Developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s, it was deployed in the 1960s, updated in the 1990s, and eventually installed on over 200 USN surface ships, specifically cruisers, destroyers, and frigates.

The ASROC has been deployed on scores of warships of many other navies, including Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Greece, Pakistan and others.

[4] ASROC started development as the Rocket Assisted Torpedo (RAT) program by Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the early 1950s to develop a surface warship anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon to counter the new post-World War II submarines which ran quieter, at much higher speed and could attack from much longer range with high speed homing torpedoes.

Before RAT-C reached operational status in 1960, aboard the large US Navy destroyer leader USS Norfolk, its name was changed to ASROC.

The attacking ship would then fire an ASROC missile carrying an acoustic homing torpedo[8] or a W44 nuclear depth bomb onto an unguided ballistic trajectory toward the target.

The first large group of ships to receive ASROC were 78 Gearing-class destroyers, modified under the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization Mark I program (FRAM I) in the early 1960s.

The MK 16 Launching Group also had configurations that supported RGM-84 Harpoon (onboard Knox-class destroyer escorts (frigates)) or a variation of the Tartar missile in limited distribution.

Most Spruance-class destroyers were later modified to include the Mk 41 VLS, these launchers are capable of carrying a mixture of the RUM-139 VL-ASROC, the Tomahawk TLAM, and other missiles.