MGM-5 Corporal
Encyclopedia
MGR-1 Honest John
The MGR-1 Honest John rocket was the first nuclear-capable surface-to-surface rocket in the US arsenal.The first nuclear-authorized guided missile was the MGM-5 Corporal. Designated Artillery Rocket XM31, the first such rocket was tested 29 June 1951 and the first production rounds were delivered...
. A surface-to-surface guided missile
Guided Missile
Guided Missile is a London based independent record label set up by Paul Kearney in 1994.Guided Missile has always focused on 'the underground', preferring to put out a steady flow of releases and developing the numerous GM events around London and beyond....
, the Corporal could deliver either a nuclear fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...
or high-explosive warhead up to a range of 75 nautical miles (139 km).
Developed by the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
in partnership with Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900 to supply pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles. The company...
, Gilfillan Brothers Inc., Douglas Aircraft Company
Douglas Aircraft Company
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer, based in Long Beach, California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas...
and Caltech’s pioneering Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
, the Corporal was designed as a tactical nuclear missile for use in the event of Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
hostilities in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. The first U.S. Army Corporal battalion was deployed in Europe in 1955. Six U.S. battalions were deployed and remained in the field until 1964, when the system was replaced by the solid-fueled MGM-29 Sergeant
MGM-29 Sergeant
The MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range, solid fuel, surface-to-surface missile developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Activated by the US Army in 1962 to replace the MGM-5 Corporal it was deployed overseas by 1963, carrying the W52 nuclear warhead or alternatively one of high explosives...
missile system.
Design and development
The Corporal was first developed in White Sands Missile RangeWhite Sands Missile Range
White Sands Missile Range is a rocket range of almost in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR includes the and the WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range...
, New Mexico drawing on the technical experience and expertise that the Americans acquired from the German V-2 rocket
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
program after the Second World War. After being sold to Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1954, it became the first U.S. guided missile destined for service in a foreign country to be used by a foreign power. Subsequent test-firing by British and German Corporal battalions took place in the Scottish island of South Uist, where a special Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
"Guided Weapons Range" was built at West Gerinish in 1957-58.
For what was the front line of nuclear defense, the Corporal missile was notoriously unreliable and inaccurate.* It used a liquid-fueled
Liquid rocket
A liquid-propellant rocket or a liquid rocket is a rocket engine that uses propellants in liquid form. Liquids are desirable because their reasonably high density allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low, and it is possible to use lightweight pumps to pump the propellant from...
rocket burning red fuming nitric acid
Nitric acid
Nitric acid , also known as aqua fortis and spirit of nitre, is a highly corrosive and toxic strong acid.Colorless when pure, older samples tend to acquire a yellow cast due to the accumulation of oxides of nitrogen. If the solution contains more than 86% nitric acid, it is referred to as fuming...
and hydrazine
Hydrazine
Hydrazine is an inorganic compound with the formula N2H4. It is a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like odor. Hydrazine is highly toxic and dangerously unstable unless handled in solution. Approximately 260,000 tons are manufactured annually...
; this required elaborate and time-consuming preparation immediately before launch, making its tactical responsiveness questionable. For guidance, it employed commands sent through a reworked World War II-era radar system. Until 1955, its in-flight accuracy was less than 50 percent, with only modest improvements thereafter. The first year of British test firings in 1959 yielded a success rate of only 46 percent, a dismal record which raised questions among military planners of its operational effectiveness in Germany.
- While this may have been true of the first deployed Corporal missiles, the later generation Corporal Type IIB were surprisingly accurate for their time.
Guidance consisted of a complex system of internal and ground guidance. During the initial launch phase, inertial guidance (internal accelerometers) kept the missile in a vertical position and pre-set guidance steered it during its launch. The ground guidance system was a modified SCR584 pulse tracking radar which measured the missile's azimuth and elevation, as well as its slant range. This information was sent to an analog computer which calculated the trajectory and any necessary correction to hit the target. A Doppler radar was used to accurately measure the velocity and this information was also used in the trajectory calculation. The Doppler radar was also used to send the final range correction and warhead arming command after the missile re-entered the atmosphere. Transponder beacons were used in the missile to provide a return signal.
