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ASM-N-8 Corvus

Corvus, a Navy supersonic air-to-surface missile [ASM], was a winged rocket designed to home on radars from a distance of about 75 miles. The Corvus missile was to be armed with a W-40 nuclear warhead of 10 kt yield. The Corvus was a big missile. It was 16 feet in length and weighed about 1750 lbs. It had delta wings to extend its range and cruciform tail surfaces set at 45 degrees from the delta wing.

In 1955, the US Navy advanced the requirements for a long-range air-to-surface missile equipped with nuclear warhead for the A3J Vigilante and A4D Skyhawk bombers. In accordance with these requirements, in April 1955, work was begun on the project AS of ASM-N-8 Raven. Soon work on the Raven program was discontinued and the designation ASM-N-8 was assigned to a parallel project of the anti-radar missile Corvus.

The contract for the development and creation of the missile in January 1957 was obtained by Temco. It was announced by the US Navy early in 1958 that Temco had complete responsibility for an air-to-surface weapon system known as the Corvus, including any necessary modifications to aircraft carrying the missile, and development of ground handling, test and checkout equipment and packaging.

Corvus consisted of a streamlined body, carrying mid-set delta wings and cruciform tail surfaces, indexed at 45 degrees to the wings. The missile was powered by a liquid propellant rocket engine. The powerplant was a Reaction Motors pre-packaged liquid-propellant rocket engine. The pre-packaged liquid fuel Patriot rocket motor was designed for the planned air-to-surface long range (75 miles) Corvus missile for the U.S. Navy, to be launched by carrier-borne aircraft against enemy ships or tactical land targets. The motor, of 1,030 pounds of thrust, was developed by the Reaction Motors Division of the Thiokol Chemical Corporation (RMD). The pre-packaged motor concept was pioneered by RMD by the mid-1950's and used storable, hypergolic (self-igniting) propellants. It was thus a simple system but much more powerful than comparable-sized solid-fuel motors.

Guidance was by W.L. Maxson Corporation of New York and Texas Instruments of Dallas. A sensor in its radome homed in on radar signals and guided the missile to a direct hit, and ignited its warhead. The passive radar GOS had the ability to be guided both to the radiation source and to the non-radiating target, illuminated by the radar of the carrier aircraft. On the cruising part of the flight, guidance could be made on the radio command line between the missile and the carrier aircraft until the missile's GOS missed the target. The rocket could be launched from both low and high altitudes.

When launched from a high altitude, the flight range of 315 km was achieved in the anti-radar mode of the GOS operation and 185 km in the semi-active mode. It also could lock onto a target that was illuminated by the launch aircraft in a semi-active homing mode against non-emitting targets, but in this attack mode the range was shorter at around 100 miles. A data link would have been used to guide the Corvus in semi-active homing mode until it picked up the radar returns from the target.

It is to be carried by such aircraft as the A4D, F4H and A3J to facilitate the penetration of heavily defended ship or shore targets. In 1958 William M. Holaday said that Corvus would take out "certain enemy equipment," leading to speculation that it may home on to enemy radars. One report said it was specifically intended for use against ship radar. First announcement of it was made in January 1957, when the Navy said that Temco Aircraft Corp. had been given responsibility for the management of the entire weapon system as prime contractor.

According to unofficial reports it can be employed in a variety of roles, the payload comprising either a nuclear or conventional warhead, or any of a variety of countermeasures systems. No clue regarding guidance had been publicly given by 1959, beyond the fact that one of the companies involved is W. L. Maxson Corp. Other Corvus sub-contractors were Bulova Research Laboratory, Texas Instrument Co., Horkey-Moore, Douglas Aircraft (Tulsa), Emerson, Talco Engineering, Williamson Co. and the Avion division of ACF.

During 1958 and the early part of 1959, comprehensive static testing took place at the prime contractor's works in Dallas and at the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu. After extensive ground tests at Temco's works, and at the Pacific Missile Range Test Center, Point Mugu, California, a test version of Corvus was successfully launched for the first time from a Douglas A-4D Skyhawk aircraft at Point Mugu July 18, 1959, when a test vehicle—likened to "a great gray goose" — was successfully fired. Twenty missiles were built and successfully tested; however, in 1959 the Navy decided not to fund production of the Corvus missile.

In March 1960, the XASM-N-8 test program reached fully controlled launches, but in July 1960 the program was discontinued. The reason for this was the transfer of responsibility for long-range missiles of the air-to-ground class to the US Air Force, which simply did not need a Corvus anti-ship missile.

Texas Instruments, which designed and was to produce the Corvus radar seeker guidance head, gained significant experience from the program and went on to work with the US Navy on the AGM-45 Shrike. This became the first American anti-radiation missile to be fielded and was used in combat for the first time in Vietnam.