Fort Greely

Fort Greely is a United States Army launch site for anti-ballistic missiles located about 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

A related trial unit, Task Force Frost, incorporated elements of the 66th Armored Regiment and underwent tests in Camp McCoy, Wisconsin at roughly the same time.

[3] The information and data collected by task force personnel was a beginning, but it took time for men to be transported, to set up quarters for a short period of actual testing, and then pack up and leave until the next year.

In 1949, the Department of the Army ordered the organization of the Arctic Test Branch at Big Delta Air Force Base, Alaska (now known as Fort Greely).

A cadre for the organization was activated at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in March 1949, by the transfer of personnel from each of the "Army Field Force Boards."

From 1955, Fort Greely and a huge tract of land around it (withdrawn from the Department of the Interior) were used for training soldiers for cold-weather combat during the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

After the United States announced that it would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Fort Greely was selected as a site for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.

In December 2014, Congress approved $50 million to increase the number of interceptor missiles at Fort Greely from 26 to 40 as part of a missile-defense expansion announced in 2013.

[5] With the continued development of an intercontinental ballistic missile program by North Korea, Fort Greely may be slated for an expansion.

Expansion of its capabilities may be required to protect Alaska and the West Coast of the United States from possible North Korean attacks.