“ROCKET-AGE ARMY”

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28284, 23 May 1957, Page 13

“ROCKET-AGE ARMY”

Demonstration In Britain (Bee. 9 p.m.) LONDON, May 21. Britan’s new “rocket-age” army showed one of its knock-out punches today—a 55-feet, six-ton missile that would make a conventional war-time artillery barrage seem paltry. For the first time in Britain, the Army’s latest weapon—the American “corporal” guided missile—was put on public view at the closely-guarded weapons wing of the School of Artillery at Larkhill, Wiltshire. The pencil-slim, olive-green weapon, which packs the punch of thousands of field guns, with its attendant complicated convoy of vehicles made its debut before movie cameras and reporters on a parade ground protected by a high wire fence. The complication and cost of these units were illustrated when no fewer than 10 vehicles paraded beside the missile. Each one carried equipment needed to launch a single missile that can carry an atomic warhead more than 50 miles. The missile itself consists of nine sections—behind the nose (only about a twentieth of the length) is the gyroscope section, high pressure air section, fuel tanks, power batteries, a section containing nitric acid to produce oxygen for the working fuel at high altitudes, the rocket motor and the fins and rudder. Origin of Equipment The equipment now in Britain, which is being used to train the country's rocket regiments, is 95 per cent. American. But no-one would say today whether or not the atomic warhead, when required, would be British or American-made. Huge and complicated as the weapon is, Britain’s artillery experts today declared its mobility and flexibility to be such that it could be set up and used in any terrain suitable for a conventional medium-gun. Whether it could be brought into use as quickly was not so clearly determined. British gunners estimated today it would take three hours to set up ana fire by daylight and four hours by night, because of the precision needed to determine ranges and firing data. Gunnery will still be a precise science, for the gunners at Larkhill proudly assert that they could land the missile at ranges of more than 50 miles within a yard of its objective.