The Diamondback was a proposed nuclear-armed air-to-air missile studied 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 ...
's
Naval Ordnance Test Station during the 1950s. Intended as an enlarged, nuclear-armed version of the successful
Sidewinder missile, Diamondback did not progress beyond the study stage.
Development history
In 1956, studies began at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) at China Lake,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
involving an advanced development of the AAM-N-7 (later AIM-9) Sidewinder air-to-air missile, which was then entering service with the United States Navy. Originally known as "Super Sidewinder", the program soon gained the name "Diamondback", continuing China Lake's theme of naming heat-seeking missiles after
pit viper
The Crotalinae, commonly known as pit vipers,Mehrtens JM (1987). ''Living Snakes of the World in Color''. New York: Sterling Publishers. 480 pp. . or pit adders, are a subfamily (biology), subfamily of Viperidae, vipers found in Asia and the ...
s.
[Babcock 2008, pp.324-325.]
Diamondback was intended to provide increased speed, range and accuracy over that achieved by Sidewinder.
[Jacobs and Whitney 1962, p.47.] The missile's design called for it to be armed with either a powerful
continuous-rod warhead
A continuous-rod warhead is a specialized munition exhibiting an annular blast fragmentation pattern, thus when exploding it spreads into a large circle cutting through the target. It is used in anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles.
Early an ...
or a low-yield
nuclear warhead
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...
,
[Parsch 2024] the latter developed by China Lake's Special Weapons Division, and which would have a yield of less than .
[Babcock 2008, p.328.]
The propulsion system was intended to be a liquid-fueled,
dual-thrust
In a dual-thrust solid propellant rocket engine, the propellant mass is composed of two different types (densities) of fuel. In the case of a tandem dual-thrust motor, the fuel nearest to the rocket nozzle burns fast, and the fuel further into th ...
rocket,
using
hypergolic
A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other.
The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...
,
storable propellant
A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or another motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, th ...
s.
[Babcock 2008, pp.387-390] The rocket motor planned for use in the Diamondback missile was based on that developed by NOTS for the Liquid Propellant Aircraft Rocket (LAR) project.
[Babcock 2008, p.537.]
Although the design studies were promising, the Navy did not have a requirement for a missile of this sort. As a result, the Diamondback project was dropped; studies came to a halt around 1958,
while by the early 1960s the project was considered "inactive" and was allowed to fade into history.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
{{USN missiles
Cold War air-to-air missiles of the United States
Nuclear missiles of the United States
Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States
Nuclear anti-aircraft weapons