The Nike Hercules , originally specified SAM-A-25 and then MIM-14 , is the surface-to-air (SAM) missile used by the US and NATO armed forces for medium and high distance air defense. It is usually armed with a W31 nuclear warhead, but can also be installed with conventional warheads for export use. The warheads are also possible to be used in secondary surface-to-surface roles, and the system also demonstrates its ability to hit other short-range missiles in flight.
Hercules was originally developed as a simple upgrade to the previous Ajax MIM-3 Nike, which allows carrying nuclear warheads to defeat all high-altitude supersonic target formations. It evolved into a much larger missile with two solid fuel stages providing three times the Ajax range. Deployment started in 1958, initially in a new base, but eventually took over many Ajax bases as well. At its peak, it was deployed in more than 130 bases in the US alone.
Hercules is officially referred to as "transportable", but moving the battery is a significant operation and requires considerable construction at the shooting location. During its lifetime, significant effort was put into the development of solid state replacements for vacuum-based electronics inherited from the early 1950s Ajax, and various cellular options. None of these are adopted, supporting more mobile systems like MIM-23 Hawk. Another development for anti-ballistic missile roles later emerged as the much larger NME Zeus LIM-49 design. Hercules will prove to be the last operational missile of the Nike Bell team; Zeus was never deployed, and Hercules's successor was developed by a different team.
Hercules remained a heavy US primary SAM until it began to be replaced by a much higher performance and much more mobile MIM-104 Patriot in the 1980s. The much higher Patriot's accuracy allows him to dispose of nuclear warheads, and Hercules is the last US SAM to use this option. The last Hercules missile was switched off in Europe in 1988, without being fired in anger.
Video Nike Hercules
Pengembangan dan penerapan
Project Nike
During World War II the US Air Force (USAAF) concluded that the existing anti-aircraft weapons, which were only slightly effective against existing generations of propelled planes, would not be effective at all with the jet-engined designs emerging. Like Germany and Britain before them, they concluded the only successful defense was to use guided weapons.
In early 1944, the US Army began exploring anti-aircraft missiles, examining various concepts. They divide development between the Army Air Force or the Ordnance department based on whether or not the design "depends [for] sustenance especially on aerodynamic lift" or "primer on missile momentum". That is, whether the missile is operating more like a plane (Air Force) or a rocket (Ordnance).
The official requirement was issued in 1945; Bell Laboratories won the Ordnance contract for short-range line-of-sight weapons under Project Nike, while a Boeing-led team won a contract for a long-term design known as Ground-to-Air Planes, or GAPA. GAPA moved to the US Air Force when the branch was formed in 1948. In 1946, USAAF also started two initial research projects into an anti-missile system in Project Thumper and Project Wizard.
In 1953, the Nike Project launched the first operational anti-air missile system in the world, known only as Nike. Nike tracks targets and missiles using separate radar, compares locations on the computer, and sends commands to a missile to fly to a point in the sky to intercept the target. To increase the range, the missile is usually pushed over the target into thinner air and then dropped on it in a glide dive. Nike was originally deployed on military bases beginning in 1953, in particular the Strategic Air Force bomber airbase, and general deployment then followed in US cities, important industrial sites, and then bases abroad. Similar systems are rapidly emerging from other countries, including S-75 Dvina (SA-2) from the Soviet Union, and English Electric Thunderbird in the UK.
Ajax and Hercules
Even as Nike undergoes testing, the planners are increasingly concerned about missile ability to attack aircraft formations. Given the low-resolution radar trackers available at the time, the aircraft's formation will appear on the radar as a single larger return. Launched against such formations, Nike will fly toward the composite return center. Given the relatively small radius of the Nike warhead, if the missile was flying into the center of the formation and exploding, it would be highly unlikely to destroy one of the planes.
Improving performance against these targets will require high-resolution radar or a much larger warhead. Of the two, the warhead looks like the simplest problem to overcome. Like almost all the arduous military problems of the 1950s, the solution was the application of nuclear bombs. In May 1952, Bell was asked to explore the adaptation to Nike. They restore two design concepts.
"Nike Ajax" uses a slightly modified Nike missile, mostly reset internal components, making the space for the warrior type 15 "W-9" also developed as an artillery. The WX-9, like all weapon-type, long and thin designs, was originally designed to be fired from a slice of 11 "artillery, and easily fit in Nike aircraft.
