Sea Cat - Service

Service

Sea Cat became obsolete due to increasing aircraft speed and the introduction of supersonic, sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. In these cases, the manually guided subsonic Sea Cat was totally unsuited to all but head-on interceptions and then only with adequate warning. A Sea Cat version was tested for intercepting targets flying at high speed near the water surface. This version used a radar altimeter, which kept the missile from being guided below a certain altitude above the surface and hence prevented the operator from flying the missile into the water. This version was never ordered.

Despite being obsolete, Sea Cat was still widely fielded by the Royal Navy during the Falklands war. Indeed, it was the sole anti-aircraft defence of many ships. However, unlike the modern and more complex Sea Dart and Sea Wolf systems, Sea Cat rarely misfired or refused to respond, in even the harshest conditions. It was capable of sustained action, which compensated for its lack of speed, range and accuracy; and, more importantly, it was available in large numbers.

One confirmed "kill" of an Argentine aircraft is directly attributed to this missile from over 80 launches, when on the 25 May HMS Yarmouth shot down an A-4C Skyhawk (C-319USN pic) flown by Teniente Tomás Lucero. Lucero ejected and was recovered by HMS Fearless.

After the Falklands conflict, a radical and urgent re-appraisal of anti-aircraft weaponry was undertaken by the Royal Navy. This saw Sea Cat rapidly removed from service and replaced by modern weapons systems such as Goalkeeper CIWS, more modern 20 mm and 30 mm anti-aircraft guns and new escorts carrying the Sea Wolf missile, including the vertical launch version.

The missiles were fitted to the four Swedish Östergötland-class destroyers, replacing three Bofors L/70 guns (a more modern and heavier variant than the Royal Navy's L/60) with a single launcher on each ship. The Östergötland-class destroyers, which were of late 1950s origin, were retired in the early 1980s.

Sea Cat was mounted on all six "River"-class destroyer escorts of the Royal Australian Navy and was removed from service when the final ship of this class was decommissioned in the late 1990s. In their final variant, fire control was provided by a GWS-21 guidance system supported by a Mk 44 fire control computer. Secondary firing positions based on visual tracking of the target through binoculars mounted on a syncro-feedback mount was also available. HMAS Torrens was the final ship to live fire the system prior to its removal from service; and this was also the only time three missiles were on the launcher and fired in sequence, resulting in one miss and two hits on towed targets.