Pershing Missile: Seventh Army Blackjack 1967 US Army; The Big Picture

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• published: 05 Jun 2015
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more at http://quickfound.net/links/military_news_and_links.html 'This THE BIG PICTURE features highlights of the preparations and conduct of the quick reaction alert mission carried out stateside in 1966 by a Seventh Army group that tested the feasibility of integrating the Pershing into the Seventh Army's arsenal of weapons.' "The Big Picture" episode TV-712 The Big Picture TV Series playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_hX5wLdhf_Jwfz5l_3NRAcCYURbOW2Fl Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-31_Pershing The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile as the primary nuclear-capable theater-level weapon of the United States Army and the German Air Force. Pershing later replaced the MGM-13 Mace cruise missile deployed by the United States Air Force and the German Air Force. Development began in 1958, with the first test missile fired in 1960, Pershing 1 system deployment in 1963 and the improved Pershing 1a deployed in 1969. The U.S. Army replaced the Pershing 1a with the Pershing II Weapon System in 1983 while the Germain Air Force retained Pershing 1a until all Pershings were eliminated in 1991. The U.S. Army Missile Command (MICOM) managed the development and improvements while the Field Artillery Branch deployed the systems and developed tactical doctrine... The U.S. Army began studies in 1956 for a ballistic missile with a range of about 500–750 nautical miles (930–1,390 km; 580–860 mi). Later that year, Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson issued the "Wilson Memorandum" that removed from the U.S. Army all missiles with a range of 200 miles (320 km) or more. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) rescinded the memorandum in 1958 and ABMA began development of the class of ballistic missile. The missile was initially called the Redstone-S, where the S meant solid propellant, but renamed to Pershing in honor of General of the Armies John J. Pershing... Development The first launch of the XM14 R&D; Pershing 1 test missile was on February 25, 1960. The first launch from the tactical transporter erector launcher (TEL) was in January 1962. For training there was an inert Pershing 1 missile designated XM19. In June 1963, the XM14 and XM19 Pershing missiles were redesignated as XMGM-31A and XMTM-31B, respectively. The production version of the tactical missile was later designated as MGM-31A and the XMTM-31B designation was dropped. Deployment Pershing made its first public appearance at Fort Benning in May 1960 as part of a display for President Eisenhower... Plans were for organization of ten missile battalions: one at Fort Sill, one in Korea and eight in West Germany; this was eventually reduced to one battalion at Fort Sill and three in West Germany... By 1965, three U.S. Army battalions and two German Air Force squadrons were operational in Germany... Missile Two Thiokol solid-propellant motors powered the Pershing 1 missile. Since a solid-propellant motor cannot be turned off, the missile used thrust reversal and case venting for selective range. Splice bands and explosive bolts attached the rocket motors. As directed by the onboard guidance computer, the bolts exploded and ejected the splice band. Another squib would open the thrust reversal ports in the forward end of the stage and ignite the propellant in the forward end, causing the motor to reverse direction. Testing found that the second stage would draft behind the warhead and cause it to drift off course, so explosive charges on the side of the motor opened the case and vented the propellant. The range could be graduated but the maximum was 740 kilometres (400 nmi). Jet vanes in the motor nozzles and air vanes on the motor case steered the missile. The onboard analog guidance computer and the Eclipse-Pioneer ST-120 (Stable Table-120) inertial navigation system provided guidance. The warhead could be conventional explosive or a W50 nuclear weapon with three yield options— the Y1 with 60 kiloton yield, Y2 with 200 kiloton yield and Y3 with 400 kiloton yield; the conventional warhead was never deployed. Ground equipment The Pershing 1 firing platoon consisted of four M474 tracked-vehicles manufactured by FMC Corporation— by comparison, Redstone needed twenty vehicles... The four vehicles were known as the land train...