Competitive explosive-type designs are much more efficient and use less fuel to achieve the given explosive power. Break-even designs are always round, and thus less suitable for inclusion in a thin body like Nike. Bell also proposed a much more modified design known as "Nike Hercules" with an enlarged upper body capable of carrying XW-7 to 40 kt warheads. Despite the increasingly explosive power, the WX-7 is only slightly heavier than the WX-9, about 950 pounds for the common XW-7 version, compared to 850 pounds for the XW-9.
At the same time, there is increasing concern that high-speed aircraft will be able to launch their warheads in the extreme range of the Nike base. This is a common complaint by the Air Force, which records the bomber's ability to strike from as far as 50 miles (80 km) while Nike only launches comfortably around 25 miles (40 km). This could be further enhanced by using dead missiles, such as those currently being developed by all nuclear armed forces only for this reason. The larger Nike with a much better range will not only help overcome this kind of attack, but also allow a base to maintain a much larger area, lowering the overall cost of spreading a widespread defense system.
Because the larger Hercules would be more adaptable to longer-range shapes, the Army chose it as a winning design. Bell began working on a new design in concert with partners Nike, Western Electric and Douglas Aircraft Company. Instead of the W-7â € ™ basic, the development of an enhanced fission design of 20 kt is known as W31. It uses less fissile material and is thus much cheaper. Developed by Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque and at Los Alamos, it was given 1A priority by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in March 1953.
Solid fuels
As soon as the design work began, the Army requested that existing liquid fuel engines be replaced by solid fuel designs, for various reasons. The main among these is that Ajax fuel is "hypergolic", triggering contacts. Due to the nature of this fuel, extreme precautions must be used whenever the missiles are removed or dismantled for maintenance. This is done in a protected area behind a large embankment, to protect the rest of the site from unintentional explosions during refueling. This complexity greatly increases the cost and time needed to maintain missiles.
Solid fuel rockets can remain stored for years and are generally very difficult to burn without periods of long flame. This means they can be handled safely and maintained with an installed rocket motor. However, the lower specific impulse of this machine, combined with the need for longer range, demands a much larger airframe to store the required fuel. Hercules, still officially known as Nike B at this point, grew into a much larger design. This, in turn, requires a much larger booster to throw it out, but this is solved by binding together four of the existing Nike reinforcements to form a cluster known as XM-42, with the only modification to the original M5 engine design being an addition new hole to unify it, creating M5E.
During this period, several attempts were put into "booster that can be blown" to Ajax. Ajax booster is placed in a steel tube that falls near the base, bringing serious attention to security. Martin produced the T48E1 and E2 designs for Ajax using a fiberglass casing that was destroyed by small explosives, but this proved to be overweight and did not increase Ajax to the required speed. Redstone Arsenal then presented a rather bigger and longer T48E3 to achieve a reasonable performance, but only at the cost of having to modify all the Ajax launch rails. The Army finally decided not to continue modifying Ajax because Hercules will arrive soon. Similar experiments for Hercules reinforcement led to XM-61 single room boosters, but when the XM-42 cluster proved to be cheaper than expected, this effort was also dropped.
As part of the upgrade project, the original missile is known as Nike I . On 15 November 1956, a new missile was officially renamed Nike Hercules, as part of DA Circular 700-22, while Nike I became Nike Ajax.
The new design ultimately delivers an effective range on the order of 75 miles (120 km) and a height of 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) to over 100,000 feet (30,480 meters). When a missile is fired on a ground-to-air mission, an interception can not be performed in a "dead zone" around its launcher. The 'dead zone' has a ground radius of about 10,000 meters and a height of about 20,000 feet. The dead zone is determined by the launch angle and minimum rotation radius of the missile.
Bomarc/Hercules Controversy
Throughout the early Nike evolution, the newly-joined Air Force has been driven by the deployment of missile systems. They see this as an extension of the existing Army's "defense" role, and as a valuable reserve for their own manned interceptors. There are concerns about the possibility of Air Force fighters being attacked by Army missiles, but the two forces are improving coordination between Army ARAACOM and Air Force Airborne Command (ADC) to the point where these concerns are no longer a serious concern.. However, when the Army first released information about Ajax to the press in 1953, the Air Force responded quickly by divulging information about BOMARC to Flight Week, and continued to undermine Nike in the media over the next few years.
