I am looking for more information and above all for a photography of this rocket.
Developped as a French version of of the US Tiny Tim, in the beginning of the fifties, by the CEP company ("Chimie Et Propulsion) the "roquette de 180mm" consisted of a body of 50kg bomb mounted at a the tip of a 5" (127mm) rocket motor.
The body was in fact not an aircraft bomb body but a specially designed steel warhead, weighing 50kg together with its explosive filling.
The overall weight of the rocket was 80kg (exactly 83.4kg).
I have no data on its exact length, nor on its fuzing.
The following schema gives an idea of the look of this rocket, by comparison with the 5" HVAR and the T-10 (this last one using a 100mm diameter rocket motor)
(the CEP type 301 is the bottom one)
The surviving documentation I could access show that this rocket was successfully used in action by French Air Force F-84F during Musketeer operation (Suez intervention) in 1956, but its further use by French F-47 in 1959-1960 during the Algerian rebellion was much more ambivalent.
The production order of 100,000 CEP Type 301 Roquettes de 180mm was finally cancelled in 1960.
The reasons for this cancellation were multiple: beyond the reservations on its efficacity and posibility of use due to its weight and suspension system, the fact that the CEP was a small company with limited production capacity also had its importance (It was in fact more a research laboratory, with a small production unit, established in Auvergne after ww2, so limited that for the development of this rocket the French governement had to ask for an external expert in the field to come and 'reinforce" the staff of the company for the time of its development) . But the real cause dwells probably in the apparition of the MATRA rockets pods that offered a volume of fire and a diversity of projectiles that made such a rocket redondant. A similar fate, though with some delay was shared by the T-10 rocket, replaced progressively in the sixties by Oerlikon Sura rockets, a process that began alreday in the late fifties, then by Matra pods.
Whoever has more details on this rocket, and above all photographs, please.....
Developped as a French version of of the US Tiny Tim, in the beginning of the fifties, by the CEP company ("Chimie Et Propulsion) the "roquette de 180mm" consisted of a body of 50kg bomb mounted at a the tip of a 5" (127mm) rocket motor.
The body was in fact not an aircraft bomb body but a specially designed steel warhead, weighing 50kg together with its explosive filling.
The overall weight of the rocket was 80kg (exactly 83.4kg).
I have no data on its exact length, nor on its fuzing.
The following schema gives an idea of the look of this rocket, by comparison with the 5" HVAR and the T-10 (this last one using a 100mm diameter rocket motor)
(the CEP type 301 is the bottom one)
The surviving documentation I could access show that this rocket was successfully used in action by French Air Force F-84F during Musketeer operation (Suez intervention) in 1956, but its further use by French F-47 in 1959-1960 during the Algerian rebellion was much more ambivalent.
The production order of 100,000 CEP Type 301 Roquettes de 180mm was finally cancelled in 1960.
The reasons for this cancellation were multiple: beyond the reservations on its efficacity and posibility of use due to its weight and suspension system, the fact that the CEP was a small company with limited production capacity also had its importance (It was in fact more a research laboratory, with a small production unit, established in Auvergne after ww2, so limited that for the development of this rocket the French governement had to ask for an external expert in the field to come and 'reinforce" the staff of the company for the time of its development) . But the real cause dwells probably in the apparition of the MATRA rockets pods that offered a volume of fire and a diversity of projectiles that made such a rocket redondant. A similar fate, though with some delay was shared by the T-10 rocket, replaced progressively in the sixties by Oerlikon Sura rockets, a process that began alreday in the late fifties, then by Matra pods.
Whoever has more details on this rocket, and above all photographs, please.....