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Little RASCAL: the first stand-off weapon: an inside look at the amazing Bell GAM-63: although not considered as an ultimately successful operational program, the RASCAL nevertheless gave an insightful look into the world of long-range stand-off weapons.

Article Excerpt
During the late-1940s and early-1950s, American planners began worrying that ever increasing Soviet air defenses would soon make high-altitude penetration by piston-engine Convair B-36 and Boeing B-50 long-range strategic bombers impossible. Consequently, the Air Force began looking for alternate nuclear deterrents. Foremost in the planning were faster bombers--the jet-powered Boeing B-52, supersonic Convair B-58, and triple-sonic North American B-70 were all expected to provide much improved capabilities over their piston-engine predecessors. The possibility of exotic weapons such as atomic-powered bombers (WS-125A) and even suborbital hypersonic vehicles (BoMi and RoBe) were also considered, although none came to fruition.

A dark horse, at least in the mind of General Curtis E. LeMay and the Strategic Air Command, was the ballistic missile. Early tests on extending the range of the German V-2 into something strategically useful were not promising, and most within the Air Force dismissed the concept of an intercontinental ballistic missile in the foreseeable future. Instead, the Air Force began investigating intercontinental cruise missiles, such as the Martin TM-61 Matador, Northrop SM-62 Snark, and North American SM-64 Navaho, believing these would be much easier to develop than the ICBM. A few winged missiles were briefly fielded (see AIRPOWER, May 2004), but eventually Navaho failed while Atlas and Titan succeeded.

While all of this was going on, some within the Air Force became intrigued with the concept of marrying a stand-off missile to a manned bomber. This appeared to be a relatively rapid way to improve the ability of the B-36 and B-50 to attack the Soviets while development of advanced weapons proceeded. It was much the same thinking that later led to the Boeing AGM-69 Short Range Attack Missile (SRAM) and Boeing AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) for the B-52 and B-1.

However, there were no large air-launched missiles in the inventory at the time, only a few small, unguided, solid-propellant rockets. The development of air-to-air missiles was underway, but it would be several years before the programs reached fruition. There was also a lack of technology suitable for an air-launched guided missile. There were no inertial navigation platforms, digital computers, or star trackers to use in guidance systems, and the Global Positioning System had not even been imagined. The radar of the day was bulky and heavy, not to mention terribly unreliable (manned bombers often carried a radar technician with them to perform in-flight maintenance). Most rocket engines were not particularly powerful and used toxic and difficult-to-handle liquid propellants. Worst of all, atomic warheads available at that time were heavy and cumbersome.

Despite this bleak background, senior officials needed to develop weapons that could maintain the balance of power during an escalating Cold War and directed the Air Force to pursue marrying an air-launched nuclear missile with the B-36 and B-50 bombers.

As early as 1946, the U.S. Army Air Forces had awarded study contracts for ground attack missiles to several aerospace companies. Using the results of these studies, in May 1947 the Air Force awarded Bell Aircraft Company a development contract for the ASM-A-2 air-to-surface missile as part of Project MX-776. The supersonic RASCAL "pilotless parasite bomber" was to be compatible with the B-36 and B-50 and have a range of 100 miles. It was obvious...