Everything changed dramatically with the development of Hercules. In the early 1950s the Air Force was still struggling with their own long range weapon system, initially beginning in the 1940s in the GAPA project. The project has moved several times, and is now in its final development as BOMARC. BOMARC proved very expensive, difficult to maintain in operational readiness, had questionable performance, and showed inability to achieve operational status. Instead of emphasizing BOMARC in favor of Hercules, inter-service rivalries became rampant, and the Air Force embarked on a policy of denigrating Hercules and the Army using policy with press releases.
In a famous event, the Air Force was interviewed for an article appearing on the New York Times titled "Air Force Calling Nike Unfit To Guard Nation Army". This was answered at least by the Army, but Defense Secretary Charles Erwin Wilson, writing in Newsweek that "a solid solid fact recalls above all of them: no matter what Nike or not, the only US-based ground-based anti-air missile missile. "At the start of the Hercules deployment beginning in 1958, BOMARC was still not approaching operations.
All of this is part of a bigger battle going on over Army's Jupiter missiles, declared by the Air Force as their mission. Wilson sought to overcome inter-service competition by imposing strict limits on the ranks of the Army system. In the November 26, 1956 memorandum, he limited the Army to weapons 200 miles (320 km), and those involved in ground-to-air defense only 100 miles (160 km). This forced the Army to change its IRBM Jupiter system into the Air Force, and to limit the range of their ABM development.
It's not much use to stop the squabble, nor does it solve the problem that caused the problem in the first place - a fight over Hercules and BOMARC and related anti-missile developments. Nor does it stop the fighting in the media. Army Colonel John Nickerson Jr publicly denounced Wilson, while divulging details of their latest missile design, Pershing missiles. The resulting flap caused the call for Nickerson to be a military tribunal and compared to Military Court Billy Mitchell in the 1920s.
It does, however, allow the development of Hercules to proceed, and the system immediately prepares to deploy. In 1958 an article appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times where various Air Force officials complained that Hercules was ineffective. Chicago is scheduled to begin receiving its Hercules upgrades soon. Similar articles began appearing in newspapers all over the country, always just before the city began to accept their missiles. This prompted ARAACOM commander Charles E. Hart to petition the Minister of Defense to order the Air Force to stop a well-organized campaign against Hercules. The army then initiated a series of press releases of its own under what they called "Project Truth".
Finally, in November the new Secretary of Defense, Neil H. McElroy announced both systems would be purchased. Both their strengths, and their congressional supporters, realize that splitting the budget means no power will be funded to the level required to fulfill defense missions. In 1959, both the House and the Senate debated the system, with the Senate recommending funding cuts for Hercules and Congress stating otherwise. Congress finally came to support the position of Secretary of Defense as stated in the Air Defense Plan, retaining Hercules while reducing BOMARC and SAGE.
Meanwhile, the Air Force rushed to bring BOMARC into operational status, and on 1 September 1959 declared the 46th Air Defense Squadron at the McGuire Air Force base. He later revealed that only one of the sixty missiles on the site actually functioned at that time. Engineers continued to work for a second missile operation at McGuire, but the Air Force went ahead with plans to open the Suffolk Missile Annex on January 1, 1960. In January only four missiles were operating in Suffolk, and during the monthly Appropriations hearings hearing, proved rather calm when the Congress attacked the design, especially given some failed tests of the BOMARC B missile. In February February Air Force Chief Thomas D. White surprised everyone when he requested that BOMARC's deployment be reduced to eight US and two Canadian sites, essentially killing the program.
In the aftermath of the Hercules/BOMARC debate, retired Brigadier General of the Army, Thomas R. Phillips wrote an article for St. Louis Post-Dispatch that BOMARC and SAGE were "the most expensive wastage of funds in the history of the Department of Defense."
Operation SNODGRASS
Plans have been made to test Hercules' W-7 warheads in a shootout exercise in 1959 as part of "Operation SNODGRASS". However, because rumors about a nuclear weapon's nuclear test ban are spreading, SNODGRASS becomes an accident project to be completed before September 1, 1958 on every available site - Nevada Test Site is fully booked with the existing AMMO Project testing series. Part of the rush is due to a growing understanding of the effects of nuclear weapons on radar systems, which causes serious concerns about the various capabilities of the weapon system to operate after a nearby nuclear explosion. The W-7 test was put into the AMMO, while the SNODGRASS series was transferred to the Air Force-Air Force test at the Eglin Air Force Base with tests of the conventional T45 and W-7 nuclear warheads. Various problems, including those found in warheads of W-7, led to delays in the testing program, so the launch of a TC-equipped Hercules single was also added to the AMMO project.
