New information is generally placed close to this point.
How many (in total) Hercules missiles were built/put in service? - added Nov 2019
from former Nike Hercules crewman
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Answer from Greg Brown a docent as SF-88
Per the Book, "Last Line of Defense - Nike Missile sites in Illinois", Page 84 Over 25,000, of which 2650 were exported under the foreign military sales program. 1764 under the military aid program Greg Brown |
What is a "Chief Enlisted Advisor"? - added June 2019
from Sean Swart
| ... my grandfather ...
I do understand from his record, with a MOS of 16H5H that he was a instructor at the USAAD school, It does say he was the Chief Enlisted Advisor, so I was wondering if you knew what that exactly meant. Any information would be greatly appreciated.I do understand from his record, with a MOS of 16H5H that he was a instructor at the USAAD school, It does say he was the Chief Enlisted Advisor, so I was wondering if you knew what that exactly meant. Any information would be greatly appreciated. --- OK, so this is not a Frequently Asked Question ;-) |
U. S. Army Ring ? - added Nov 2018
from Cor Willemse
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Dear Ed Thelen,
I am Dutch, living in The Netherlands. From 1959 till 1961 I served in the Netherlands Royal Airforce and in April 1961 spend 10 days at Fort McGreggor were my squadron launched 3 Nike Hercules missiles. I noted that some colleagues wore an army ring and I have always regretted not having obtained one. I am trying to find out what kind of army ring the military wore at that time. It could have been the common US Army ring but maybe it was a special one. Red stone, blue stone? There are so many different kinds. Via Ebay and Amazon rings can still be bought but I do not know which ring to order. Could you advise me? I would appreciate it. Kind regards, Cor Willemse Holland |
What is AGI (inspection??) - added Sept 2015
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Answer from Ed Dowd
AGI is Annual general Inspection. If you flunked it, your career as a battalion commander or Battery Commander was over. You would be relieved. So, it was important to the Officers. Interestingly, as a member of the Brigade AGI prep inspection team, I flunked the entire 6/44th S-! function. After about three of these inspections, the CO turned to the General, and said:"He has flunked every one of my batteries, why don't you just send him down here to fix it all." That is how I got there about a month later and 60 days before the AGI. The battalion passed with an 'excellent" overall with only one battery receiving less than that. |
What is this Nike Part?? - added Aug 2015
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| Ron Parshall < NikeMSL @ juno . com > , one of the pre-2003 restoration crew, has been collecting Nike parts on e-bay. He thinks this part might be from the major retrofit of Nike systems about 1974 (mostly overseas) where the 4 bay Nike analog computer was replaced by a less than one bay militarized PDP-11. Please tell both of us :-)) |
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I was on a Nike Site at Thule ,Greenland May1963 to May 1964.I was at a Control Site and also a Launch Site.
Was a generator operator at both sites. I am wondering if you or anyone else has any info on those generators.. They where guite large
300 kw. Hard to get any info. on them. The big ones were at the launch site where we had no commercial power. All I remember they
were very large and noisy. Would appreciate hearing from you.
There is only a tiny amount at:
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Folklore corrected - Launcher Area Death Radius
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A little background - early in the Nike Ajax program -
an accident at a temporary site at Ft. Mead, Maryland.
" ... Sgt. Stanley C. Kozak of Allentown, Pa was standing seven feet away during the "gun" drill. ... He suffered "minor burns." ... The runaway missile took off from a temporary emplacement ... "
YouTube - Hercules missile launch at NAMFI (about 1:25 after the start of the video) Note that the smoke and fumes barely cover the adjacent missile maybe 60 feet to this side of the firing launcher. "Burn area around launcher, 300 feet." - ???
"High noise level 150 DB. (135 will kill), must be 1000 yds. away." - ???
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Notice: This section does not discuss the Hercules Surface-to-Surface mission.
TM 9-1440-250-10/2Overall System Description
- Nike-Hercules and Improved Nike-Hercules Air Defense Guided Missile System -
December 1960
Note that even at this long range, the missile did not rise above the aircraft.
Here are some actual intercept traces from Earl Close.
