Project Nike
Project Nike was a U.S. Army project proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft missile system, the Nike Ajax, in 1953. Many technologies and rocket systems used for developing the Nike Ajax were re-used in other projects, many given the "Nike" name.
The missile's first-stage solid rocket booster became the basis for many types of rocket, including the Nike Hercules missile and NASA's Nike Smoke rocket, used for upper-atmosphere research.
History
Project Nike began in 1944 when the War Department demanded a new air defense system to fight jet aircraft that flew too high and fast for anti-aircraft guns. Two proposals were accepted: Bell Laboratories' Project Nike and General Electric's Project Thumper, a much longer-ranged, collision-course system that eventually delivered the BOMARC missile.Bell Labs' proposal would have to deal with bombers flying at 500 mph or more, at altitudes of up to 60,000 ft.
At these speeds, even a supersonic rocket is no longer fast enough to be simply aimed at the target. The missile must "lead" the target to hit before it runs out of fuel. By this point, the US had considerable experience with lead-calculating analog computers, starting with the British Kerrison Predictor and a series of increasingly capable U.S. designs.
But the missile and target cannot be tracked by a single radar, increasing the complexity of the system. For Nike, three radars were used. The acquisition radar searched for a target to be handed over to the Target Tracking Radar. The Missile Tracking Radar tracked the missile by way of a transponder, as the missile's radar signature alone was not sufficient. The MTR also commanded the missile by way of pulse-position modulation: the pulses were received, decoded and then amplified back for the MTR to track. Once the tracking radars were locked, the system was able to work automatically following launch, barring any unexpected occurrences. The computer compared the two radars' directions, along with information on the speeds and distances, to calculate the intercept point and steer the missile. The entire system was provided by the Bell System's electronics firm, Western Electric.
The Douglas-built missile was a two-stage missile using a solid fuel booster stage and a liquid fueled second stage. The missile could reach a speed of 1,000 mph and an altitude of 70,000 ft and had a range of 25 miles. The missile contained an unusual three-part payload, with explosive fragmentation charges at three points down the length of the missile to help ensure a lethal hit. The missile's limited range was seen by critics as a serious flaw, because it often meant that the missile had to be sited very close to the area it was protecting.
Consolidated Western Steel produced the launcher loaders. Fruehauf Trailer Corporation produced the trailers.
After disputes between the Army and the Air Force, all longer-range systems were assigned to the Air Force during 1948. They merged their own long-range research with Project Thumper, while the Army continued to develop Nike. In 1950, the Army formed the Army Anti-Aircraft Command to operate batteries of anti-aircraft guns and missiles. ARAACOM was renamed the US Army Air Defense Command during 1957. It adopted a simpler acronym, ARADCOM, in 1961.
Nike Ajax
The first successful Nike test was during November 1951, intercepting a drone B-17 Flying Fortress. The first type, Nike Ajax, was deployed starting in 1953. The Army initially ordered 1,000 missiles and 60 sets of equipment. They were placed to protect strategic and tactical sites within the US. As a last-line of defense from air attack, they were positioned to protect cities as well as military installations. The missile was deployed first at Fort Meade, Maryland during December 1953. A further 240 launch sites were built up to 1962. They replaced 896 radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, operated by the National Guard or Army to protect certain key sites. This left a handful of 75 mm Skysweeper emplacements as the only anti-aircraft artillery remaining in use by the US. By 1957 the Regular Army AAA units had been replaced by missile battalions. During 1958 the Army National Guard began to replace their guns and adopt the Ajax system.Each launch site had three parts, separated by at least 1,000 yards. One part of about six acres contained the IFC radar systems to detect incoming targets and direct the missiles, along with the computer systems to plot and direct the intercept. The second part, around forty acres, held 1–3 underground missile magazines each serving a group of four launch assemblies and included a safety zone. The site had a crew of 109 officers and men who ran the site continuously. One launcher would be on 15 minutes alert, two on 30 minutes and one on two hour alert. The third part was the administrative area, which was usually co-located with the IFC and contained the battery headquarters, barracks, mess, recreation hall, and motor pool. The actual configuration of the Nike sites differed depending on geography. Whenever possible the sites were placed on existing military bases or National Guard armories; otherwise land had to be purchased.
