The Tartar Guided Missile

Fire Control System A fire-control system (FCS) is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a Director (military), director and radar, which is designed to assist a ranged weapon system to target, track, and hit a target. It performs th ...

is an air defense system developed by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

to defend warships from air attack. Since its introduction the system has been improved and sold to several United States allies. Tartar missile

Description

The Tartar Guided Missile Fire Control System is a component of the overall Tartar Weapons System. It consists of the target illuminators and associated computer systems needed to fire a missile once a target has been identified. It operates in conjunction with the weapon direction systems (WDS), the ship's long-range air search radars, and the guided missile launch system (GMLS) to engage air targets. The Tartar FCS receives target designation information from the WDS. The system then acquires and tracks the target, positions the missile launcher, programs the missile with intercept data, and lets the WDS know that it is ready to fire. Once the missile is fired, the FCS provides CW illumination of the target and postfiring evaluation. There are two major families of Tartar FCS: the Mk. 74 and the Mk. 92. The latter is used on the and the former is used everywhere else. Each Mk 74 includes the

AN/SPG-51 The AN/SPG-51 is an American tracking / illumination fire-control radar for RIM-24 Tartar and RIM-66 Standard missiles. It is used for target tracking and Surface-to-air missile guidance as part of the Mk. 73 gun and missile director system, which ...

, a director Mk 73, a computer system, and associated consoles. The Mk. 92 contains a combined antenna system (CAS), a separate track illumination radar (STIR), weapon control consoles, a computer complex, and ancillary equipment.

Deployment

It was installed on numerous US

cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several operational roles from search-and-destroy to ocean escort to sea ...

and

destroyers In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

in the 1960s through early 1990s such as the s, s, s and the s. It is also in use in other countries such as the fleet escorts of the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

''Kersaint'', ''Bouvet'', ''Du Chayla'' and ''Dupetit-Thouars'', and was also in use on and .

RIM-66B Standard

Starting in the middle 1960s a new family of guided missiles referred to as the Standard missiles were developed to replace the poor performing missiles used by existing fire control systems. The RIM-66A/B Standard replaced the earlier RIM-24C Tartar used by the system. The new missile made Tartar into a true medium ranged system. Besides having longer range than the RIM-24, the new missile was more accurate and reliable.

New Threat Upgrade

Vessels of the ''California'', and ''Virginia''-class cruisers and the Kidd-class destroyers had their Tartar systems upgraded to modification 14 or 15 standard which enabled them to employ the Standard Missile 2 as part of the

New Threat Upgrade New Threat Upgrade (NTU) was a United States Navy program to improve and modernize the capability of existing cruisers and destroyers equipped with Terrier and Tartar anti-aircraft systems, keeping them in service longer. The Program was sele ...

(NTU) program. The New Threat Upgrade equipped vessels could utilize the

inertial guidance An inertial navigation system (INS; also inertial guidance system, inertial instrument) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning ...

systems on the SM-2 and time share illumination radars for semi-active homing in the terminal phase of the intercept, increasing the number of targets the Tartar system could attack at the same time. The

Tartar ships could function nearly as well as Aegis Combat System equipped vessels, except for dealing with saturation missile attacks. The NTU still requires the AN/SPG-51 radar to acquire a lock on the target and illuminate it just before intercept.

References

{{reflist

External links