TM9-5000-3 - Nike I Computer - SAM Problem Analysis, ... - 4.5 MBytes
provides practical analysis of the Nike Ajax (and Hercules) Surface-to-Air mission.
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Please forgive the "English" - now American - units. Going Metric is slow -
The speed of sound in 70 F air = 1128 ft/sec from here
The acceleration of gravity "g" at the earth's surface is (about) approximately 32.2 ft/sec/sec
The general formula of distance traveled "S" during time "t"
under uniform acceleration (high school physics) is
Since velocity at start is zero we have
More high school physics
Substituting in to get the distance traveled to reach the speed of sound
Conclusion, the Nike is about 800 feet high when it reaches the local speed of sound. |
Aren't Vacuum Tubes too unreliable? - added April 7, 2013
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I've (Ed Thelen) been docenting again at SF-88 :-))
and of course open the computer cabinet doors to WOW the folks with all the vacuum tubes ;-)) Of course, young folks have heard stories, and older folks remember their vacuum tube TV failing, aand taking their maybe 27 TV tubes to the drug store to test 'em and buy a new one for a failed one - maybe every six months. There is often a quizzical look when I say that tube failures in a Nike system were infrequent, maybe one in two or three weeks, and there were thousands of tubes, almost all required for satisfactory system performance. So I tell them that there are many ways to make a vacuum tube more reliable
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Highest Nike intercept
from Carl Durling - Feb 16, 2013
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Hi Ed
I was reviewing the following document, and as you can see on page 50 (last paragraph below) there was a successful shoot of a Nike Herc above 100k feet, that is 20 miles. That calculates as 105,600 feet. The Herc was capable of even higher altitude depending on distance to and speed of target.
Historic American Engineering Record
Carl Durling |
Nike Site Staffing? - Dec 17, 2012
Re: NIKE STATIONS ? Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:18 am (PST) . Posted by: "H B" halb1937 > I think you forgot the two platoon leaders (Lt/s); one IFC and one LCA platoon leader. No I didn't. That's all we had, the T O and E called for them, (platoon leaders) but we didn't have them. Just the Captain, 1st Lt. and the 4 Warrants, as I said, we were almost always understrength until late 1960. Our two Commissioned and two IFC Warrants performed Battery Control Officer (BCO) duties. The four Warrants and the Exec performed the OD duties, one night a week and one weekend day every two weeks, but this varied according to how they worked it out. There was a lot of horse trading going on with the duty rosters for BCO and OD, our Commander didn't care one way or the other as long as it was published and called in to Battalion two hours before the end of duty hours. The four Fire Control types rotated the on call BCO duties and tried to make their OD and on call nights coincide. Our Officers also had Battalion duties in addition to their Battery duties so they were a pretty busy lot. One Warrant from each area was designated as Platoon Leader and, of course, all had numerous and sundry additional duties, like laundry officer, mess officer, etc. etc. Pay officer was kind of a floater that no body wanted so it usually went to the lowest ranking Warrant.
For Annual Service Practice
we were always augmented which invariably led to problems, I never went with them,
not that I could have helped, but I would have liked to have seen the firings.
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Brian Devine suggests -
Resurrect Nike for Turkey defense? - Dec 6,2012
Ed Thelen suggests:
It is good to remember that Nike was designed to fight
"high flying (jet) bombers" - the threat of 60 years ago -
These were slower by a factor of 4 or more
than the current regional and intercontinental missiles.
A) Rotating acquisition radars
B) and missiles that are launched straight up
have too slow a reaction time to be reasonably effective :-(((
C) Techie advances have yielded the Patriot system
- faster reaction time
- more missiles in the air concurrently
- fewer people
- easier to move
- likely less expensive per system and missile
(in constant dollars, not inflated dollars)
I think/hope we could
manufacture 10 nice new, relatively modern Patriot batteries
in about the same time, and expense
as resurrect and re-qualify 10 historic Nike batteries
- say from Italy ??
- hardly anything restorable in the U.S.
SF-88 is an incomplete mish-mash
with all computer cables cut -
no TTR, no TRR, MTR has no guts -
most Nike missiles in US destroyed - all incomplete -
for more comment
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NO !!
For several very good reasons!