The Nike batteries were organized in Defense Areas and placed around population centers and strategic locations such as long-range bomber bases, nuclear plants, and ICBM sites. The Nike sites in a Defense Area formed a circle around these cities and bases. There was no fixed number of Nike batteries in a Defense Area and the actual number of batteries varied from a low of two in the Barksdale AFB Defense Area to a high of 22 in the Chicago Defense Area. In the Continental United States the sites were numbered from 01 to 99 starting at the north and increasing clockwise. The numbers had no relation to actual compass headings, but generally Nike sites numbered 01 to 25 were to the northeast and east, those numbered 26 to 50 were to the southeast and south, those numbered 51 to 75 were to the southwest and west, and those numbered 76 to 99 were to the northwest and north. The Defense Areas in the Continental United States were identified by a one- or two-letter code which were related to the city name. Thus those Nike sites starting with C were in the Chicago Defense Area, those starting with HM were in the Homestead AFB/Miami Defense Area, those starting with NY were in the New York Defense Area, and so forth. As an example Nike Site SF-88L refers to the launcher area of the battery located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Defense Area.
During the early-to-mid-1960s the Nike Ajax batteries were upgraded to the Hercules system. The new missiles had greater range and destructive power, so about half as many batteries provided the same defensive capability. Regular Army batteries were either upgraded to the Hercules system or decommissioned. Army National Guard units continued to use the Ajax system until 1964, when they too upgraded to Hercules. Eventually, the Regular Army units were replaced by the National Guard as a cost-saving measure, since the Guard units could return to their homes when off duty.
A Nike Ajax missile accidentally exploded at a battery in Leonardo, New Jersey on 22 May 1958, killing six soldiers and four civilians. A memorial can be found at Fort Hancock in the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area.
Nike Hercules
Even as Nike Ajax was being tested, work started on Nike-B, later renamed Nike Hercules. It improved speed, range and accuracy, and could intercept ballistic missiles. The Hercules had a range of about 100 miles, a top speed in excess of 3,000 mph and a maximum altitude of around 150,000 ft . It had solid fuel boost and sustainer rocket motors, with the boost phase consisting of four Nike Ajax boosters strapped together. In the 1970s some users replaced the vacuum tube guidance circuits in the missile with more reliable solid-state components, but electron tube circuits were still used well into the 1980s. The electron tube's resistance to EMP effects over earlier non-EMP-hardened solid-state circuits played a major part in the retention of 'obsolete' technology until hardened solid-state circuits were developed.The missile also had an optional nuclear warhead to improve the ability to defend against mass formations. The W-31 warhead had four variants offering 2, 10, 20 and 30 kiloton yields. The 20 kt version was used in the Hercules system. At sites in the United States, the missile almost exclusively carried a nuclear warhead. Sites in foreign nations typically had a mix of high-explosive and nuclear warheads. The fire-control system of the Nike system was also improved in the Hercules, and included a surface-to-surface mode which was successfully tested in Alaska. Arming the missile, with concurrent choosing of the deployment mode, was accomplished by changing a single plug on the warhead from the "Safe Plug" to "Surface to Air" or "Surface to Surface" and a range setting in the TRR.
The Nike Hercules was deployed starting in June 1958. First deployed to Chicago, 393 Hercules ground systems were manufactured. By 1960 ARADCOM had 88 Hercules batteries and 174 Ajax batteries, defending 23 zones across 30 states. Peak deployment was in 1963 with 134 Hercules batteries not including the US Army Hercules batteries deployed in Germany, Greece, Greenland, Italy, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Turkey.
In 1961, SAC and the U.S. Army began a joint training mission with benefits for both parties. SAC needed fresh targets which the cities ringed by Nike/Hercules sites provided, and the Army needed live targets to acquire and track with their radar. SAC had many Radar Bomb Scoring sites across the country which had very similar acquisition and tracking radar, plus similar computerized plotting boards which were used to record the bomber tracks and bomb release points. Airmen from these sites were temporarily assigned to Nike sites across the country to train the Nike crews in RBS procedures. The distances from the simulated bomb landing point and the "target" were recorded on paper, measured, encoded, and transmitted to the aircrews. The results of these bomb runs were used to promote or demote air crews. These exercises also included electronic countermeasure training. The performance of the Nike crews improved remarkably with this "live target" practice.
Many Nike Hercules batteries were manned by Army National Guard troops, with a single active Army officer assigned to each battalion to account for the unit's nuclear warheads. The National Guard air defense units shared responsibility for defense of their assigned area with active Army units in the area, and reported to the active Army chain of command. This is the only known instance of Army National Guard units being equipped with operational nuclear weapons.