The AMMO shooting occurred on July 1, 1958, successfully intercepted 650 simulated flight knot targets at 100,000 feet altitude and a 79-mile incline. The first SNODGRASS round was launched on July 14 with a warhead replaced by an instrument pack and was launched against a 350-knot Q2A Ryan Firebee I drone. A similar test on July 17 against the 300-node Q2A destroys the target with T45. The double launch followed on July 24, with the first lap destroying its target with the T45, and the second with the instrument pack flying a second behind. A similar test on July 29 launches two missiles against three F-80 Drone Shooting Star flying in formation, the first missile destroying the main plane while the second passes within the deadly span of seconds. Testing is suddenly canceled before W-7 can be fired.
Implementation
Hercules is designed from scratch to operate from an Ajax base. However, because it protects a much larger area, not many sites are required to provide potential target coverage. The initial application that started in 1958 was on new sites, but the Ajax unit started converting too. Conversion was largely completed in 1960, leaving only a few Ajax sites in use. The last active Ajax Nike battery was released from their mission in December 1961, followed by the Army's last National Guard unit in May 1964.
Nuclear-armed Nike Hercules missiles are deployed in the United States, Greece, Italy, Korea and Turkey, and with Belgian, Dutch and US forces in West Germany. Conventional armed Nike Hercules missiles also work in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Norway, and Taiwan. The first spread in Europe began in 1959.
Enhanced Nike Hercules
Even before the spread of Hercules began, studies of system improvement have been identified. A report of 23 October 1954 stated that "Along with the prosecution of NIKE I and NIKE B programs, studies and research and development should be undertaken to ensure that NIKE equipment is modernized to the maximum extent within the limits of current technology and economics of improvement compared to investments in new systems... ". Three key elements are identified; the need to attack formations without nuclear warheads, operations against low-altitude targets, and better traffic handling capabilities to deal with larger attacks.
In early 1956 Bell began studying the concept of Improved Nike Hercules (INH) by considering the threats predicted for the period 1960-65. It is a plane with speeds up to Mach 3, various radar cross sections, and powerful electronic countermeasures. IRBM and ICBM are also taken into consideration, but this is handled by the Nike Zeus concept, leaving only short-range weapons as a problem that Hercules may need to address. To solve these problems, Bell proposed a series of changes:
- increase on XTR band XTTR/MTR to increase range
- long-distance "Long-distance Remote Radar" L-band (HIPAR) capability to detect small high-speed targets
- adding the Target Ranging Radar (TRR) Ku-band frequency to provide a variety of heavy ECM environments
- adding active search on missiles to improve performance against low altitude targets
The addition of TRR solves the problem with the initial pulse radar unit. It is relatively easy to trace conventional radars by sending additional pulses of radio signals at the same frequency. Unless the transmitter has encoded some form of additional information in the signal, the receiver can not determine which pulse is sent and which comes from the jammer. Note that this has no effect on the direction determination to the target, which is the same for both the original pulse and the jammer. However, it makes defining the range difficult or impossible. TRR solves this problem by providing a separate range system on other frequencies. By generating broad-frequency signals, the jammer must also broadcast over the same bandwidth, limiting the energy in one frequency and allowing the operator to set the receiver to find an uncooked band. Merging range from TRR and direction from TTR gives complete information on target.
The changes are designed to be upgradable without major changes to the system being used - TTR/MTR can be changed at any time, HIPAR uses its own display and therefore no changes are required in the missile launch equipment, the TRR is truncated to TTR and updated range readings, and new search can be installed at any time. The original retroactive Ajax radar detection radar is known as LOPAR, and is still used as the primary target selection radar in missile missiles. HIPAR will detect the target separately and "submit" to LOPAR and TTR so that the systems can remain unchanged and capable of launching Hercules or Ajax.