For further details of the 1/2 g flight path, see page 64 of TM9-5000-3 (4.5 MBytes). |
Could a traveling Mobile Nike Hercules get ready to fire in 1 hour? - April 2012
Short answer from Ed Thelen - "NO"
from Charles Carter - April 4, 2012
from Bob Stevens - former CO 2/52 ADA
Charles Carter forwarded the following from Carl Durling
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Where was the actual missile launch initiated? - Jan 2012
background info
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from C M
Hi Ed, After reading through a ton of Nike base materials, I really can't find the answer to (or understand) a very basic aspect. Where was the actual missile launch initiated? Imagine it's as simple as pushing a button and the missile is launched... is that done in the Launch Control Trailer? Or is the button pushed in the IFC, info then goes through the Launch Control trailer, and voila? Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!
Two answers ;-))
Normally - the launch switch (under that cute red cover in the Battery Control Van in the
IFC area) is operated is operated by the Battery Control Officer. The electrical signal travels
to the missile
Problem - however, if that cable is non-functional, the angle of the Predicted Intercept Point and the fire command are sent to the Launcher Area via phone and/or radio. The above does not include any of the precautions involved if a nuke is to be launched. |
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Subject: Question about a what if Nike Nuclear accident
From: "George Wallot" < gwallot@gmail.com > Ed, I was knowledgeable of some of the details of a near nuclear accident when I was in the Army and have wondered for years what would have been the consequences if the worse case scenario had happened. In 1964 I was in Anchorage Alaska when the worst USA earthquake of 9.2 magnitude lasting 6 minutes occurred. A double firing battery had 2 above ground launchers containing 5 nukes each that were severely damaged with rocket fuel exposed, skins broken, and gyros spinning. Fortunately, the team of brave men that neutralized the threat was able to avoid setting it off though it took 72 hours to complete. Those men would never be the same again.
If all that TNT would have gone off, I believe that it would have scattered people and nuclear materials all over the surrounding area. What hazards and danger to people would that have likely caused? Would this have been another Chernobyl? Something else? I have been told that a nuclear explosion was unlikely but all the TNT would surely have sent a cloud of Uranium into the air. What is your take on this situation?
If you don’t know the answer could you forward this email to someone that would?
George Wallot, Nike Ordnance Track Radar Teck, 1962-65
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Apathy and unawareness about what we did - Nov 2011
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Dear Ed,
I am a Nike vet - (61st Arty Group - Milwaukee) and I'm a bit concerned about the lack of knowledge by the public about what we did and why. I was at the VA Clinic in Oak Lawn, IL Thursday, and the nurse, (an Air Force Veteran) had never heard of the Nike program and sites, even though her family lived in the Jackson Park area of Chicago, where one of the sites was located. I realize that as a 'Cold War' vet, I never heard a shot fired in anger, but I think that what we did prevented a lot of shots being fired. While we were not involved in the really dirty, bloody situations such as WWII, Korea, 'Nam and the Middle East, we still gave up a part of our lives, in the hope that we were preventing more of the same. The VA clinic was handing out 'thank you' notes and drawings from school-children in the area. I am going to respond to one of these, since the child, a fifth-grader included her name and school. Are you finding the same apathy and unawareness as I see? Let me know.
Thomas M. Smith
Ed replies:
Yes, of course - but I am more philosophical ( apathetic? ) about it :-|
I figure that folks are extremely busy trying to get
enough facts to live for today and tomorrow.
As a person interested in history,
But the pressures of the present are so urgent,
In the more recent past, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam, ...
Their definition of "enemies of the people" differ from mine !!! I do not even like to see the Chicago style of government spread over the U.S. |
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Joyce Lave wrote:
Hi - I lived by a Nike site in Commerce Mi in the 60's. If they had fired one of the missiles, would the impact killed people on the ground in the surrounding area? I saw a TV special once that said it would, but I don't remember details. Thanks Four aspects - I can handle two or three
Ed Thelen |
What Nike I and Nike B are from Tim Coslet Feb 16, 2011
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Nike 1
http://ed-thelen.org/mono-7.html
"56th Antiaircraft Artillery Brigades conferred with BTL's staff to
obtain technical advice relating to the "planning and layout
of NIKE 1 installations."9"
-------------------------------------------------- Nike B
http://ed-thelen.org/h_mono-6.html
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Thrust Limiter? - Unanswered Question - Feb 6, 2010
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Here are some extractions from one of my TM?s.
