Surface to Air Missiles: The Nike Hercules Story 1960 US Army

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• published: 12 Jan 2015
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more at http://quickfound.net "30-minute public affairs film produced by the Army in 1960 to educate the public on the Nike Hercules air defense system." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-14_Nike_Hercules The Nike Hercules (initially designated SAM-A-25, and later MIM-14), was a solid fuel propelled two-stage surface-to-air missile, used by U.S. and NATO armed forces for medium- and high-altitude long-range air defense. It was normally armed with the W31 nuclear warhead, but could also be fitted with a conventional warhead for export use. Its warhead also allowed it to be used in a surface-to-surface role, and the system also demonstrated its ability to hit other short-range missiles in flight. Hercules was replaced in the long-range anti-aircraft role by the higher performance and considerably more mobile MIM-104 Patriot. Hercules was developed as the successor to the earlier MIM-3 Nike Ajax, adding the ability to attack high-flying supersonic targets and carrying a small nuclear warhead in order to attack entire formations of aircraft with a single missile. Development went smoothly, and deployment began in 1958 at new bases, but eventually took over many existing Ajax bases as well, reaching a peak of over 130 bases in the US alone. Throughout, Hercules was the subject of a lengthy and acrimonious debate due to complaints from supporters of the US Air Force's competing CIM-10 Bomarc system, which ultimately proved unsuccessful and saw limited deployment. US Hercules sites began wide-scale deactivation during the 1970s as the threat of Soviet bombers subsided with the growth of ICBM forces, but remained a front-line weapon in Europe, with the last units deactivated in 1988. Several modifications of the Hercules system were considered but not put into production. Extensive studies into a mobile version were carried out, but never deployed in favour of other designs. The vacuum tube-based electronics, inherited from the early-1950s Ajax, were examined for potential solid state upgrades, but not deployed. Study into an upgraded version of the Hercules for the anti-ballistic missile role was carried out, but this later evolved into the considerably different LIM-49 Nike Zeus design. Hercules would prove to be the last development of Bell's Nike team; Zeus was never deployed and its follow-ons were developed by different teams... Project Nike During World War II the US Army Air Force (USAAF) concluded that existing anti-aircraft guns, only marginally effective against existing generations of propeller-driven aircraft, would not be effective at all against the emerging jet-powered designs. Like the Germans and British before them, they concluded the only successful defence would be to use guided weapons. As early as 1944 the US Army started exploring anti-aircraft missiles... Official requirements were published in 1945; Bell Laboratories won the Ordnance contract for a short-range line-of-sight weapon under Project Nike... In 1953, Project Nike delivered the world's first operational anti-aircraft missile system, known simply as Nike... "Nike Ajax" used a slightly modified Nike missile, largely a re-arrangement of the internal components, making room for the 15 kT WX-9 "gun-type" warhead also being developed as an artillery round... Soon after design work started, the Army requested that the existing liquid fuel engine be replaced with a solid fuel design, for a variety of reasons. Primary among these was that the Ajax fuels were "hypergolic", igniting on contact... On 15 November 1956 the new missile was officially renamed as the Nike Hercules... while the Nike I becoming Nike Ajax. This was also a time of rapidly improving nuclear weapon design, and in the same year the decision was made to replace the XW-7 warhead, by this time widely used as the W7 in the Mark 7 bomb, with a newer 20 kT boosted fission design known as W31. Although of similar size and weight as the earlier W7, the W31 was much more efficient, and thus less expensive to produce. The new design ultimately provided effective ranges on the order of 75 miles (120 km) and altitudes over 100,000 feet (30 km)... Nuclear-armed Nike Hercules missiles were deployed in the United States, Greece, Italy, Korea and Turkey, and with Belgian, Dutch, and U.S. forces in West Germany. Conventionally armed Nike Hercules missiles also served in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Norway, and Taiwan. The first deployments in Europe began in 1959... With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the units were deactivated in 1988. The last Hercules missile was launched in the Sardinian range of Capo San Lorenzo in Italy on November 24, 2006. Approximately 25,000 Nike Hercules were manufactured. Early models cost about $55,250 each, while most recent cost estimate, from Japan, was US$3 .0 million...