Northrop SM-62 Snark

The Northrop SM-62 Snark was an early intercontinental range, ground launched cruise missile able to carry a W39 thermonuclear warhead. It was a jet propelled, air breathing missile about 67 feet long, launched from a truck mounted platform by two solid fuelled boosters and then flown by a Pratt and Whitney J57 turbojet, with a top speed of about 650 miles per hour and a range of about 5,500 nautical miles. Navigation relied on a complicated celestial system. Its development, from the MX-775A study through the N-25 and N-69 test vehicles, was long and troubled, with many test failures that gave rise to jokes about snark infested waters off Cape Canaveral. The Strategic Air Command trained with it from 1958 and kept 30 at Presque Isle, Maine, but ballistic missiles overtook it and it was withdrawn in 1961.