Its seems that information about the thrust limiter is, well limited.
By the way, what is the exact function of the motor start delay timer?
Kind regards, Michael Keller, Germany.
Ed Thelen here - Oh Michael - you are talking to an Ajax IFC guy -
Can some Herc Missile guy help us???
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Nike Follow On - after Hercules and some ABM
from JRAMSEY@MarlinBroadcasting.com----------------------- from Thomas Page < tepage@hotmail.com > The site near Boston was indeed a part of Sentinel which was to have defended population centers / cities. As I understand, the Spartan & Sprint interceptors were to have been used. However, a large number people in cities like Boston and Seattle protested loudly: "Not in my backyard!" So the concept was changed from protecting population centers / cities to protecting our ICBM sites, and was renamed Safeguard. One Safeguard complex (the one near Grand Forks AFB, ND) became fully operational in 1975 before being shut down just months later when the entire Safeguard program was cancelled. The Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR) site for Boston is now a large hole in the ground filled with water (the actual excavation for the radar building) in what is now a public park on Sharpners Pond Road in North Andover, MA. The Missile Site Radar (MSR) and the primary missile field itself were to have been at Camp Curtis Guild in Reading, MA (near the existing Nike missile launch facility, B-03L). We have some information on our website, http://www.radomes.org/museum/. To find any particular site, from the menu on the far left side of our web site, click on "Radar Sites." When the search window comes up, enter any part of the name (for example, "Boston"), state, or squadron number; then click on [SEARCH FOR SITE]. When the search result comes up, click on the hyperlink. When the site web page comes up, scroll down, and click on the information hyperlink desired (for example, "Photographs" or "Recent photos"). Re Nike Missile site BR-17, if you go to http://www.historicaerials.com/ and select Milford, CT, you can see aerial images of the Nike missile launch site and IFC site in the years 1960 and 1966 when the Nike facilities were still extant. By the way, John, nice recent photos on your website, http://coldwar- ct.com/Nike_Sites.html.
Regards,
Cofounder & Historian, The Online Air-Defense Radar Museum
------------------ From: berhowma@comcast.net Date: Fri, Dec 17, 2010 9:15 am To: ... The answer to the missile part of the question is yes, Spartan was the final gasp of the Nike program. After Nike Hercules, the next missile system developed under the Nike program was Nike Zeus, designed to be a missile interceptor weapon. It came in two designs, Zeus A and Zeus B. This system was ultimately shelved after a lot of testing, but the Zeus B missile was then revamped into Nike X, a new program with a phased array radar system, that was then renamed Spartan and was to be deployed as part of Sentinal (the "city" system) and actually deployed in Safeguard (the SAC defense system). |
What was the name of the mascot of the Army's Air Defense Artillery program?
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Thomas Page asked (as a trivia question) ;-))
Doyle Piland (volunteer historian at White Sands Missile Range Museum) responds: The why should be obvious. Of course it was of a boast, which wasn't always true. |
People don't believe we could 'do it' - knock aircraft out of the sky, reliably
From: Jim Butler < jbutler at Brocade dot COM >
Date: Wed, May 26, 2010
To: < ed@ed-thelen.org >
...
> Thanks again for the work you?ve done regarding Herc?s.
> I?ve been involved in ?high-tech? for almost 40yrs now,
> and when I tell people what that system was capable of,
> they don?t believe it.
> Jim
"they don't believe it." Verrry true !!
Maybe I should start a page
"We could in fact 'do it',
and here is how/why."
Complete with system error estimates -
and frequent tests to assure we were with-in the error estimates.
Unfortunately, I don't have the filter skills
to estimate the time lag through the
analog smoothing filters in the computer -
The whole game of rough tracking vs.
averaging because of missile dynamics
is subject to a lot of guess work -
But folks are used to a lot of hand waving
from sales and political folks -
And they might not be too fussy -
and we have the "proof in the pudding"
with a lot of broken drones ;-))
And folks just can't believe
a) Vacuum tubes were that reliable
not pushed hard, very conservative usage
b) That many checking features were built in
and checked regularly
c) The system could hold together,
end to end,
for more than a few minutes,
much less days!!
