SS.12/AS.12

The SS.12 and AS.12 are two variants of one French wire-guided missile, SS for surface-to-surface and AS for air-to-surface. It was designed in 1955 to 1957 by Nord Aviation, later Aerospatiale, as a scaled-up SS.11 with a much longer range and a heavier warhead, first meant for anti-shipping work from naval helicopters, aircraft and ground launchers. Trials began in 1956 and the air-launched AS.12 was tried in 1957. It has two solid-fuel motors, steers by thrust vectoring and is guided by two wires that unspool from the rear, with a flight time near 30 seconds and a range around 7,000 metres. Warheads included semi-armour-piercing, shaped-charge and fragmentation types. The AS.12 entered French Navy service in 1960 and was adopted by many navies for small patrol boats and helicopters. British helicopters used it against the Argentine submarine Santa Fe in the 1982 Falklands War.