The AGM-62 Walleye
Although designated an air-to-ground missile (AGM), the Martin Marietta AGM-62 Walleye was actually an unpowered glide bomb with a nose-mounted television camera to guide it to the target.
The Walleye’s camera sent an image of the target to the pilot’s television screen. Once the pilot “locked” onto the target, he launched the weapon. The Walleye’s onboard guidance system independently compared the locked image with the current image and made course corrections. Since the pilot did not have to control the bomb all the way to the target, the Walleye was known as a “fire and forget” weapon.
Walleyes worked well if a target stood out from the surrounding area, but they had trouble if there was not enough contrast. Also, the weapon’s light weight made it ineffective against targets like bridges.
Using a $40K precision weapon to take out a $2K broken-down pickup truck
The AGM-62 worked well against pickup trucks as David Tussey, former US Navy A-7E Corsair II, explains on Quora;
‘When I first joined Naval Aviation, a number of senior pilots had flown in Vietnam. They flew A-7s, A-4s, and A-1s(!) on ground attack missions.
‘One A-7 guy told me this story of being diverted from his primary mission (due to weather), and was handed off to a Forward Air Controller (FAC). He was instructed to destroy a broken-down pickup truck that was blocking a road intersection.
‘The only weapon he had was a TV-guided precision weapon, the AGM-62 Walleye.
‘And so, it went…he targeted the broken-down pickup truck with the Walleye, and destroyed it.’
Tussey Concludes;
‘So…we took a precision weapon costing about $40K and in short supply, and took out a $2K broken-down pickup truck. Good grief!
‘But it was a good example of pretty specific targeting — a single truck.’
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
