Missile Cobra / Mamba

Development of the system began in 1954 as a Swiss and West German collaboration. The project name was derived from the initials of the participating companies and the German word for rocket. Initial testing occurred in 1956, and the missile entered service with the West German Army in 1957. Production of the original variant concluded in 1968, followed by the introduction of the Cobra 2000 and the Mamba in 1972.

The missile is an anti-tank weapon featuring a cylindrical body with four forward-swept wings in a cruciform arrangement. Guidance is achieved via a Manual Command to Line of Sight (MCLOS) system. An operator controls the flight path using a joystick on a control box, which can be linked to multiple missiles. Steering is executed through spoilers located on the rear edges of the wings. The missile utilizes an underslung booster for launch at an upward angle, followed by a sustainer motor. A guidance wire unspools from the missile during flight to transmit steering instructions from the operator's control box to the internal gyro and guidance circuitry.

The Cobra 2000 variant incorporated an improved guidance system and warhead options consisting of High-Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) or HEAT-fragmentation types. The Mamba variant further updated the guidance system and introduced a dual-thrust motor. This motor employs a low-power launch mode followed by a higher-powered sustainer phase to facilitate missile gathering during the initial seconds of flight. The Mamba also equipped the operator with a x7 power telescope.

The system was widely deployed by NATO and allied nations. Primary operators included West Germany and Pakistan, with exports to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Greece, Israel, Italy, India, Morocco, Spain, and Turkey. The United States Marine Corps evaluated the missile for potential procurement.

Combat use was first recorded during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War at the Battle of Chawinda, where Pakistani cavalry units used the missiles to repulse tank attacks. In one engagement, a missile strike resulted in the destruction of a Centurion tank. The system was subsequently used in the Six-Day War, the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, and the Syrian Civil War.