Pictures from the Heritage Archives

At first glance you may well wonder why a picture of a guided missile can be found lurking in our archives, well, following initial work by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft A.W.A) were awarded the contract to develop and manufacture the Royal Navy’s first missile. Given the name of Seaslug. It was a beam riding ship to air missile that A.W.A developed along with Sperry and GEC. Whilst the contract was awarded in 1947, such was the complexity of the project it wasn’t until 1961 that it was finally cleared for service.

This image is of the Seaslug on a deployment trailer outside A.W.A’s Baginton Factory.

The following images were used by A.W.A in advertising copy around 1957/58, almost identical words appeared beneath each image.

The Royal Navy developed the new county class ships to accommodate both the missile launcher and the associated radar tracking and beam locking equipment. This image is of HMS Antrim firing a Seaslug during the Falklands conflict.