This change was presented on 24 August 1956, and accepted by CONARC and ARADCOM. An active search system is then lowered to lower costs. The technique was completed in 1958 and entered a low-level production in May 1959. The first HIPAR was tested at White Sands between April 14, 1960 and April 13, 1961, beginning with two Ajax launches passing 14 yards and 18 yards from unmanned drone targets, and further 17 Hercules was launched which is generally successful. Among the various test objectives are Mach 3 Lockheed AQM-60, unmanned aircraft, and Corral missiles. Also performed are tests to evaluate ECM performance, two surface to surface tests, and two Hercules-on-Hercules attacks with Hercules targets flying in semi-ballistic trajectories.
The spread of the INH upgrade kit started on June 10, 1961 at the BA-30 site in the Washington-Baltimore defense area, and continued until September 1967. HIPAR is a large system and is generally placed under a dome over a concrete platform that lifts it above any local obstacles. To provide the same range of views, radar tracking is also often placed on their own concrete platforms, although this is much smaller.
The Hercules missile system sold to Japan (Nike J) is then fitted with an improved internal guidance system, an original vacuum tube system replaced with a distal one.
Anti-missile upgrade
Although Hercules has demonstrated its ability to successfully engage short-range missiles, that ability is not considered very important. During the development the Air Force resumed Project Wizard while the Army began a Plato Project study for a special anti-missile system. In 1959, Plato was still a paper project when news of a large-scale deployment of short-range missiles in the Warsaw Block became a clear threat. Plato was canceled in February 1959, replaced in the short term with further increases to Hercules, and in the long run by the FABMDS program. FABMDS will have performance against any reliable "theater", ie missile or rocket systems, and offer anti-aircraft capability, the ability to attack four targets at once, and become relatively mobile.
The Hercules system is compared with threats ranging from close range John Little John, Honest John and Lacrosse through a medium-range system such as Corporal, Sergeant and Lance, and finally a long distance (to battlefield) 200 miles (320 km). From this threat, Redstone is considered only in the capabilities of Hercules, able to withstand such targets in a relatively limited range. Improving performance against long-range "theater" weapons will require a wider increase that will push the time span to the range when FABMDS is expected.
The main change to create the "Improved EFS/ATBM Hercules" result is a modified version of HIPAR. The antenna is modified to provide the ability to view a higher angle, while the Battery Control Console is upgraded with dual PPI display for short and long-term work, and data link to the missile van is improved. In addition, the radar is given an "Electronic Frequency Selection" (EFS) system that allows the operator to switch rapidly between operating frequency options at about 20 microseconds, while the previous system requires a manual switch which takes about 30 seconds.
The first EFS set arrived at White Sands in late 1962 and began to be tested in April 1963. In testing the system succeeded against all sorts of rockets and short-range missiles, and managed to track Redstone on September 23 and October 5, 1963, but failed to achieve " kill "in both tests due to unrelated issues. A test against Pershing's much higher performance was performed on October 16, 1963, and while HIPAR was able to detect missiles, the tracking system could not trace them.
The first HIPAR EFS/ATBM deployment took place between February and April 20, 1963, but during this time the Army decided not to deploy this system in the United States. Further deployment to Allied units and US units in Alaska was conducted between November 1963 and the summer of 1965.
Mobile Hercules
When Hercules evolved from a fixed-base Ajax system, the initial deployment did not offer mobility. However, the Ajax and Hercules system in Europe should be able to move as US forces shift. This leads to the use of semi-trailer systems for fire control systems, which can be easily moved and positioned as needed. LOPAR is relatively small, and TTR/MTR is always trailer based, so the system is also quite mobile. The problem is the missile launcher itself, and especially the big HIPAR radar, which presents an incredible mobility problem.
Beginning in April 1960, considerable effort was put into the fully mobile "Cross-Country Hercules" launcher based on the Goer M520 vehicle, an articulated prime mover that saw great service during the Vietnam War. The system was successfully tested at White Sands on October 1, 1961. Despite this success, GOVT-based Hercules will not be used operationally.
Attempts to install HIPAR on the same platform between March and December 1962 were not very successful, and on December 18, 1962 the concept was abandoned for an airmobile solution using conventional M52 trucks and modified trailers. The resulting system uses six semi-trailers: four to carry HIPAR electronic equipment, one to carry the antenna, and another to carry the generator. General Electric demonstrated the prototype on February 11, 1964. AN/MPQ-43 Mobile HIPAR became part of Standard A Hercules in August 1966 and began operations in Europe on 12 April 1967.
