Robot 08 (Rb 08) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

anti-ship missile. It was the first operational ship-based anti-ship missiles. The design was a development of the French Nord Aviation CT20 target missile and was manufactured by Saab. The project to develop the weapon was initiated in the 1950s and the missile entered service in 1966 aboard the s, later also serving with the

Swedish Coastal Artillery The Swedish Coastal Artillery ( sv, Kustartilleriet, KA) has its origin in the Archipelago Artillery that was raised in 1866. The Coastal Artillery was formed from the Archipelago Artillery, the Marine Regiment and parts of the Artillery in 1902 ...

. Guidance was via radio command and

active radar homing Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target aut ...

. The missile was replaced by the

RBS-15 The RBS 15 (Robotsystem 15) is a long-range fire-and-forget surface-to-surface and air-to-surface anti-ship missile. The later version Mk. III has the ability to attack land targets as well. The missile was developed by the Swedish company Saab ...

, being retired in 1995.

Development

The Royal Swedish Naval Materiel Administration experimented in the 1950s with the development of an anti-ship missile, with the project name M20. Disputes with the Air Force Materiel Administration over responsibility for missile development prolonged the development. Therefore, in 1962 the Naval Materiel Administration directed Saab to develop an anti-ship version of Nord Aviation's CT20 target missile. Saab worked with the French company on the development, with the missile, engine and some of the sensors developed in France and early flight tests taking place at a French launching ground in the Mediterranean Sea. Final production took place in the Nord Aviation factory of Méaulte (Somme) before components were sent to be reassembled in Sweden.

Design

The missile was long, with a diameter of . Wingspan was extended and folded. Height was . The missile was propelled by a Turbomeca Marboré IID jet engine and launched using a pair of rockets mounted on a launch sled, which added another to the weight. The rockets released when the missile was airborne, which took about 2 seconds. At takeoff, the missile's speed would be about , with a top speed of . The missile was guided by radio command and could be equipped with either cameras for scouting or an explosive warhead. The

system took control at about from the target, diving into a ship where a contact fuze would detonate the High Explosive

fragmentation Fragmentation or fragmented may refer to: Computers * Fragmentation (computing), a phenomenon of computer storage * File system fragmentation, the tendency of a file system to lay out the contents of files non-continuously * Fragmented distributi ...

warhead. Maximum range was about .

Service

The

Swedish Navy The Swedish Navy ( sv, Svenska marinen) is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet () – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps (). In Swedish, vessels o ...

ordered the missile in 1965 at a cost of 86 million kronor. After some test firing, the two s were equipped with the Rb 08 in 1966. It was the first operational ship-based anti-ship missile in the western world. The

organized a coastal missile battery in 1968 to operate the new weapon. A total of 98 missiles were built, production completing in 1970. A modernized version with a new seeker, Robot 08B, was planned, but did not come to fruition. Instead, the Rb 08 retired in 1995, replaced by the

, capable of both

surface-to-surface A surface-to-surface missile (SSM) or ground-to-ground missile (GGM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea and strike targets on land or at sea. They may be fired from hand-held or vehicle mounted devices, from fixed ins ...

and air-to-surface operation. Several Rb 08 are still preserved for display today.

References

External links

{{commons category, Robot 08 Rb 08 Guided missiles of Sweden Military equipment introduced in the 1960s