Blue Water Nuclear Missile

[Mossie]

The EE Blue Water was one those long lamented British cancelled projects from the 50's & 60's.  It was an impressive surface to surface missile for it's time that improved on all that went before it.

Background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Water_(missile)
http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/bluewater.htm

The missile was mounted on a 3 ton Bedford RL lorry, proposed launch vehicles were the Alvis Stalwart & FV432 APC.

Blue Water with Honest John


Stolly with Blue Water from Alvis advert


There was an air launched variant proposed for the TSR.2, either two underwing or one carried semi recessed in the weapons bay.
Freightdog do a set of two 1/72 missiles for the Airfix kit
Cammett did them in 1/48 but are now oop.
http://www.bisbos.com/rocketscience/aircraft/virtraf/tsr2/tsr2-bw1.html
TSR.2 CGI from Adrian Mann including Blue Water armed aircraft

[kitnut617]

Cammett did them in 1/48 but are now oop.

Cammett has closed down, but their Nimrod AEW was taken over by Mastercasters, so maybe we might still see this Blue Water set in the future

[alertken]

Mossie: long lamented..Not really. US agreed in 1954 to provide BAOR with Firestone MGM-5 Corporal F, nearly free of charge; W-7 warhead. Operated 9/57 (UK training unit) to 9/65. In 1958 US agreed to provide Douglas MGR-1B (W-31 warhead), operated 9/60 - 3/77. All were inter-operated with USArmy and other NATO Allies, all Tasked by Saceur. Warhead custody remained with USArmy. Did UK wish to deploy nuclear SSMs outside BAOR? In 1958 we thought we might (hard, isn't it, to work out what Ministers might have had in mind?) EE's INS had just been thrown off Blue Streak, so EE(GW) was funded to put it in an Expeditionary John. While we were doing that, US produced Sperry MGM-29A Sergeant. By 1962 US had started on (what became) Vought MGM-52C Lance (W-70 warhead), which BAOR would operate 1976-10/91.

We chopped BW 10/8/62 because we changed our mind on out-of-NATO-theatre deployment. Inside Central Front, under Saceur, BAOR had no solo Task, so why spend for unwanted independence, of SSM and/or of warhead (we did flurry awhile with a Red Beard variant, Violet Vision)? No point. UK had joyfully abandoned Central Front operational independence 24/8/49 when NATO had become effective.

(By then:) BAC(GW), Wiki, and PM Macmillan are, ah, mischievous on this cancellation, bewailing "lost" export opportunities: Sergeant: "not a European rocket. It's a racket of US industry." BW: "a better weapon (but pressure for Sergeant) was irresistible (on) favourable terms more common (for) washing machines (forcing) us to cancel at considerable loss" (£32.1Mn.) Memoirs/VI,P335. SSMs were NBC, not HE: warheads for any User would be under USArmy custody. UK would not/could not issue "UK" warheads to, say Bundeswehr; no-one would care to spend time and pain trying to fit a US warhead to a BAC SSM. Any "scandal" is not the chop, but that it endured, 1958-10/62, a product without a purpose.

[van883]

Cammett did them in 1/48 but are now oop.

Cammett has closed down, but their Nimrod AEW was taken over by Mastercasters, so maybe we might still see this Blue Water set in the future

What happened to Cammett?

Van

[PR19_Kit]

So all of the above invalidates an interest in modelling the subject?

Right on!  (that dates me of course.....  )

If we didn't model these things people would forget all about them in years to come, we're making HISTORY here. 

[kitnut617]

Cammett has closed down, but their Nimrod AEW was taken over by Mastercasters, so maybe we might still see this Blue Water set in the future

What happened to Cammett?

Van

I don't know, I saw an announcement somewhere (probably the Hannants hot newsletter) where it said that Cammett was closing down and if anyone wanted their stuff to get it now, because once it's gone, it's gone.

But then I see the Cammett website is still up, but I did find this on the site

https://sslrelay.com/cammett.co.uk/public_html/index.php?c=news&page=1&item=5

[IanH]

MasterCasters have most of the TSR2 stuff that Cammet had...

[Mossie]

Mossie: long lamented..Not really. US agreed in 1954 to provide BAOR with Firestone MGM-5 Corporal F, nearly free of charge; W-7 warhead. Operated 9/57 (UK training unit) to 9/65. In 1958 US agreed to provide Douglas MGR-1B (W-31 warhead), operated 9/60 - 3/77. All were inter-operated with USArmy and other NATO Allies, all Tasked by Saceur. Warhead custody remained with USArmy. Did UK wish to deploy nuclear SSMs outside BAOR? In 1958 we thought we might (hard, isn't it, to work out what Ministers might have had in mind?) EE's INS had just been thrown off Blue Streak, so EE(GW) was funded to put it in an Expeditionary John. While we were doing that, US produced Sperry MGM-29A Sergeant. By 1962 US had started on (what became) Vought MGM-52C Lance (W-70 warhead), which BAOR would operate 1976-10/91.