Corporal Missile Battalions in Europe were highly mobile, considering the large number of support vehicles and personnel required to support the transportation, checkout, and launch of this liquid-fueled nuclear-tipped (or conventional HE) missile. In Germany, frequent unannounced "Alerts" were performed-- necessitating assembling all personnel and moving vehicles and missiles to a pre-assigned assembly point. From there the battalion would move to a launch site-- usually somewhere in a remote forest-- set up the missile on its launcher and go through a detailed checkout of the various systems. This was not a trivial operation as these electronic systems were all vacuum tubes. A mock firing would be performed and the entire batallion would be gone as soon as possible in order to not be a target of counter-battery fire. The deployment in the field during an Alert was amazingly swift due to the highly trained crews.
One outstanding Corporal Missile unit, the 1st Missile Batallion of the 38th Artillery (1/38th) was stationed in Babenhausen Kaserne. Its fire mission was to protect the Fulda Gap from an armored invasion by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations. Eventually the Corporal IIB was overtaken by advances in technology and in 1963 they began to be deactivated-- replaced by the Sergeant missile system.
Merchandising
A version of the Corporal was made as a die-cast toyDie-cast toy
The term die-cast toy here refers to any toy or collectible model produced by using the die casting method. The toys are made of metal, with plastic, rubber or glass details. Wholly plastic toys are made by a similar process of injection moulding, but the two are rarely confused...
by manufacturers such as Corgi and Dinky. The Corgi Corporal—marketed to children as 'the rocket you can launch'—was timed to coincide with the British test firing in 1959.
A 1/40 scale plastic model kit of the Corporal missile with its mobile transporter was produced in the late 1950s and was reissued by Revell-Monogram in 2009.
Operators
- British ArmyBritish ArmyThe British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, Royal ArtilleryRoyal ArtilleryThe Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
- 27th Guided Weapons Regiment RA 1957-1966
- 47th Guided Weapons Regiment RA 1957-1965
- United States ArmyUnited States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
- 246th Missile Battalion reflag as 2nd Bn, 80th Art (Fort Sill)
- 259th Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 40th Art (Fort Bliss)
- 523rd Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 81st Art (Fort Carson)
- 526th Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 84th Art (Fort Sill)
- 530th Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 39th Arty (Germany)
- 531st Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 38th Arty (Germany)
- 543rd Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 82nd Arty (Italy)
- 557th Missile Battalion reflag as 2nd Bn, 81st Arty (Germany)
- 558th Missile Battalion reflag as 2nd Bn, 82nd Arty (Germany)
- 559th Missile Battalion reflag as 2nd Bn, 84th Arty (Germany)
- 570th Missile Battalion reflag as 1st Bn, 80th Arty (Italy)
- 601st Missile Battalion reflag as 2nd Bn, 40th Arty (Germany)
See also
- List of U.S. Army weapons by supply catalog designation (SNL Y-3)
- Frank MalinaFrank MalinaFrank Joseph Malina was an American aeronautical engineer and painter, especially known for becoming both a pioneer in the art world and the realm of scientific engineering.-Early life:...
- Private (missile)Private (missile)The Private was the first U.S. step rocket, combining a Tiny Tim rocket and a 30AS-1000C JATO unit. Tsien Hsue-shen was the JPL section leader who directed research for the Private A....
- Wac CorporalWac CorporalThe WAC or WAC Corporal was the first sounding rocket developed in the United States. Begun as a spinoff of the Corporal program, the WAC was a "little sister" to the larger Corporal. It was designed and built jointly by the Douglas Aircraft Company and the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory.The...
- MGM-29 SergeantMGM-29 SergeantThe MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range, solid fuel, surface-to-surface missile developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Activated by the US Army in 1962 to replace the MGM-5 Corporal it was deployed overseas by 1963, carrying the W52 nuclear warhead or alternatively one of high explosives...
- List of U.S. Army Rocket Launchers by model number