Disabling
The development of the Soviet ICBM and the de-emphasis of their bomber strength decreased the value of the Hercules system. Beginning around 1965, the number of Nike batteries decreased. Thule air defense was reduced during 1965, and SAC air defense during 1966, reducing the number of batteries to 112. Budget cuts reduced that number to 87 in 1968, and 82 in 1969. Nike Hercules was included in the SALT I discussion as ABM.
All CONUS Hercules batteries, with the exception of Florida and Alaska, were disabled in April 1974. The remaining units were disabled during the spring of 1979. Disassembling locations in Florida - Alpha Batteries in Everglades National Park, Bravo Batteries at Key Largo, Battery Charlie at Carol City and Delta Battery, located on Krome Avenue on the outskirts of Miami - began in June 1979 and finished in the early fall of that year. The buildings that used to be the Delta Battery became the original structure used for the Krome Avenue Detention Facility, a federal facility used primarily to detain illegal aliens awaiting trial of immigration. In Anchorage, Alaska, Site Point (A Battery) is converted into a ski chalet for Kincaid Park. Site Summit (B Battery) is still above Eagle River, the IFC building and its clamshell tower are easily visible while driving to Anchorage. Site Bay (C Battery), in Cook Inlet from the others, has been largely destroyed, by simply burning the remnants of the remaining batteries, as well as some storage bunkers. The large airstrip remains, and is often used by locals for flight instruction and training.
Hercules remained a major frontline weapon in Europe in the 1980s. For many years, the vacuum tube-guidance system, as well as the radar of complex fire control systems, suffered from the problem of reduced manufacturing resources (DMS). Partly because of the support of the lesser parts, Western Europe (The Four Alliance Tactical Air Force (4 ATAF) and the Second Allied Tactical Air Force (2 ATAF) sites are essentially a fixed site and are no longer considered capable of mobile roles.For the final years of deployment they are in Europe, the problem is about keeping the security of nuclear-capable missiles, rather than mobility.Doins invest in improving the security of the storage area of ​​the launcher, finally installing an important tower capable of overseeing more than three sections in the "exception area".
The US Army continued to use Hercules as a front-line air defense weapon in Europe until 1983, when the Patriot missile battery was deployed. NATO units from West Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Greece and Turkey continued to use Hercules for highland air defenses until the late 1980s. With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the units were deactivated in 1988. The last Hercules missile was launched in the Sardinia range of Capo San Lorenzo in Italy on November 24, 2006.
About 25,000 Nike Hercules are produced. The initial model costs about $ 55,250 each, while the latest cost estimate, from Japan, is US $ 3.0 million.
Maps Nike Hercules
Description
Nike Hercules is an anti-aircraft missile guided by command, long distance, and high altitude. It's usually deployed on a fixed base with a radar center and control site (Integrated Fire Control area or IFC) separate from the launcher area (LA). Hercules batteries in the US are generally placed on the older Ajax base, using their underground storage and maintenance. 145 missile batteries deployed during the Cold War.
Site
Each Nike battery consists of two or three areas; IFC, LA and general. LA consists of a maximum of four parts of the launch, each section comprising an underground storage area, an elevator for moving missiles to and from surface launchers, and four shooting locations on the ground. One of these locations is right above the lift, the other is achieved by pushing the missile manually from the lift to the launcher along the rails. LA also has a control van to control and monitor LA maintenance activities and facilities.
IFC contains search and tracking radar and control centers (operators, computers, etc.), and various related offices and communications centers for general operations. To operate the Nike Hercules system at IFC, the crew consists of nine operators under the command of Battery Control Officer (BCO). The crew in LA, also under the command of the BCO, are responsible for preparing and setting up missiles. In both maintenance people IFC and LA are available.
Battery crews are placed in place, either at IFC, or sometimes, along with administrative offices and public services in separate areas.
A single battery can only launch one missile at a time, due to the limited number of radars, computers and operators. Four Nike batteries are usually set into one battalion.
