MGM-29 Sergeant

MGM-29 Sergeant in flight

The MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range, solid fuel, surface-to-surface missile developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Activated by the US Army in 1962 to replace the MGM-5 Corporal it was deployed overseas by 1963, carrying the W52 nuclear warhead or alternatively one of high explosives. It was replaced by the MGM-52 Lance and the last US Army battalion was deactivated in 1977. Sergeant Missile Systems were usually assigned to the Field Army with the mission of "General support to a Corps"^[1]

Operation of the Sergeant was recognised to be an interim stage in the development of battlefield missiles. It avoided the Corporal's liquid-fuel-handling drawbacks, but still requiring extensive setup and checkout before launch, together with a train of semi-trailer support vehicles.^[2] More advanced missiles, such as the contemporary Blue Water and later Lance, would reduce this (elongated) set-up time.

The Sergeant had a takeoff thrust of 200 kilonewtons (45,000 lb_f), a takeoff weight of 4,530 kilograms (10,000 lb), a diameter of 790 millimetres (31 in), a length of 10.52 metres (34.5 ft) and a fin span of 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in). The Sergeant missile had a minimum range of 25 miles (40 km), and a maximum range of 84 miles (135 km).

The Sergeant was used as the second stage of the Scout satellite launcher, and clusters of Sergeant-derived rockets were used in the second and third stages of the Jupiter-C sounding rocket and used in the second, third, and fourth stages of the Juno I and Juno II launch vehicles.

Thiokol developed the Sergeant rocket motors—and the Castor rocket stages derived from them—at the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama.^[3]