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Command & Control

Introductory Remarks about Command and Control

Our expected/anticipated/most-likely local situation would be multiple Russian bombers flying toward our multiple Nike sites facing east from Chicago, over Lake Michigan. Now, if all the sites attacked the first aircraft, that would be a waste, and the other aircraft could approach a significant distance before being attacked - see the picture? Ideally you want one battery to attack the first or say left hand plane, another to attack the second or right hand plane, or whatever. Some sort of brain, overview, coordination, plan, whatever.

The business of brain, overview, coordination, ... is called Command and Control. That is what the generals are supposed to do to get the best effect from their forces, trick the enemy, and all that other good generally stuff.

However, up until I left in early 1957, we had almost* no inter (between) battery control! And no information about what was to come - so I have no personal knowledge at all.

* - almost no inter battery control

  1. There was an area in a corner of the BC van, behind the Battery Control Officer, that was eventually supposed to contain an ? L-412 ? or something, so that our battery could be coordinated with other batteries from some headquarters. We had not info at all on what was supposed to be installed there - nothing had arrived by the time I left in early 1957 :-((

  2. We had reasonably good telephone communication with an Air Force radar site in Elko, Wisconsin - Unfortunately - apparently they could not see the airliners they saw - claiming they were coming our way, and they could not see the airliners we saw with our radars and eyes over our heads. They didn't care, nobody seemed to care - a total farce !!

  3. We were supposed to have some sort of protected, priority phone line with our adjacent batteries. But since there was no attack, we didn't declare any emergency to test that system. We just called up B battery and talked with them over the usual civilian land lines - the ones that would presumably be swamped with traffic if an attack was ever made public.

  4. As best we "other ranks" could figure, our battery commander must have had a feud with the battery commander to the south - or maybe they were in a different battalion - we never ever talked with nor visited them, about anything - ???

  5. In 1956, about a year after site installation - we were given a hand held radio that was supposed to be able to "talk" with adjacent Nike sites. A PRC??? - something if I recollect. It came with out batteries or an instruction manual - so we ordered the special batteries, and they arrived in their own time. We put in the batteries and tried to talk with the site to our north - maybe 10 miles away. They had a similar radio, and had also ordered and had received their batteries also.
    We could not communicate while outside the BC trailer, and probably could not have communicated while in the BC trailer if we had been able to communicate while outside the trailer. So, in best case, the Battery Control Officer would have had to yell out the port hole what he wanted to say to the other site, have the person outside relay the message via the radio to the guy on the outside of the BC van at the other site, and have him yell it into the BC van.
    But we never got that far - we never heard anything on that radio - for all I know, the frequency was set for the planet Mars :-((

Well now - this is embarrassing -

It is now April, 2009 - I've been building this web site for some years, based upon about 3 years of dealing with Nike Ajax.
I had some idea what I was talking about, and could pretty well extrapolate from Ajax to Hercules - based on gall and looking at manuals and info from folks.

Now I will have to learn and ask a lot to fill this page :-((

Here is a start - my inspiration ;-))

from Chuck Zellers
Regarding the FUIF (Fire Unit Integration Facility). It was designed and supported by Martin Marietta. The system was connected to Missile Master by phone lines! It consisted of a digital (transistor) computer that received h, x and y coordinates from MM which in turn sent the coordinates to a "ground slant computer" (vacuum tube) before being sent to a PPI scope.
http://www.ed-thelen.org/MMS-150-Ch02.pdf

If you have comments or suggestions, Send e-mail to Ed Thelen

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started April 2009