The Air Force and the National Guided Missile Program

This AFCHO monograph covers USAF participation in the national guided missile program that slowly evolved between the closing months of World War II and the beginning of the Korean War. The first generation of missile projects laid the groundwork for a later and much more successful range of weapons. Navaho and Rascal proved the technologies that were later used for the AGM-28 Hound Dog and AGM-69 SRAM missiles. These same technologies later gave birth to the current generation of cruise missiles. These can be seen as a successful implementation of the design concepts first developed in the late 1940s. Today in the second decade of the 21st century pilotless aircraft are a widely used and deadly part of the American airborne arsenal. Technology has caught up with the visions of those who had conceived the first generation of guided missiles in the 1940s.