Vickers Vigilant

The Vickers Vigilant was a British wire-guided anti-tank missile of the 1960s, steered by its operator by hand along a trailing wire, and used by the British Army. Development began at Vickers-Armstrongs in 1956 as a private project for the company missile department, and the design was complete by 1960 after extensive testing. The War Office showed little interest at first, but the Vigilant became an interim weapon to arm the Ferret armoured car until the Swingfire was ready. An order for several thousand missiles was placed late in 1961, which led to further orders from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Abu Dhabi and to a license to build it in the United States. About 18,000 were made, and it stayed in infantry and airborne use well into the 1970s.