Product Highlights
Naval Fighters Number 125: Chance Vought Regulus II, published by Ginter Books, covers the development and cancellation of the Navy's Regulus II supersonic cruise missile program.
Features
- 48 pages
- Over 70 photos and illustrations
- Softcover
About the Regulus II
Chance Vought was contracted to build the Regulus II as a Mach 2, submarine-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missile, fast enough that the Navy's F8U Crusader fighter, also built by Vought, could not keep pace with it. Its attack profile called for either a high-altitude approach or a low-level run followed by a steep terminal dive, with a W27 nuclear warhead guided by a Vought-developed inertial navigation system. The program, which involved three specially built submarines, was cancelled in December 1958 in favor of the submarine-launched Polaris ballistic missile after 27 Regulus IIs had been completed; the remaining partial airframes were finished as target drones used into the early 1960s.
