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M752 Lance

1972 COLD WAR GULF WAR

History of the M752 Lance

The Cold War battlefield required new tactical missile launchers, and the U.S. military adopted the M752 "Spear" missile system. The vehicle is a tracked self-propelled unit consisting of the launcher itself, the missile section and the support vehicle.

The unit was also offered to some allies during the period and remained active from 1972 to 1992.

The MGM-52 Lance missile component of the M752 launcher is manufactured by Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) and carries a warhead developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, the rocket has a range of 75 miles at speeds in excess of Mach 3.0.

The inertial guidance system provides direction, and the nuclear warhead has a warhead detonation capacity of 100 kilotons. The warhead can also include conventional payloads for fortification and anti-tank operations.

Armed forces of the US, UK, Belgium, Israel, Italy, West Germany and the Netherlands have built and used more than 2,100 missiles.

The M752 aircraft carrier component was born from the M548 aircraft carrier family of vehicles. The M548 was developed at the request of the Signal Corps to carry the AN/MPQ-32 series of anti-battery radars, but this was not the case.

Still, the M548 found its value as the basis for several other tracked vehicle systems. Its landing gear is based on the ubiquitous M113 (the M113A1 production model) that infiltrated the inventories of many Western powers during the Cold War (many are still in service today - 2015).

The M548 provided the frame for the M667 vehicle, which was then used to produce the M752 rocket launcher/vehicle and its support vehicle, the M688. The design of the M667 differs from the base design of the M548, with a narrower, lower cabin, a cargo ramp and suspension locks at the rear of the fuselage for stability when loading and unloading cargo. The M688 carries two missiles and appropriate loading hardware to complement a spent M752 missile launcher. In this way, a single M752 can use a total of three missiles on the battlefield, and is typically deployed in two launcher banks, along with two appropriately loaded vehicles, providing the launcher with six "ready-to-fire" missiles.

The canopy over the operator was raised before firing.

The deployment of the Lance missile system occurred in 1972, and the series replaced several outdated, similar mission-scoped outgoing types in service with the U.S. Army and Navy branches at the time. It was used in a total of eight U.S.

Army field artillery regiments, most of them stationed in West Germany and some in South Korea. European forces were withdrawn from 1987 under the December Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which covers intermediate-range (conventional and nuclear) weapons with ranges from 300 miles to 3,400 miles.

The M752 Lance and its rockets were replaced in US service by the M720 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) and M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) vehicle lines, the former being tracked (using the M2 Bradley chassis) and the latter 6x6 drivable .