Swingfire was a British
wire-guided anti-tank missile
An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a missile guidance, guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy armoured fighting vehicle, heavily armored military v ...
developed in the 1960s and produced from 1966 until 1993.
The name refers to its ability to make a rapid turn of up to ninety degrees after firing to bring it onto the line of the sighting mechanism. This means that the launcher vehicle could be concealed and the operator, using a portable sight, placed at a distance in a more advantageous firing position.
Swingfire entered operational service in 1969 and underwent several major upgrades during its time in service. It was used on a number of vehicles including the
FV438,
FV102 and several truck mountings including the
Land Rover and
Ferret armoured car. Concepts adapting it to
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...
s,
tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...
s and even
hovercraft went nowhere. Swingfire remained in service on the FV102 Striker until 2005 when they were retired in favour of man-portable missiles.
Development
Earlier efforts
The
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
was among the first to introduce a heavy anti-tank missile when they introduced the
Malkara in 1958. The Malkara had a number of problems, among them that the missiles had to be raised into the line of sight for firing, and left a line of smoke from its
rocket motor that lingered long enough to point directly back to the launcher. Additionally, the guidance system was difficult to use and had limited performance against moving targets. Malkara was nevertheless purchased for the
airborne infantry to allow them to deal with Soviet armour at long range.
Desiring a more capable weapon, the
Ministry of Supply funded the
Orange William development at
Fairey Engineering Ltd beginning in 1954. The idea behind Orange William was that the launcher and guidance systems were separated by up to , allowing the launcher to remain far behind the front line while the small and heavily camouflaged guidance vehicle moved forward where it could see the enemy. Unfortunately, testing demonstrated the selected guidance system was easily blocked by smoke and dust, making it ineffective on the battlefield. Through this same period, the Army was developing the
Royal Ordnance L11 120 mm gun for the
Chieftain tank
The FV4201 Chieftain was the primary main battle tank (MBT) of the United Kingdom from the 1960s into 1990s. Introduced in 1967, it was among the most heavily armed MBTs at the time, mounting a 120 mm Royal Ordnance L11 gun, equivalent to t ...
, as development continued it appeared it would be able to defeat any Soviet tank design. The need for a heavyweight missile was less pressing and development of Orange William was cancelled in September 1959.
Through the same period, a much lighter man-portable weapon was also being developed, the
Vickers Vigilant. Based on the experience with Malkara, Vigilant introduced a much improved guidance system. While it was still manual, requiring the gunner to watch the missile approach the target, it used a new method of sending corrections to the missile that was far easier for the gunner to use, especially against moving targets. Vigilant went on to see widespread use in several nations including the United States.
Swingfire and TOW
The basic idea of under-cover fire remained of interest to the Army after the cancellation of Orange William, and the
Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) was given £250,000 a year to continue research into the basic concepts. As part of the resulting Project 12, they developed two basic concepts, Quickfire and Swingfire. The former appears to be a fast-action weapon, but few details have been made public. The latter was designed to allow it to be fired from under cover, like Orange William. As the company already had experience in the indirect fire role, and fearing it would otherwise lead to the breakup of their missile team, Fairey was issued a new development contract in October 1959.
The basic idea of the Swingfire concept was that
thrust vectoring of the rocket exhaust allowed the missile to make extreme maneuvers, including a right-angle turn immediately after launch. This was especially useful in urban settings like
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
; the gunner could take the sight up to from the launcher and position themselves along potential lines of approach, while the launcher parked down a side street or alleyways. The crew would then dial in the distance to the main line of fire and its angle relative to the launcher, and the missile would travel that distance and then turn, flying past the gunner and into his sights. The missiles could be fired without the launcher ever exposing itself to the enemy, and the gunner could remain hidden in a foxhole or building. While the rocket smoke would still give away the rough location of the launcher, the enemy would be unable to return fire against the hidden launcher and would have no idea where the gunner was located.
As the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
greatly increased its number of tanks during the 1960s, the long-range missile was once again considered important. The Soviet plan was to simply overrun
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
forces using sheer numbers, so a weapon that could attrit these forces before they reached friendly forces was highly desirable. The
US Army was equally interested in such a system, and in July 1961 the two countries signed the Rubel-Zuckerman Agreement for further development. Under this plan, the US would concentrate on short-range rapid-fire weapons, while RARDE would continue Swingfire development for the long-range role. Of the several concepts studied in the US, the
BGM-71 TOW
The BGM-71 TOW ("Tube-launched, Optically tracked, wire-guided missile, Wire-guided", pronounced ) is an American anti-tank missile. TOW replaced much smaller missiles like the SS.10 and ENTAC, offering roughly twice the effective range, a more ...
was ultimately selected. TOW used a
semi-automatic guidance system that was very easy to use and capable of easily tracking moving targets, but had limited accuracy in long-range use and had to fly directly at the target and thereby expose the gunner to attack.
