WASP mini-missile

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Member for

15 years 4 months

Posts: 1,003

Flicking through one of my old Salamander books (it smells like a church!) I saw that most of the NATO aircraft in the two-page loadout spreads include the WASP mini-missile.

Does anybody know why this programme died?

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Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 9,683

Flicking through one of my old Salamander books (it smells like a church!) I saw that most of the NATO aircraft in the two-page loadout spreads include the WASP mini-missile.

Does anybody know why this programme died?

hit designationsystems.net and Secret Projects. Lots of info on it.

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

Flicking through one of my old Salamander books (it smells like a church!) I saw that most of the NATO aircraft in the two-page loadout spreads include the WASP mini-missile.

Does anybody know why this programme died?

Hughes AGM-124 Wasp

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-124.html

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20 years 5 months

Posts: 4,674

Flicking through one of my old Salamander books (it smells like a church!) I saw that most of the NATO aircraft in the two-page loadout spreads include the WASP mini-missile.

Does anybody know why this programme died?

Why it was cancelled? Pure speculation: For one it might not have worked as envisioned and attacked all kind of things. Or it might have been the operational problem of visual target ID over longer ranges before launch that made the concept unworkable at that time. Or it might have been too expensive. Then also the (Army) Hellfire programme happened at the same time. Maybe also a question of philosophy, as the Air Force liked neither the A-10 not its mission and might not have been too keen to buy a weapon system almost exclusively for it. All kind of reasons thinkable.

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24 years 2 months

Posts: 5,396

The Wasp mini-missile takes me back...the company I worked for at the time was under contract to Hughes to develop the warhead for Wasp. (We had previously developed GATOR electonic AT/AP mines and warhead for Sensor Fused Weapon).

The warhead was a cute little shaped-charge affair with a tantalum liner. We conducted one test shot where the shaped charge penetrated 9+ feet of Class A hardened armor plate. We never got very far with warhead development because Wasp was cancelled due to cost.

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 9,683

We conducted one test shot where the shaped charge penetrated 9+ feet of Class A hardened armor plate. We never got very far with warhead development because Wasp was cancelled due to cost.

Pull the other one. ;)