XBradTC

It seems insanely complicated, to those of us who have quickly grown accustomed to the modern Vertical Launch systems in use today. But there were a couple reasons they handled the missile they way they did. First, electronics were far less reliable back then. And finding faults and fixing components meant hooking up to the test bench. Which meant lots of rails and cradles.

Second, the missile had to very quickly come into the guidance beam of the fire control radar, or it would not guide. That meant it had to be launched on the azimuth and elevation of the radar beam. Which called for a traversing, elevating launcher. Such a launcher necessitated the complex mechanical rails.

And while the complex launcher limited the rate of fire, the greater limitation was the number of fire control radars available. Each Talos installation had one twin arm launcher, and two associated guidance radars. And each radar could only guide on missile at one target.