Army·Weapon system retired·In Memoriam
Chaparral Crewmember
16P
Served: 1969–1998
Crewed the M48 Chaparral — an AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile, bolted to an M113 chassis, pointed up.
The Story
The Army's solution to "we need a mobile SAM in a hurry" in the late 1960s was to take a Navy fighter missile and weld it to a tracked carrier. It worked for 30 years.
Epitaph
“A Navy missile in an Army hat. The match somehow held for 30 years.”
Sources
- Wikipedia — M48 Chaparralen.wikipedia.org
- Redstone — Chaparralhistory.redstone.army.mil