The Royal Navy expected Sea Slug and Sea Cat to be limited first-generation weapons even while work toward Sea Dart and Sea Wolf was beginning. That did not make operational deployment pointless: a missile fired from a moving ship would expose problems that shore trials could not reproduce. The early systems were deliberate learning steps rather than finished answers. Their shortcomings could be improved in service or carried into better successors. Accepting an imperfect first generation was part of building credible missile experience.
Notable Point · 8:11-10:16
Why early missiles forced a cautious destroyer transition
Sea Slug and Sea Cat were knowingly limited first-generation weapons, but putting them to sea was necessary to learn what moving-ship trials could reveal.