Vickers Vigilant

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Vigilant
History

Type	Wire-guided Anti-tank missile
Nationality	UK
Era	Cold War
Launch platform	infantry or vehicle
Target	armoured vehicles
Builder	Vickers-Armstrong (Aircraft) Ltd
Date of design	1956
Production period
Service duration	1960s
Operators	United Kingdom, Finland, Kuwait, Dubai, Switzerland
Variants
Number built
Specifications
Type
Diameter	0.12 m
Wing span	0.27 m
Length	3.5 ft (1.07 m)
Weight	31 lb (14 kg)
Propulsion	I.C.I. dual-thrust solid fuel rocket
Steering	control surfaces
Guidance	MCLOS wire-guided
Speed	348 mph (155.6 m/s)
Range	200 m to 1375 m
Ceiling	n/a
Payload
Warhead	HEAT, 6 kg
Trigger	impact

The Vickers Vigilant was a British MCLOS wire guided anti-tank missile used by the British Army. It was licence-built for the US Marine Corps as Clevite in the USA.

[edit] History

Vigilant was developed for the anti-tank role in the British Army, the name being formed from VIsually Guided Infantry Light ANti-Tank missile. Vigilant was wire-guided and optically tracked, like its successor Swingfire. As well as infantry use, it could be mounted on vehicles such as the Ferret armoured car and Land Rovers.

[edit] Description

The missile system can be deployed in a number of configuration. The man-portable configuration consists of a launcher which doubles up as a transport container, a combined sight and controller, a battery 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 for steering the missile. A low-magnification (3.2x) monocular 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 missiles auto pilot uses a gyroscope to maintain a straight flightpath directly away from the launch point, compensating for any wind buffeting. When the operating moves the joystick, the missile applies a steering correction in the appropraite 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 or SS11.

The missile reaches its maximum range of 1,375 meters in 12.5 seconds. In testing the missiles shaped charge warhead penetrated 576 millimeters of armour of 30 to 35 HRC.