We chopped BW 10/8/62 because we changed our mind on out-of-NATO-theatre deployment. Inside Central Front, under Saceur, BAOR had no solo Task, so why spend for unwanted independence, of SSM and/or of warhead (we did flurry awhile with a Red Beard variant, Violet Vision)? No point. UK had joyfully abandoned Central Front operational independence 24/8/49 when NATO had become effective.

(By then:) BAC(GW), Wiki, and PM Macmillan are, ah, mischievous on this cancellation, bewailing "lost" export opportunities: Sergeant: "not a European rocket. It's a racket of US industry." BW: "a better weapon (but pressure for Sergeant) was irresistible (on) favourable terms more common (for) washing machines (forcing) us to cancel at considerable loss" (£32.1Mn.) Memoirs/VI,P335. SSMs were NBC, not HE: warheads for any User would be under USArmy custody. UK would not/could not issue "UK" warheads to, say Bundeswehr; no-one would care to spend time and pain trying to fit a US warhead to a BAC SSM. Any "scandal" is not the chop, but that it endured, 1958-10/62, a product without a purpose.

Blimey Ken, you've read far to deeply in to two words....

[Mossie]

Found this video on the Pathe archive.  Shows Blue Water being set up on the 3 tonner, then cuts to a test launch.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=42349

[rickshaw]

Interesting however I suspect that the missile being shown launched is not the missile on the back of the lorry.  For one thing, its white whereas the one on the back of the lorry is, I suspect, Bronze Green.  The one on the back of the lorry didn't appear to have an engine and it definitely lacked the fin tip flares seen on the one being launched.  I suspect the launch was at Woomera.

[Mossie]

Yep, you're right, that's the 'cut to' that I mentioned.  The rail it's launched from looks quite different that on the 3 tonner too, I suspect it's a fixed launch pad. There were some test flights at Aberporth & some at Woomera.

Here's another test firing borrowed from the Flight Archive, the truck used is set up differently to the mock up shown in the film.

[Martin H]

Cammett has closed down, but their Nimrod AEW was taken over by Mastercasters, so maybe we might still see this Blue Water set in the future

What happened to Cammett?

Van

I don't know, I saw an announcement somewhere (probably the Hannants hot newsletter) where it said that Cammett was closing down and if anyone wanted their stuff to get it now, because once it's gone, it's gone.

But then I see the Cammett website is still up, but I did find this on the site

https://sslrelay.com/cammett.co.uk/public_html/index.php?c=news&page=1&item=5

Robin "Chippy" Carpenter AKA mr Cammett. has given up the business due to poor health. Althou I have heard that he may well carry on doing airbrushing courses for the Airbrush company, and airbrush demos on the Littlecars stand at SMW2011.

He was selling off a lot of the fixtures an fittings off his stand at the coventry show. I got his old(ish) Iwata airbrush compressor.

On a side note, Robin is the man who created the paint scheme for that rather well known Hawker Hunter refered to as "Miss demenor"

[PR19_Kit]

Was there some sensible reason for the Blue Water to be launched 'hanging' from it's launch ramp, as opposed to sitting on it like an Honest John etc? It seems they'd be making difficulties for themselves doing it like that.

[rickshaw]

Was there some sensible reason for the Blue Water to be launched 'hanging' from it's launch ramp, as opposed to sitting on it like an Honest John etc? It seems they'd be making difficulties for themselves doing it like that.

Its an interesting question, particularly when one considers that they effectively "flip" over the entire missile.  Its stored on the truck inverted and when erected goes from near horizontal up and over to beyond vertical.   Just seems to me that its another of those strange British way of doing things, just to be different, compared to the rest of the world.   However, I also think that it is launched "hanging" from the launch rail would have made it a great deal easier to design an air-launched version.   Blue Water was one of those missiles which should have been.  "Vulcan's Hammer" has a fairly extensive discussion of its use as an air launched missile.

[Mossie]

The angle was to increase the height & therefore speed it could attain.  According to BSP 4, the Vickers 35nm missile had a flaw & that was it's 45⁰ slanted launch angle.  Vickers went with this because it reduced the risk of the missile coming down on it's own troops if it hicupped.  However, it couldn't gain the height to get up to high speeds (it could only attain mach 1.3) which meant it was vulnerable to SAMs.

EE came up with vertical launch proposals Red Rose (an adaption of the Thunderbird missile that wasn't satisfactory), then the much better Red Rose Ab Initio that used vertical launch & the latter spawned Blue Water.  I'm reading between the lines, but my guess is that Blue Waters near vertical launch was a compromise, you get a similar height but the angle gets it a minimum distance away if things go pear-shaped.  Other missiles have adopted a purely vertical launch such as Scud.

It's another guess, but I would imagine the reverse angle is to reduce the effect of the missile launch lifting the rear end of the lorry.  Blue Water had an impressive accuracy for it's time & it's possible that EE looked at every angle to improve this.