Nike Zeus

The Army returned these attacks in kind, taking out full page advertisements in popular mass market news magazines to promote Zeus, as well as spreading development contracts across many states in order to garner the maximum political support.

The Air Force faced significant budget constraints and canceled Thumper in 1949 in order to use its funds to continue its GAPA surface-to-air missile (SAM) efforts.

[4] The Army contacted the Johns Hopkins University Operations Research Office (ORO) to consider the task of shooting down ballistic missiles using a Nike-like system.

[8] Bell returned a further study, delivered on 4 January 1956, that demonstrated the need to intercept the incoming warheads at 100-mile (160 km) altitude, and suggested that this was within the abilities of an upgraded version of the Nike B missile.

The Air Force considered the nuclear SSM to be an extension of their strategic bombing role, and any sort of long-range anti-aircraft system to be their domain as it would integrate with their fighter fleet.

[16] So when the Army announced Nike II, the Air Force immediately reactivated Wizard, this time as a long-range anti-ICBM system of much greater performance than Zeus.

"[22] In May 1957, Eisenhower tasked the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) to provide a report on the potential effectiveness of fallout shelters and other means of protecting the US population in the event of a nuclear war.

But even as Atlas was rushed, it appeared there would be a missile gap; NIE estimates made during the late 1950s suggested the Soviets would have significantly more ICBMs than the US between 1959 and 1963, at which point US production would finally catch up.

[27] Even Zeus would come too late to cover this period, and some consideration was given to an adapted Hercules or a land based version of the Navy's RIM-8 Talos as an interim ABM.

McElroy told the Air Force to stop work on ABM missiles and use Wizard funding for the development of long-range radars for early warning and raid identification.

[35] The new DM-15B Nike Zeus B (the earlier model retroactively becoming the A) received a go-ahead for development on 16 January 1958,[36] the same date the Air Force was officially told to stop all work on a Wizard missile.

[39] With their change of fortunes after McElroy's 1958 decision, Army General James M. Gavin publicly stated that Zeus would soon replace strategic bombers as the nation's main deterrent.

[41] For an answer, McElroy turned to the Re-entry Body Identification Group (RBIG), a sub-group of the Gaither Committee led by William E. Bradley, Jr. that had been studying the issue of penetrating a Soviet ABM system.

[44]When this report was received, McElroy then charged ARPA to begin studying long-term solutions to the ICBM defense, looking for systems that would avoid the apparently insurmountable problem presented by the exchange ratio.

They also deliberately spread the Zeus contracts over 37 states in order to gain as much political and industrial support as possible, while taking out advertisements in major mass-market magazines like Life and The Saturday Evening Post promoting the system.

Finally, in its last concept, ARPA replaced Zeus with a new very high speed, short range missile designed to intercept the warhead at altitudes as low as 20,000 feet (6.1 km), by which time any decoys or fireballs would be long gone.

The US's existing SM-65 Atlas and SM-68 Titan both used re-entry vehicles with blunt noses that greatly slowed the warheads as they entered the lower atmosphere and made them relatively easy to attack.

The new LGM-30 Minuteman missile used sharp-nosed reentry shapes that traveled at much higher terminal speeds, and included a number of decoy systems that were expected to make interception very difficult for the Soviet ABMs.

[67] The earlier concerns about cost and effectiveness, as well as new difficulties in terms of attack size and decoy problems, led McNamara to cancel the Zeus project on 5 January 1963.

[68] While reporting to the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, McNamara noted that they expected the Soviets to have an initial ABM system deployed in 1966, and then later stated that the Nike-X would not be ready for use until 1970.

[74] A number of Zeus missiles broke up during early test flights due to excessive heating of the control surfaces, and numerous changes were worked into the system to address this.

[76] A ZAR at White Sands reached initial operation in June 1961, and was tested against balloons, aircraft, parachutes deployed from sounding rockets and Hercules missiles.

Likewise, the Atlantic Test Range, to the northeast of Canaveral, had a high population density and little land available for building accurate downrange tracking stations, Ascension being the only suitable location.

On 26 May 1960 they decided in favor of Atlas, and this was made official on 29 June when the Secretary of Defense ended pad conversion and additional Jupiter production earmarked for Zeus testing.

[81] A key development of the testing program was a miss-distance indicator system, which independently measured the distance between the Zeus and the target at the instant the computers initiated the detonation of the warhead.

When the fuselage began to break up, the computer switched to clutter mode, which watched the TTR data for any derivation from the originally calculated trajectory, which would indicate that it had begun tracking debris.

The Forward Acquisition Radar (FAR) would be positioned 300 to 700 miles (480–1,130 km) ahead of the Zeus bases to provide early warning of up to 200 to 300 seconds of tracking data on up to 200 targets.

[89] The entire transmitter was surrounded by a 65-foot (20 m) high clutter fence located 350 feet (110 m) away from the antenna, which reflected the signal away from local objects on the ground that would otherwise create false returns.

TTRs operated in the C band from 5250 to 5750 MHz at 10 MW, allowing tracking of a 0.1 m2 target at 300 nautical miles (560 km), a range they expected to be able to double with a new maser-based receiver design.

The actual engagement would normally take place at about 75 nautical miles (139 km) due to accuracy limitations, beyond that missiles could not be guided accurately enough to bring them within their lethal 800 foot (240 m) range against a shielded warhead.

The Nike missile family, with the Zeus B in front of the Hercules and Ajax.
Projected numbers of Soviet ICBMs as predicted in June 1960. Program A: CIA, B: USAF, C: Army & Navy. The actual number in 1960 was four.
The project office at Redstone Arsenal was also home to the earlier Nike efforts.
The office adopted this emblem, showing Zeus as a Roman soldier protecting the US eagle.
Herbert York led studies of the ABM concept, and would from then on be a vocal opponent of any deployment.
Hans Bethe 's work with PSAC led to a famous 1968 article in Scientific American outlining the major problems facing any ABM defensive system.
President John F. Kennedy was fascinated by the debate over Zeus, and became an expert on all aspects of the system.
Robert McNamara ultimately decided Zeus simply didn't offer enough protection given its cost.
Dan Flood countered that even a flawed system was better than none at all.
A Nike Zeus A missile being test launched at White Sands illustrates the long wings and narrow fuselage that carried over from Hercules.
White Sands Launch Complex 38 included a ZDR radar, roughly centered, and a single TTR, on the left. The launch silos can be seen in the background, above the TTR. A ZAR was built some distance to the right of these buildings.
A Nike Zeus B missile stands on static display at White Sands while another Zeus B is being test launched in the background.
A Nike Zeus B missile is launched from the Pacific Missile Range at Point Mugu on 7 March 1962. This was the ninth launch of a Zeus from the Pt. Mugu site, today known as Naval Base Ventura County .
A view of Kwajalein during the Zeus era, looking eastward. Mount Olympus is at the extreme western edge of the island, closest to the camera. The Battery Control is in the northwestern corner, left of Mount Olympus. The ZDR is the square building in the two concentric circles just to the left of the runway. The two TTRs are just above the ZDR, still under construction. At the opposite end of the runway the two large circles are the ZAR's transmitter and receiver.
The basic Zeus system included long-range and short-range radars and the missiles, spread over some distance.
The Zeus Acquisition Radar's triangular transmitter is in the foreground, with the dome covered receiver in the background.
West Point Cadets pose in front of a Zeus B at White Sands. The three stages of the missile are clearly evident, as well as details of the movable upper stage thrusters.