Very few of the latter around when Seaslug was requested in 1949. You may be thinking of the Fairey Stooge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.100.215 (talk) 17:20, 7 October 2016 (UTC)