The Talos long-range area-defence SAM was the principal goal of the World War II programme known as 'Bumblebee'. Because of the Americans' lack of ramjet propulsion experience, the missile in its ultimate form was approached in stages. Two of the test vehicles produced were the Experimental Prototype Missile (XPM) and the Supersonic Test Vehicle (STV). The former was developed into the Talos proper whilst the latter evolved into the Terrier missile. As built, the Talos was a beam rider over most of its range, flying along a radar beam designed to guide the missile along an energy-efficient trajectory until it neared the target, where a semi-active homing seeker took over. This resulted in the missile often impacting the target from above, a factor which produced several tactical surprise situations in Vietnam, where MiG pilots were taught that SAMs always arrived from below. Throughout its service lifetime, from 1957 to 1979, Talos was continually updated: the last version, the RIM-8J, had a range of 249 km ( 150 miles), which was a considerable improvement over that of the earlier models. The final Unified Talos versions could use either a 5kiloton W30 nuclear or a 210.9-kg (465-lb) HE-fragmentation warhead. During Vietnam deployments the cruiser USS Long Beach scored two MiG kills at extreme range over North Vietnam in 1968, whilst during the mining of Haiphong harbor in April 1972 the cruiser USS Chicago added a third kill.

The third missile of what became known as the 3T-Program was the Tartar, which was envisaged as a shorter-range equivalent of the Terrier to arm destroyer-sized vessels principally against low-flying attackers. Designed from the outset as a semi-active radar homing system, the missile soon underwent a product improvement programme that resulted in the Improved Tartar (RIM-24B) with a considerably enhanced performance envelope. Compared with those of the two other systems, the Tartar's development was rapid, and large numbers of the family were procured for both the US Navy and friendly Western nations.

In the late 1950s the major perceived threat that the Soviets could field was a saturation attack by aircraft and missiles, in which the fleet's missile defences would have to cope with a large number of targets simultaneously. As the existing missiles such as Talos and Terrier were tactically limited by their requirement for target illumination by dedicated radar from launch to interception, a new missile known as the Typhon was ordered into development in both medium- and long-range forms. The missile was to use new aerodynamic and electronic technology to overcome the saturation threat, but it was cancelled as the necessary technology ultimately proved to be beyond the capabilities of the industries involved at the time. However, many of the ideas and concepts devised for the system surfaced later in the AEGIS programme. Before this latter system matured, however, replacements for the Terrier and Tartar were still needed, and this resulted in the development of the Standard missile family. The Standard SM-1MR was evolved to replace the Tartar and the Standard SM-1ER to replace the Terrier. Using common components, the Standard SM-1MR was ultimately developed into the Standard SM-2MR for use with the multiple-target anti-saturation AEGIS system. This uses the inbuilt facility of the AEGIS system fire-control computers to command any missile's autopilot system in flight to provide continuous course updates so that the missile can fly a highly efficient trajectory to the vicinity of the target, where the semi-active homing seeker takes over. The more energy-efficient flight trajectory considerably increases the range of the SM-2MR, to the point where it matches that of the earlier SM-1ER missile. At the same time as the AEGIS system was being developed an improvement programme for the SM-1ER was underway. This resulted in the SM-2ER missile, which entered operational service in 1980 with a higher velocity and improved engagement envelope to enable it to defeat high-performance targets. Interestingly, the SM-2ER cannot be used with the AEGIS system as its performance is outside that system's capabilities. A nuclear-armed version of both the SM-2MR and SM-2ER is under development to allow the missiles to engage nuclear-armed cruise missiles at long range.

In the late 1980s interest was directed toward a point-defence missile system that could replace the existing '16-mm (3-in) and 40-mm air-defence guns. This was due to be the Sea Mauler derivative of a US Army programme but, because of delays, an evaluation of available systems to serve as an interim system resulted in the Sea Sparrow Basic Point Defense Missile System being chosen. The British Sea Cat missile was the nearest rival but the Sea Sparrow was finally chosen over it because it was considerably faster and had a higher single-shot kill probability. Subsequently Sea Mauler was cancelled and the Sea Sparrow grew into a complete family of derivatives with variants based on existing air-to-air missiles. Apart from the new derivatives, the system was also improved through the fitting of a new target acquisition system that was introduced into the fleet from 1973 onwards. A version of the US Army's Chaparral SAM system was also used for a time on a number of FRAM destroyers during the latter stages of the Vietnam War after the USS Higbee had been hit by a bomb from a MiG in April 1972, but the system known as Sea Chaparral and using AIM-9D Sidewinder IR-homing missiles was rapidly removed from each vessel when it returned to the United States. This programme was followed by what has eventually become known as the multi-national Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) RIM-116A. This is a short-range lightweight missile designed to complement close in weapon systems. Using an entirely passive guidance package to counter active radar homing cruise missile targets, its service entry has been delayed until the mid-1980s.

A full list of US Navy SAMs that have entered service is given in the accompanying table to show the evolutionary nature of most of the programmes.

US Naval Surface-to-Air Missiles

1. RIM-2 Terrier area-defence missile Range

2. RIM-7 Sea Sparrow point-defence missile

RIM-7E5 Sea Sparrow version of AIM-7E 22.2 km (13.8 miles) RIM-7H Sea Sparrow version of AIM-7E 22.2 km (13.8 miles) RIM-7H5 NATO folding-fin version of AIM-7H 22.2 km (13.8 miles) RIM-7F Sea Sparrow version of AIM-7F 22.2 km (13.8 miles) RIM-7M improved low-level version of AIM-7M 22.2 km (13.8 miles)

3. RIM-8 Talos long-range area-defence missile

RIM-8A first tactical Talos 92.5 km (57.5 miles) RIM-8B first tactical nuclear Talos (5-kiloton yield) 92.5 km (57.5 miles) RIM-8Cextended-rangeTalos 185 km (115 miles) RIM-8D extended-range nuclear Talos 185 km (1 1 5 miles) RIM-8F modified RIM-8D with first continuous wave seeker 185 km (115 miles)RIM-8E Unified Talos, interchangeable warheads 185 km (115 miles)
RIM-8G SSM capability added 185 km (115 miles)
RGM-8H special anti-radiation homing version for
shore targets 222 km (138 miles)
RIM-8J much modified Unified Talos 241 .4 km (150 miles)

4. RIM-24 Terrier medium-range area-defence
missile
RIM-24A semi-active homing with SSM capability 13.7 km (8.5 miles)
RIM-24B Improved Tartar 32.2 km (20 miles)

5. RIM-66 and RIM-67 Standard area-defence
missile
RIM-66A Standard SM-1 MR with SSM capability 46.25 km (28.75 miles
RIM-66B improved Standard SM-1 MR 67.06 km (41 .7 miles)
RIM-66C Standard SM-2MR for AEGIS 74 km.(46 miles)
RIM-67A Standard SM-1 ER 74 km (46 miles)
RIM-67B Standard SM-2ER 148 km (92 miles)

6. RIM-116 RAM point-defence missile
RIM-116A Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) 9.25 km (5.75 miles)

7. Sea Chaparral point-defence missile
AIM-9D IR-guided Sidewinder 8.05 km (5 miles)