AGM-53 Condor as it could have been

[DDE]

The Condor was a large US Navy air-to-ground missile using TV guidance for long-range precision attack.

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Industry proposals for the Condor were received in 1964, and in July 1966, Rockwell was awarded a development contract for the Condor missile system. Because of numerous problems in the development phase, the first flight of an XAGM-53A missile did not occur before March 1970.

The engineering development and operational evaluation phases of the Condor program were completed in July 1975, and procurement of 250 operational AGM-53A missiles was planned for 1976. Condor was to be used mainly by the A-6E Intruder, but the A-7 Corsair and even the F-14 Tomcat were at also considered as launch platforms. This was not to be, however, because the AGM-53 program was cancelled in March 1976. Its long range and potentially high precision made the Condor a very powerful weapon, but it was much more expensive than contemporary tactical air-to-ground weapons. The secure data link contributed a signficant portion to total missile cost, and it certainly didn't help that this link was still somewhat unreliable. Additionally, the relatively small warhead made the missile possibly ineffective against those larger targets, which would have warranted the use of such a costly weapon.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-53.html

Here's where it goes full Kerbal:

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Originally, it was intended to develop a storable liquid-fuel rocket engine, but because of technical problems this had to be replaced by a less powerful solid rocket motor

You see, I actually learnt of that thing from Sutton:

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The Condor program was started by the Navy in the mid-1960s using a high-energy, high-density oxidizer, namely chlorine trifluoride (C1F3) and the fuel was a mixture of hypergolic amine compounds. This oxidizer is very toxic and corrosive with most materials. Some of the Navy operating people were not enthusiastic about putting C1F3 into any ship. The thrust was in the 3000-to 4000-lbf thrust range with deep throttling (15 to 1.0 range). It used thin collapsible stainless-steel bladders to confine the propellants and separate them from the pressurizing gas, which would otherwise dissolve in the liquid pro-pellants. The technical problems of corrosion and deep throttling caused delays and overruns, which in turn brought on the canceling of the project in 1967. 

Did someone say "small warhead!?"

I'm fascinated by fluorides. My love for them is proportionate to my distance from them. And I think it's one of the times they were closest to making it into an operational weapon.

[Guest]

ClF3 would not have contributed to explosive power. Missiles, typically, burn out long before they reach the target. There would be no significant fuel or oxidizer remaining in the tanks by the time it hit. 

This was basically SLAM, only that one has a solid motor, a datalink that works, and a 450kg warhead from the Tomahawk that can actually do some damage.

[YNM]

52 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

ClF3 would not have contributed to explosive power.

I think the problem would be with handling - they said that some of the stuff they use on ships/subs/airplanes can only be of certain sizes, and they wanted to meet a certain performance that only fluorides could provide. Maybe.

[DerekL1963]

42 minutes ago, YNM said:

I think the problem would be with handling - they said that some of the stuff they use on ships/subs/airplanes can only be of certain sizes, and they wanted to meet a certain performance that only fluorides could provide. Maybe.

Yeah, there's some pretty strict size/weight limitations (mostly) due to carrier weapons elevators and the size of the hatches on submarines..

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

mixture of hypergolic amine compounds

With pentaborane it would be just perfect.

[DDE]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

With pentaborane it would be just perfect.

Yiu forgot aluminium (which works with fluorine oxidizers anyway) or, better yet, beryllium.

[Codraroll]

On 9/10/2020 at 4:54 PM, YNM said:

they wanted to meet a certain performance that only fluorides could provide. Maybe.

That any boarding parties would abandon the vessel once they saw the labeling on the ship's cache of armaments?

[YNM]

11 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

That any boarding parties would abandon the vessel once they saw the labeling on the ship's cache of armaments?

That's probably why it was abandoned XD They probably think that no way anyone's going to swallow the pill, even if they safed it enough by military standards (which can be pretty darn low given they're already committed to work in rather dangerous situations anyway).

But yeah, I've seen Destin Sandlin's videos of submarine stuff, some of the weapons systems can only accept weapons of certain sizes so anything designed to be compatible with existing systems have a hard limit on dimension. Retrofitting some stuff can be some equally (if not more) hard work on the other hand... so unless it's really necessary I think they'll just introduce it later for new designs or something (I question you can't upgrade something and it be compatible with an older standard) using safer stuff. (well, "safe".)

Edited September 14, 2020 by YNM

[magnemoe]

20 hours ago, YNM said:

That's probably why it was abandoned XD They probably think that no way anyone's going to swallow the pill, even if they safed it enough by military standards (which can be pretty darn low given they're already committed to work in rather dangerous situations anyway).

But yeah, I've seen Destin Sandlin's videos of submarine stuff, some of the weapons systems can only accept weapons of certain sizes so anything designed to be compatible with existing systems have a hard limit on dimension. Retrofitting some stuff can be some equally (if not more) hard work on the other hand... so unless it's really necessary I think they'll just introduce it later for new designs or something (I question you can't upgrade something and it be compatible with an older standard) using safer stuff. (well, "safe".)

Yes almost everything launched from an ship has constrains, torpedo tubes, vertical launch array bays and obvious guns.
As this was an airplane weapons they was freer but you still needed to store it in the magazine and then mount it to the plane. 
 

[YNM]

12 hours ago, magnemoe said:

As this was an airplane weapons they was freer but you still needed to store it in the magazine and then mount it to the plane. 

I can imagine they were limited by their weight however.