Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: ASISKIND@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU (The Frosh) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Know anything about the FOG-M Message-ID: <1991Feb7.013501.1382@cbnews.att.com> Date: 7 Feb 91 01:35:01 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 35 Approved: military@att.att.com From: The Frosh X-VMS-News: eagle.wesleyan.edu sci.military:6556 > From: tborge@viewlogic.com (Tom Borge) > I seem to recall 3 or 4 years ago I heard or read about the FOG-M (Fiber Optic > Guided Missle). As I recall, it was developed privately and was touted as far > superior to the TOW. It was larger than the TOW, but like the TOW it trailed > a control cable, but this one was a fiber optic cable. Also, it was controled > remotely, the "flyer" did not have to stand ( and be exposed ) at the launch > site. stuff deleted > Does anyone else remember the FOG-M, and if so do you know whatever > happened to it? I read an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about one week before the war broke out about the FOG-M (all the details are from memory, so please forgive any mistakes). The FOG-M was cancelled by the U.S. Army after a "much improved" version had a disasterous flight test in front of top Army brass. The FOG-M was originally conceived as a daytime, manually guided weapon (with an optical site with a fibre optic cable connecting it with the launcher) with a range of about three miles and a cost per unit of about $20000. The U.S. Army then decided that it wanted a weapon that could be used day or night and (I assume) with some adverse weather capability, so an infra-red seaker head was used (I'm assuming that it replaced the optical head). The missle was subject to so many "improvements" that its cost rose to about $75000 per missle without a corresponding increase in performance, and after the test firing (where, if I remember correctly, the first launch was a dud or a failure and when the soldier firing the missle attempted to destroy it remotely, he accidently crossed the wires, and blew up the second test missle) the missle was finally cancelled, which is a real shame because if the missle was available in its original, "unimproved" form, it would certainly make life much easier for our troups in Saudi Arabia (by making it easier to destroy the Iraqui tanks buried in the desert).