SS.10

The SS.10 was a French wire-guided antitank missile, developed as the Nord 5200 and the first of its kind placed in production. GlobalSecurity.org describes it as a light, self-propelled, auto-rotating missile steered by a gunner with a manual control stick, with commands passing along two electrical wires that unwound from the missile in flight. A booster motor and a sustainer motor, both solid propellant, launched it and held it at subsonic cruising speed, and it weighed 33 pounds including the warhead. Built mainly against tanks, it could also be used against personnel, gun emplacements, roadblocks and fortifications, and it could be fired from the ground, from a vehicle or from a helicopter or other aircraft flying slowly at low altitude. At about 1,000 dollars it was cheap enough that the US Army bought it from French production lines, and in 1958 the US Army Aviation Board found the helicopter-mounted AS.10 suitable for Army use. Most NATO nations adopted it, and the SS.11, ENTAC and SS.12 followed it.