Electrical wire guidance dates back to the early 20th century with an early example being the
Lay Torpedo. A prototype ground-based electrical wire-guided torpedo was built by the Germans during
World War II. The pair of deployed German guided air-delivered ordnance designs, the
Fritz X and
Henschel Hs 293, both used the
Kehl-Strassburg radio guidance system for control. However, because the British proved to be able
to develop countermeasures to interfere with the Germans' use of the
Kehl-Strassburg ordnance guidance system, rushed projects were started in 1944 in order to develop alternatives. The first system to be modified in this fashion was the
Henschel Hs 293 anti-ship missile. Other examples included the
X-4 missile. The X-4 influenced other military thinkers after the war. By the early 1950s a number of experimental systems had been developed (for example,
Malkara missile), leading to their widespread deployment in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Large numbers of Israeli tanks were destroyed using wire-guided
AT-3 Sagger missiles during the
Yom Kippur War of 1973. Wire guidance has remained the main system for most smaller weapons although newer systems such as
laser beam riding have come into use in anti-aircraft and some anti-tank use roles (such as the US
Hellfire missile and the Russian
9M133 Kornet). Some
torpedoes can be wire-guided, such as the U.S.
Mk 48 Advanced Capability (ADCAP) torpedo, Russian
UGST torpedo, or the Swedish
Torped 613, which is guided by an insulated wire. == Timeline ==