The RUM-139 VL-ASROC is an
anti-submarine missile
In military terminology, a missile is a missile guidance, guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously ...
in the
ASROC family, currently built by
Lockheed Martin for the
U.S. Navy.
History
Design and development of the missile began in 1983 when
Goodyear Aerospace was contracted by the U.S. Navy to develop a ship-launched anti-submarine missile compatible with the new
Mark 41 Vertical Launching System. The development of the VLS ASROC underwent many delays, and it was not deployed on any ships until 1993. During this development, Goodyear Aerospace was bought by
Loral Corporation in 1986, and this defense division was in turn purchased by Lockheed Martin in 1995.
The first
VLS ASROC missile was an
RUR-5 ASROC with an upgraded
solid-fuel booster section and a digital guidance system. It carries a lightweight
Mark 46 homing torpedo that is dropped from the rocket at a precalculated point on its
trajectory, and then parachuted into the sea.
Beginning in 1996, the missile was replaced by the newer RUM-139A and subsequently the RUM-139B. The
torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...
remained the Mark 46, though at one time an improved torpedo called the
Mark 50 was proposed and then cancelled. In October 2004 the RUM-139C began production with the
Mark 54 torpedo.
The
vertical launch missile first became operational in 1993, with more than 450 having been produced by 2007. It is in length, with a firing range of about 11.8 nm or .
[Thomas, Vincent C. ''The Almanac of Seapower 1987'' Navy League of the United States (1987) pp. 190–91]
References
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Anti-submarine missiles of the United States
Military equipment introduced in the 1990s