AGM-12 Bullpup

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	Weapon: AGM-12 Bullpup Type: Air-to-Ground Missile Country of Origin: United States Year Adopted: 1959 Overall Length (mm): 4100.0 Overall Length (in): 161.42 Weight (kg): 810.00 Weight (pounds): 1785.74

The AGM-12 Bullpup was the United States' first widely deployed precision-guided air-to-ground missile, developed for the Navy in the 1950s and later adopted across the services under the 1962 tri-service designation system. Built primarily by Martin, it used manual command to line-of-sight (MCLOS) guidance: the pilot steered the missile with a cockpit controller while tracking a bright tail flare, with radio commands moving the canards in flight. Multiple variants were produced, most notably the AGM-12B (a compact weapon with a light warhead for tactical targets) and the larger AGM-12C carrying a heavy conventional warhead for tougher aim points.

Entering service in the late 1950s, Bullpup equipped a wide range of U.S. aircraft-A-4, A-7, F-4, F-100, and F-105 among them-and was exported to several allied air arms. Production ran into the tens of thousands (often cited near thirty thousand rounds), making it the most numerous early U.S. guided strike missile. It saw extensive combat in Southeast Asia and remained in inventories into the 1970s before being eclipsed by electro-optical missiles like AGM-65 Maverick and by laser-guided bombs that offered greater stand-off and accuracy with less pilot workload.

Bullpup's notoriety comes from its stark tradeoffs: it brought true "point the weapon at that exact spot" capability to tactical jets, yet its MCLOS concept forced pilots to fly a steady, threat-exposed path while manually guiding the missile, and its warhead was often inadequate against heavily built structures. High losses to ground fire and mixed results against hard targets (famously, early bridge strikes) highlighted its limits, but Bullpup nonetheless bridged the gap between unguided ordnance and modern precision strike, laying doctrinal and technical groundwork for the guided munitions that followed.