Project Nike
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.
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.
The computer compared the two radars' directions, along with information on the speeds and distances, to calculate the intercept point and steer the missile.
They replaced 896 radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, operated by the National Guard or Army to protect certain key sites.
The second part (designated L), around forty acres (160,000 m2), held 1–3 underground missile magazines each serving a group of four launch assemblies and included a safety zone.
The third part was the administrative area (designated A), which was usually co-located with the IFC and contained the battery headquarters, barracks, mess, recreation hall, and motor pool.
[2] 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 (later) ICBM sites.
[2] 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.
The distances from the simulated bomb landing point and the "target" were recorded on paper, measured, encoded, and transmitted to the aircrews.
[5] Zeus, with a new 400,000 lbf (1.78 MN) thrust solid-fuel booster, was first test launched during August 1959 and demonstrated a top speed of 8,000 mph (12,875 km/h).
The Zeus system, which cost an estimated $15 billion[citation needed], still suffered from several technical flaws that were believed to be uneconomical to overcome.
Nike-X featured phased-array radars, computer advances, and a missile tolerant of skin temperatures three times those of the Zeus.
In September 1967, the Department of Defense announced the deployment of the LIM-49A Spartan missile system, its major elements drawn from Nike X development.
[5] In March 1969. the Army started the anti-ballistic missile Safeguard Program, which was designed to defend Minuteman ICBMs, and which was also based on the Nike-X system.
[7] Nike-X was a proposed US Army anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system designed to protect major cities in the United States from attacks by the Soviet Union's ICBM fleet.
This never came to pass; the original Nike-X concept was replaced by a much more limited defense system known as the Sentinel program that used some of the same equipment.
It was calculated that a salvo of only four ICBMs would have a 90% chance of hitting the Zeus base, as their radars could only track a few warheads at the same time.
Large numbers would be clustered near potential targets, allowing successful interception right up to the last few seconds of the warhead's re-entry.
It played a secondary role in the Nike-X system, intended primarily for use in areas outside the Sprint protected regions.
[8] Total cost to Army: 1,545.1 Soviet development of ICBMs decreased the value of the Nike (aircraft) air defense system.
Some small-scale work to use Nike Zeus as an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) was carried out from 1962 until the project was canceled in favor of the Thor based Program 437 system during 1966.
Following the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed during 1972, and further budget reduction, almost all Nike sites in the continental United States were deactivated by April 1974.
Within each Defense Area, a "Ring of Steel" was developed with a series of Nike Integrated Firing and Launch Sites constructed by the Corps of Engineers.
However, the Army discarded this semimobile concept because the system needed to be ready for instantaneous action to fend off a "surprise attack."
Staggering sites between outskirt and close-in locations to urban areas gave defenders a greater defense-in-depth capability.
Housing and administration buildings, including the mess hall, barracks, and recreation facilities, were sometimes located in a third parcel of land.
Unlike the older Ajax sites, these batteries were placed in locations that optimized the missiles' range and minimized the warhead damage.
Thus, many Nike sites are now municipal yards, communications and FAA facilities (the IFC areas), probation camps, and even renovated for use as Airsoft gaming and MilSim training complexes.
Defense areas within the United States were: The Nike boosters were also used as stages in sounding rockets as they became surplus starting in the 1950s in the following versions:
