Design and Development
Work on the project began in 1946. Initially there were two missiles designed — a subsonic design (the MX775A Snark) and a supersonic design (the MX775B Boojum).(From the same poem: "The snark was a boojum, you see.") Budget reductions threatened the project in its first year, but the intervention of Air Force General Carl Spaatz and the industrialist Jack Northrop saved the project. Despite this, its funding by Congress was low, and this program was dogged by changes in specifications. The earliest planned due date in 1953 passed with the design still in development, and the Strategic Air Command was gradually becoming less supportive of it. In 1955, President Eisenhower ordered that top priority be assigned to ICBMs and their associated guided missile programs.
Despite considerable difficulties with the development of the Snark, and reservations from the Department of Defense towards it, the engineering work continued.
In 1957, tests of the Snark showed an estimated circular error probable (CEP) of just 17 nautical miles (31.5 kilometers). By 1958, the celestial navigation system used by the Snark allowed its most accurate test, which appeared to fall four nautical miles (7.4 km) short of the target. However, this apparent failure was at least partially caused by the British Navigation Charts used to determine the position of Ascension Island being based on position determinations less accurate than those used by the Snark. The missile landed where Ascension Island would be found if more accurate navigation methods had been used when developing the chart. However, even with the decreased CEP, the design was notoriously unreliable, with the majority of tests suffering mechanical failure thousands of miles before reaching the target. Other factors, such as the reduction in operating altitude from 150,000 to 55,000 feet (46,000 to 17,000 meters), and the inability of the Snark to detect countermeasures and perform evasive maneuvers also made it a questionable strategic deterrent.
Read more about this topic: SM-62 Snark
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