As TOW developed, it continued to grow larger and gain more range, ultimately emerging as a much larger design similar to the Swingfire. The US suggested the British adopt the TOW, but the necessity for the tracker to be inline with the missile throughout its flight was considered completely unacceptable to the British while the US saw this as irrelevant. Any plans to introduce TOW in British service ended.
FV438 Swingfire
Initially, some consideration was given to adding four Swingfire missiles to the Chieftain. Their external mounting was a significant problem, and fitting them required changes to the sighting systems, none of which was inexpensive. As the
Royal Ordnance L11 main gun underwent development it proved far more powerful than expected and the extra hitting power of the Swingfire was no longer seen as a benefit worth the cost.
In November 1962, GOR.1174 was issued for a light vehicle to carry Swingfire instead, selecting the FV432 as its basis. The original design called for a roof-mounted rack with two launcher tubes angled upward at about 30 degrees. This allowed the vehicle to be placed behind barriers or inside entrenchments and the missile would pop up above it to clear the barrier. Aiming was accomplished either by the remote sight or one permanently mounted on a periscopic extension on top of the vehicle that allowed it to see over any fortifications in front. The launchers were mounted on a hinge at the rear that allowed them to be lowered for reloading. It swung through an angle of 45 degrees so the front was pointed slightly downward when lowered to allow the loader easy access to the front of the tubes from inside the vehicle. On firing, the rocket exhaust was directed forward through the tube, thereby eliminating any danger to troops near the vehicle.
The forward-firing rocket blast proved so powerful that it sometimes damaged the control wires or the missile itself. In one test, a simulated hangfire caused a fire that continued burning for three minutes and was believed it would have burned through the launcher and into the vehicle had it not been put out by a fire crew. The forward-exhaust concept was abandoned and a new launcher with open ports at the end of each tube was adopted. On launch, the exhaust hit the rear section of the vehicle deck and was deflected and spread out to a degree. Another change was that the two tubes were now separately mounted, instead of sharing a common hinge, which allowed one to be lowered for reload while the other was still in firing position.
Prototype problems
During testing, the system proved to have a huge number of minor problems and continually failed. It was not until 1969 that the system was considered even partially usable and the missiles began to work reliably.
A significant problem was due to the rocket's exhaust smoke. Previous missile designs like Malkara had left an exhaust trail pointing directly back to the launcher which could then be attacked. Swingfire didn't need to be concerned about the trail because the launcher itself would be hidden, so little effort was expended on using a lower-smoke fuel. In testing, it was found that the exhaust cloud was thick enough to obscure the missile or the target. This was especially a problem at long range when the missile was being viewed through the entire column of exhaust. This made aiming at long range largely a matter of luck, and as a result the accuracy proved to be below specifications.
The missile was initially presented to the Army for acceptance in July 1969. and on 28 July they initially rejected it until additional corrections were made. They also found the training systems were inadequate. The new owners of the system,
British Aerospace, agreed to make several changes to the design, and the Army eventually accepted the design on a provisional basis in August.
FV102 Striker
In 1960, the Army launched the Armored Vehicle Reconnaissance (AVR) program for a light tracked reconnaissance vehicle. The initial concept called for a single turret mounting both a gun and missiles, presumably Swingfire. However, attempts to design such a turret for a vehicle light enough for the requirements proved impossible and the project was cancelled in 1964.
In its place, an even lighter aluminium armoured vehicle was designed, the Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked), or CVR(T). This differed from AVR primarily in abandoning the single turret concept and using mission-specific turrets on different vehicles. The most widely produced version was the
FV101 Scorpion which mounted the 76 mm
L23A1 gun firing
HESH rounds capable of destroying most armoured vehicles, but not
main battle tanks.
For the heavy anti-tank role, the
FV102 Striker was designed, initially with a rotating turret mounting two Swingfire missiles on either side of the optics in the centre. However, this concept was seen as flawed as there was no need to rotate Swingfire to point at the target, so a new version was designed with five launcher tubes in a box along the rear of the vehicle. Another five rounds are stored in the vehicle, and like FV438, the tubes can be reloaded by lowering the tubes but the rounds have to be inserted from outside the vehicle.