Ya know - I'm having trouble convincing my self -
many of us remember all the junk
we bought and buy
- the plastic that cracks in a year -
- and the American made cars
before the Japanese scared the pants off Detroit
Yeah - that page would be a REAL challenge-
ya got any ideas ??
Ed Thelen
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Women in Nike sites
Subject: ADA Brochure
From: "Chuck Zellers"
Date: Wed, May 26, 2010
To: < ed@ed-thelen.org >
> Hi Ed:
> Just looking at some entries on your website
> and found a graphic "3 page folder" of a recruitment ad:).
> The ad states in part about men *and* women as part of a Nike site
> (or it alludes to it)!
> Hummm, don't remember any women as "side kicks";)
> Just thought it was funny
Life is truly amazing !!!
About a year ago, I got my Nike listing form back
with a woman's name,
being at some site in Germany.
Not that people seem to be fakes much -
maybe once per couple of years -
( this web site is not the government offering free money ;-)
but I had never heard of women in U.S. "combat" situations.
So I asked for clarification -
WWHHAAAMMM -
Did I get the Fist-Of-Death !!!
Similar to "Alice" in the "Dilbert" column.
I run a couple of web sites that attract e-mail,
maybe 15 relevant e-mails/day
and life is pleasant and informative
about 99.5 percent of the time ;-))
The exceptions are quite exceptional :-|
I did some checking around
- and much to my surprise -
apparently there were a few women in Nike "combat" roles
at a few sites in Germany in the 1970s
see CPT Cheek
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NikeCabling
From: Jeremy Farrant > Hi Ed, this is Jeremy Farrant again. > Thank you for responding to my first email. The info is really going to be helpful. ... > Anyway, I have another question. > From you website, the picture of the Battery control area > the radars are connected to the computer system > and would the computer system be in a mobile trailer > or in a permanent building? The computer system was in the Battery Control trailer - > We are going to be moving dirt around and we are trying > to get some info on what might be in the ground. > Was the power for the radars ran underground also > or above ground like today's power poles? The basic idea was that this air defense system was trailer transportable. Move quickly to a point that needed defending - Even the launchers had trailers - After the Nike Ajax system was to be deployed near civilians in the U.S., there was the realization that there were rules about explosives near civilians - and the missiles were stored in the underground magazines in many cases. Away from civilian housing and kids, say at SAC bases, the entire system, including missiles, was above ground. In general, all cables, except for inter-area cable, which are usually buried for physical protection, were on or slightly above the ground to reduce the possibility of moisture getting in through weak points in the rubber and degrading things. The inter area cables could include a) the cable from the BC van to the launcher area b) often the cable from the RC van to the radar test mast. I bet a nice lunch that those are the only cables, if any, left in ground that you are interested in ;-)) In the Chicago area where I was, small flat topped hills, say 6 feet high, were made to place the view of the radars above local obstructions (such as people and steel fences) as easily as possible - Later, especially in the Nike Hercules retrofits, taller concrete towers were installed to get the radars even higher - But the general game plan was mobility - defending some point today, maybe somewhere else next week. An exception could be the concrete area of the U.S. underground magazines - I suspect many of the cables were layed under the tar and never pulled out - (SF-88 is short of launcher cables, and has more than enough IFC cables.) > Thank you again in advance. I will probably have more questions later. > Thank you > Jeremy Farrant |
Nike Missile Paint
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From: Chuck Zellers
To: ed@ed-thelen.org Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 Ed: I'm trying to find information and pictures regarding all the paint variations for Nike Hercules and Ajax missiles. I've seen OD, white and red boosters. White, red and OD missiles. I want to confirm whether or not if the booster was also painted black. Regards, Chuck Zellers
I'm sorry - What is underneath the paint is so fascinating I have the unverified impression that it is up to the local commanders what if anything to put on the missiles. I have only two paint tales
Anyone got better ideas or stories? |
Dosimeters near warheads?
