The Vickers Vigilant was a British 1960s era

MCLOS Manual command to line of sight (MCLOS) 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 steered with a ...

wire-guided A wire-guided missile is a missile that is guided by signals sent to it via thin wires connected between the missile and its guidance mechanism, which is located somewhere near the launch site. As the missile flies, the wires are reeled out behi ...

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 ...

used by the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. It was also licence-built in the United States by Clevite for the

US Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

, and sometimes known as Clevite rounds in this case. It had a short service life, and replacement by the

Swingfire Swingfire was a British wire-guided anti-tank missile 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 ...

began in the mid-1960s.

History

Vigilant was a private development begun in 1956 by

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

' Guided Weapons Department at

Brooklands Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

for the anti-tank role in the British Army, the name being formed from ''VI''sually ''G''uided ''I''nfantry ''L''ight ''AN''ti-''T''ank missile. Vigilant was

, optically tracked and manually guided, like the missile it replaced in service, the

Malkara Malkara ( el, Μάλγαρα, Malgara) is a town and district of Tekirdağ Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is located at 55 km west of Tekirdağ and 190 km from Istanbul. It covers an area of 1,225 km², which makes ...

. In contrast to that system, however, Vigilant included a more sophisticated guidance system that imparted changes in velocity that produced a much smoother and more predictable motion, whereas the Malkara was considered difficult to accurately guide. The same system was reused in the later

missile. As well as infantry use, Vigilant could be mounted on vehicles such as the

Ferret armoured car The Ferret armoured car, also commonly called the Ferret scout car, is a British armoured fighting vehicle designed and built for reconnaissance purposes. The Ferret was produced between 1952 and 1971 by the UK company Daimler. It was widely ...

and

Land Rover Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers ...

s. Vigilant had a short service life as Swingfire started to replace Vigilant from 1966 onwards.

Description

The missile system could be deployed in a number of configurations. The man-portable configuration consists of a launcher which doubles up as a transport container, a combined sight and controller, a

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

and a 63 meter long cable. An optional Missile Selector Box allowed up to 6 missiles to be controlled by, and widely separated from, a single sight controller. The launcher box is placed on the ground facing the direction of expected targets, and then connected by the cable to the sight controller, which can be deployed some distance away. The sight controller is a pistol grip design, with two grips. The front grip has the launch trigger, and the rear grip has a thumb

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

for steering the missile. A low-magnification (3.2x)

monocular A monocular is a compact refracting telescope used to magnify images of distant objects, typically using an optical prism to ensure an erect image, instead of using relay lenses like most telescopic sights. The volume and weight of a monocul ...

forms the sight itself. Engraved stadia lines allow simple ranging, based on a typical tank target bridging the lines once in range. The operator tracks the target using the sight mechanism, then launches the missile using the front trigger. Once the missile is in flight, he steers the missile into his line of sight using the thumb joystick. The missile's auto pilot uses a

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...

to maintain a straight flightpath directly away from the launch point, compensating for any wind buffeting. When the operator moves the joystick, the missile applies a steering correction in the appropriate direction, once the joystick is released the opposite correction is applied automatically, keeping the missile travelling directly away from the launch point. Vigilant has a reputation for ease of control and high success with minimal operator training. This was largely due to the "velocity control" method of Vigilant, relying on gyroscopes, rather than the simpler "acceleration control" of competing missiles such as

Entac ENTAC ("Engin Téléguidé Anti-Char") or MGM-32A was a French MCLOS wire-guided Anti-tank missile. Developed in the early 1950s, the weapon entered service with the French army in 1957. Production ended in 1974 after approximately 140,000 had b ...

or SS.11. The missile reaches its maximum range of 1,375 meters in 12.5 seconds. In testing, the missile's

shaped charge A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, init ...

warhead penetrated 576 millimeters of armour of 30 to 35 HRC. Two type of warheads were provided for the Vigilant: A British developed warhead with a collapsible probe that extends on launch which can achieve maximum penetration, and one developed by Swiss firm CML with a blunter nose which has a hardened steel ring which, on oblique strikes, will dig into the armor and swing the shape charge warhead around for better penetration."BAC Weapons for the Army."
''Flight International'', 29 August 1963, bottom p. 312.

Operators

Former operators

; : * Abu Dhabi Defence Forces *

United Arab Emirates Army The United Arab Emirates Army is the land force branch of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. History From January 1993 to April 1994, UAE Armed Forces participated in humanitarian operations in Somalia under the United Task Force (UNITAF ...

; :

Finnish Army The Finnish Army (Finnish: ''Maavoimat'', Swedish: ''Armén'') is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces. The Finnish Army is divided into six branches: the infantry (which includes armoured units), field artillery, anti-aircraft ...

; :

Kuwait Army The Kuwait Army, established in 1949, is the oldest armed branch among the military of Kuwait. Its cavalry and infantry predecessors operated in desert and metropolitan areas in 1919, 1920 and 1928 to 1938, tracing their roots directly to the ca ...

; ; :

Royal Saudi Land Forces Royal Saudi Land Forces ( ar, القُوَّاتُ البَرِّيَّةُ المَلَكِيَّة السُّعُودِيَّة, Al-Quwwat al-Bariyah al-Malakiyah as-Su'udiyah) is the land warfare service branch of the Armed Forces of Saudi Ara ...

; ; :

;

References

Citations

Bibliography

* ''Brassey's Infantry Weapons of the World'', J.I.H. Owen *

External links

"Vigilant Success Story"
a 1960 ''Flight'' article {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Anti-tank guided missiles of the United Kingdom Anti-tank guided missiles of the Cold War Military equipment introduced in the 1960s Vickers