Green Cheese (missile)

Green Cheese, a rainbow code name, was a British-made radar-guided anti-ship missile project of the 1950s.[1][2] Green Cheese arose as part of the 'Sverdlov crisis', when the Royal Navy were concerned over the appearance of a new Soviet heavy cruiser class. It was a longer-ranged and guided replacement for the unguided Red Angel, which had required an approach by the attacker too close to be considered survivable.[3]

One of the earliest responses to the Sverdlov was the Red Angel anti-shipping rocket, essentially a greatly enlarged version of the armour-piercing RP-3 used during World War II. During development, concerns rose that the Westland Wyvern strike aircraft would not survive long enough to safely reach the 5,000 yards (4,600 m) launching range of the rocket. This led to a new operational requirement, OR.1123, calling for a weapon with 10,000 yards (9,100 m) range, which would keep the launch aircraft outside the effective range of the ship's anti-aircraft artillery.[4]

Fairey Aviation won the contract for a weapon to arm the larger Fairey Gannet shipborne anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and was originally called Fairey Project 7. The system was essentially a smaller version of the Vickers Blue Boar television guided bomb with the active radar seeker from the Red Dean air-to-air missile project. The main change was the make the wings smaller to reduce drag.[5]

However, the missile's 3,800 lb (1720 kg) weight proved to be too heavy for the Gannet, and would have required modifications to the Gannet's bomb bay to expose the missiles' seeker heads to the target before launch.[4] Another response to the Sverdlov was a new aircraft with enough performance to directly attack the ships and still be safe from its anti-aircraft suite, leading to the Blackburn Buccaneer. This new design had the size and performance needed to carry Green Cheese, and the project was reoriented to this aircraft.[5]

Even with the wing modifications, the drag proved too high to reach the desired range. This led to the addition of a rocket motor to extend the range. The motor was reused from the Smokey Joe motor from the Thunderbird surface-to-air missile. At this point two versions were envisioned, a version with fixed wings for the RAF's Vickers Valiant strategic bombers which would be used as long-range strike aircraft with four missile carried externally, and the original fold-out wings for the Buccaneer.[5] On the Buccaneer, the aircraft's own radar would be used to initial tracking and would hand off targeting information to the missile. On Valiant, the missile's own seeker would be used for this role.[6]

The original concept for the naval version was for the missile to hit the water about 150 feet (46 m) short of the target. This would crush the radome on the front of the missile, exposing an angled surface that would cause it to turn upwards and hit the side of the ship just under the waterline. However, arranging this to occur proved more difficult than initially imagined and was ultimately abandoned after adding time and cost to the project.[7]

By March 1955 it was clear the project was in trouble, and it was officially cancelled in 1956 due in part to cost over-runs. At which point it had a reached a stage called Cockburn Cheese (after the British military scientist Dr. Robert Cockburn).[7] It was replaced with the Green Flash project, armed with the Red Beard warhead. This too was cancelled and the idea of a tactical nuclear-tipped guided missile for anti-shipping use was given up in favour of a simple "lobbed" tactical nuclear bomb, the WE.177A.