Brakemine

Brakemine was an early surface-to-air missile (SAM) development project carried out in the United Kingdom during World War II. Brakemine used a beam riding guidance system developed at A.C. Cossor, while REME designed the testbed airframes. Trial launches were carried out between 1944 and 1945, and the effort wound down as the war ended. Although Brakemine would never be used in its original form, its use of the "twist-and-steer" guidance method would later be used on the much more capable Bristol Bloodhound. A single Brakemine survives in the REME Museum.

Brakemine was the result of two independently developed versions of the beam riding guidance system concept. In 1942, Captain Sedgfield of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) wrote a technical paper on the concept. In 1943, Leslie H. Bedford, director of research at A.C. Cossor, independently developed the same idea while on a long train ride.

The filing of two similar concepts led to a conference at the headquarters of Anti-Aircraft Command (AA Command), attended by Sir Frederick Pile and Brigadier J.A.E. Burls, Chief Mechanical Engineer of AA Command (and inventor of the Pile Platform). A follow-up meeting started planning for a number of committees to study development of the concept, but worried that this would lead to lengthy delays, Burls decided to allow Cossor a free hand to develop the guidance system while (now) Major Sedgfield would handle rocket development at the AA Command's workshops at Park Royal. Development began in February 1944.

The Brakemine missile developed as a simple cylindrical airframe with an ogive nosecone, small elliptical wings mounted near the center of gravity, and four small fins at the rear. The missile was powered by eight solid rockets taken from the existing Unrotated Projectile anti-aircraft rocket (also used on the RP-3); later models used six rockets. Its flight was controlled using the "twist-and-steer" method of the two main wings. These were connected to the missile fuselage with pivots, allowing them to rotate to different angles of attack. To turn the missile, the wings would first rotate in opposite directions to cause the missile to roll. Once the wings were perpendicular to the required direction, they would then be rotated in the same direction, creating lift to change its course.

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