Upgrades
The problem with the rocket exhaust became evident during the period in which new low-smoke
solid rocket motors were being developed in the US and Canada, and the company agreed to develop a new motor for Swingfire to be available for 1972. Another lingering problem was that the gyro which kept the missile flying level tended to drift and in some cases this caused it to hit the ground in front of the launcher instead of levelling off. This problem was corrected simply by angling the launch tubes up more.
A larger upgrade was the "Swingfire Improved Guidance", or SWIG. This added an
infrared tracker to the vehicle optics that tracked the rocket motor exhaust and sent the correct commands to the missile to bring it inline with the sights. This was the same basic system used on the TOW. This makes missile guidance much easier as the gunner simply has to keep their sight pointed at the target and does not have to make any corrections themselves.
Barr & Stroud introduced an infrared
spotting scope that was evaluated by the Army in 1982. This led to a 1984 purchase of 3,500 sights. British Aerospace later introduced a
thermal imaging sight that gave the missile much better night time performance.
Swingfire was developed by
Fairey Engineering Ltd and the
British Aircraft Corporation, together with
Wallop Industries Ltd and minor subcontractors. It replaced the
Vickers Vigilant missile in British service.
Besides its use on the
FV438 Swingfire and the
Striker armoured vehicles, Swingfire was developed to be launched from other platforms:
* FV712, Mk 5 Ferret with 4 missiles in use with the British Army
* ''Beeswing'' – pallet that can be mounted on a
Land Rover or similar.
* ''Hawkswing'' – on a
Lynx helicopter.
* ''Golfswing'' – on a small trolley or
Argocat vehicle.
Combat history
Swingfire was used in the
Gulf War
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Replacement in British Army
After a lengthy debate, the Swingfire was replaced with the
Javelin
A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon. Today, the javelin is predominantly used for sporting purposes such as the javelin throw. The javelin is nearly always thrown by hand, unlike the sling ...
in mid-2005 to meet new and changing situational requirements. The
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
invested heavily in the Javelin, and it is now the main heavy anti-tank missile system in use by the British Army.
Specification
* Diameter: 170 mm
* Wingspan: 0.39 m
* Length: 1.07 m
* Weight: 27 kg
* Warhead: 7 kg
HEAT
In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...
* Range: 150 m to 4000 m
* Velocity: 185 m/s
* Guidance: Wire-guided, originally
MCLOS
Manual command to line of sight (MCLOS or MACLOS) is a method for guiding guided missiles.
With an MCLOS missile, the operator must track the missile and the target simultaneously and guide the missile to the target. Typically the missile is ste ...
, later upgraded to
SACLOS
Semi-automatic command to line of sight (SACLOS) is a method of missile command guidance. In SACLOS, the operator must continually point a sighting device at the target while the missile is in flight. Electronics in the sighting device and/or the ...
, in which form the system is known as SWIG (Swingfire With Improved Guidance).
* Steering:
Thrust Vectored Control (TVC)
* Penetration: 800 mm
RHA
* Unit cost: £7,500
Operators
Current operators
*:
Egyptian Army
**Swingfire missiles were also produced in Egypt under license by Arab-British Dynamics.
*
*:
Kenyan Army
*:
Nigerian Army
*
*:
Saudi Arabian Army
*:
SPAF
Former operators
*:
Belgian Army
The Land Component (, ), historically and commonly still referred to as the Belgian Army (, ), is the Land warfare, land branch of the Belgian Armed Forces. The King of the Belgians is the commander in chief. The current chief of staff of the Land ...
*
FV102 Striker
* :
Imperial Guard (Iran) / :
Iranian Army
*:
Portuguese Army
** Used on the
Chaimite armoured fighting vehicle, now retired.
*:
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
** FV102 Striker – 5 in ready-to-fire bins.
**
FV438 Swingfire – Two firing bins
**
Ferret Mk 5 – Four firing bins
Decommissioning problems
In March 2002 20 warheads, removed for decommissioning, were washed into the
Bristol Channel along with 8
anti-tank mines. The
warhead
A warhead is the section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket (weapon), rocket, torpedo, or bomb.
Classification
Types of warheads include:
*E ...
s, with a total explosive weight equivalent to 64.2 kg of
TNT, were never located.
See also
*
CVR(T)
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
RAF MuseumRAF MuseumLive firing photo gallery, Strikers on German ranges, 1979Swingfire video
{{UKmissiles
Anti-tank guided missiles of the United Kingdom
Anti-tank guided missiles of the Cold War
Vehicle-mounted weapons
British Aircraft Corporation
Military equipment introduced in the 1960s
Wire-guided missiles