Editing Sea Dart (section)

===Impetus===
From the immediate post-WWII era, the [[Royal Navy]] had been looking for a general-purpose weapon to arm small ships. After the experience with German [[glide bomb]]s during the war, the primary concern was the development of a medium-range [[surface-to-air missile]] able to shoot down the carrier bombers before they could approach the ships within the range of their glide bombs. As this weapon would take up room normally assigned to a [[dual-purpose gun]], the weapon also needed a secondary anti-ship capability. The secondary anti-ship role was later reduced in importance.{{sfn|Friedman|2012|p=255}}

Early experiments during the 1950s led to the development of the [[Seaslug (missile)|Seaslug]] system. Seaslug was useful against first-generation [[strike aircraft]] but had limited performance against faster aircraft or [[anti-ship missile]]s. Seaslug was also too large to be carried by a [[frigate]]-sized ship, leaving smaller ships with little air defence. Some consideration was given to a high-performance gun system for these ships, the DACR (direct-action, close-range), but calculations showed it would be useless against future anti-ship missiles that would manoeuvre on the approach.{{sfn|Friedman|2012|p=256}}