Blue Water was a British battlefield nuclear missile of the early 1960s, intended to replace the MGM-5 Corporal, which was becoming obsolete. With roughly the same role and range as Corporal, the solid-fuel Blue Water was far simpler to use and would be significantly easier to support in the field. It was seen as a replacement for Corporal both in the UK as well as other NATO operators, notably Germany and possibly Turkey.
The design traces its history to the shorter-ranged but otherwise similar Red Rose design of 1954. In 1958, significantly changed requirements led to it being renamed despite the missile itself remaining almost unchanged. The Blue Water missile entered testing in 1962 was generally successful, and praised in the industry.[1] However, when Germany purchased the MGM-29 Sergeant instead of Blue Water, and it appeared Turkey would do the same, the UK government decided to cancel its development instead of continuing to develop a missile that would be used only by their own forces.
Red Rose and Blue Water were code names assigned randomly by the Ministry of Supply based on their Rainbow Code system.
Despite the fact that it was generally acknowledged to be the best army-support missile under development in the Western world