proyectil lacrosse..martin lacrosse missile by lodela[revell]in 1/40

[jetboy]

HI,

Been cleaning my shelves today found this,dusted it off,and thought i will show you this before i start a new updated one.First a bit of the history of the missile,very shortlived,but if you read and believe the blurb that comes with the instructions,its a very different story,a load of b*****ks,actually,but hey ho young minds to be moulded i suppose?right ......

Martin MGM-18 Lacrosse. The lacrossse was a SRBM (short range ballistic missile) verybriefly deployed by the US army late 50,s early 60.s designed for close support of ground troups and very high accuracy. but sadly the technology of the day wasn't up to the task. So it wasn't very successful.

Development started in 1947 by the US navy for the US Marine Corps and it was designed by the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of the John Hopkins University by Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL). 1949/50 it was turned over to the US army and they began testing in 1951 but development was very slow. It wasnt until 1953 that they decided to settle upom a solid propellant mortar. The radio command guidance system of Lacrosse was first tested by air launched Lark test missiles. The first actual prototype flight of the Lacrosse took place in April 1955 and then it was decided to select Martin as a prime contractor for the production of the missile, by that time known as Guided Missile Field Artillery. The first test flight of the Martin built Lacrosse took place in January 1957.

Another two years of testing before the missile was ready for service, in July 1959 the M4 Lacrosse Missile was delivered to operational army units. Because of a lot of operational problems i.e. limited use in bad weather and at night because it used portable optical tracking equipment also the radio command system wes easy to jam and use counter measures, thus rendering the missile uncontrolable and was very maintainance heavy. Because of all this the original customer, the US Marine Corps backed out in 1959. In 1960 the first Army Units acquired the missile system and then in January in 1961 the Army decided to terminate it and retire the missile asap.

Withdrawal started in 1963 and by 1964 was no longer in active service.

so here,s some pics also inc is a version by roco,which for its size is very accurate,enjoy....

the revell version

the roco version

cheers Don

Edited December 31, 2012 by jetboy

[PoppaMoomin]

I can remember looking at these at a friends house a long long time ago, always wanted one.