MIM-46 Mauler

The General Dynamics Mauler was a self-propelled anti-aircraft missile system designed to a late 1950s US Army requirement for a system to combat low-flying high-performance tactical fighters and short-range ballistic missiles.

The system was a XM546 vehicle, based on the M113 chassis, carrying nine MIM-46 missiles in launch canisters, a tracking and illumination continuous wave radar, and the fire control system.

An ambitious design for its era, the Mauler ran into intractable problems during development, and was eventually canceled in November 1965. Cancellation of Mauler left the US Army with no modern anti-aircraft weapon, and they rushed development of the much simpler MIM-72 Chaparral and M163 Tracked Vulcan to fill this niche. These weapons were much less capable than Mauler, and were intended solely as a stop-gap solution until more capable vehicles were developed. In spite of this, no real replacement entered service until the late 1990s.

Both the US Navy and British Army were also expecting Mauler to fulfil their own short-range needs and its cancellation left them with the same problem. They developed RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and Rapier missile, respectively, to fill these needs.