Missile
When installed in its booster pack, the Hercules missile is 41 feet (inches) with a wingspan of 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) (only one side). The upper stage alone is 24 feet (7.59 m) long. The fuselage has a bullet-shaped shape (Sears-Haack body), but it's hard to know because of the presence of four large delta wings that run almost along the entire fuselage. Each wing ends with a control wing separated from the wing by a short distance, leaving the gap. The back of the control even with the extreme rear of the missile. The smaller delta in front of the main wing, and fused with them, provides a roll control with a very small flap mounted to spin along the line approximately 45 degrees from the fuselage. This small wing also puts a transponder antenna.
The booster is formed from four previous Ajax M5E1 amplifiers that are united in one frame. Each is a steel tube, and held together in this way they present a considerable range of security issues when they fall back to the ground after launch. The amplifier is equipped with four large winged wing fins on the back of the extreme, behind the rocket exhaust, using a diamond cross section suitable for supersonic lift.
Hercules can carry nuclear warheads or conventional high explosive warheads (type of T-45 fragmentation). Originally a nuclear weapons version carried the nuclear warhead W-7 Mod 2E, with a result of 2.5 or 28 kt. Beginning in 1961 the older warheads were replaced by warheads of W-31 Mod 0, with a yield of 2 kt (Y1) or 30 kt (Y2). The latest version brings W31 Mod 2 warheads, with 2 or 20 kt results.
About 25,000 Nike Hercules are produced. Three versions are produced, MIM-14A, B and C. The difference between these versions is unknown. There are slight differences in dimensions as reported on different sources, it is unknown if this is caused by different versions.
Detection and tracking
Interceptions with the Hercules system will usually begin with targets detected and identified on the HIPAR system, if these are in use. Otherwise, LOPAR is used. To simplify the upgrade on the Ajax site, HIPAR does not replace the previous ACQ radar from Ajax, which is preserved and is now known as LOPAR. HIPAR uses its own display and operators, and passes targeting information to LOPAR operators who will then take the same targets on their own views.
Once the target is found in LOPAR, it can be identified with the help of a friend identification or enemy system. LOPAR provides a rough range, azimuth and a limited height or elevation information to the operator of the Target Tracking Radar (TTR), which manually takes the TTR to the target. Once locked, automatic tracking.
The new Hercules system is the Target Ranging Radar, or TRR. It is relatively easy to pause range information on monopulse radar like TTR by sending false signals. Radar can continue to search for targets in altitude or azimuth because all signals come from the same location, but the receiver can not easily determine the pulse sent by the radar and sent by the electronic countermeasures (ECM) on the target aircraft. The TRR system fights this by operating on two selectable frequency bands. The result is fine to start but not useful for positioning. This signal will be very difficult jammed because the jammer must broadcast across a wide frequency to ensure they are back on the frequency that the receiver has actually chosen. In the meantime, TTR can continue to offer location information, and in cases that are also jammed (difficult but likely), upgraded to offer home-on-hours mode that uses its own ECM system broadcast as a location source. Expert operators can also try to track targets in manual tracking mode.
Guide
Once the TTR is locked on the target, the analogue (then digital) computer continuously calculates the corresponding intercept points in the sky and the expected time to fly from the missile based on information from TTR and basic performance information about the missile. This information is displayed on the plotting board.
Prior to launch, the Missile Tracking Radar (MTR) was locked on the transponder in the selected missile. Like Ajax, Hercules uses transponders on missiles. In the immediate aftermath of the actual location launch, the azimuth, elevation and missile range are displayed on the merge board. The shooting or launch orders are given manually by the Battery Control Officer by order or by the Engagement Rules. To ensure the MTR can see and track missiles during initial quick approval when launched, IFC is usually located about 1 mile (1.6 km) from Launching Area (LA). In the case of Hercules, all radars are usually mounted on elevated (concrete) platforms to improve their line of sight.
Information from MTR and TTR continues to be fed to the computer to update the intercept point based on actual changes in either the missile or the target location, speed or direction. The guide command is sent to the missile by modulating the MTR transmission signal. When the missile approaches the intercept point, a command signal is sent to the missile to explode.
Run sequence
Hercules missiles are usually stored in "safe" mode, using various pull-to-arm buttons and pins. During the warning, the site will continue to "blue alert", at which time the LA crew will arm and set up missiles and then retreat to safety. When missiles are brought to readiness, a light board in the LA control van is illuminated with a series of yellow lights for each launcher area, and a green light for each missile. At IFC, the selected missile status is given.
When the battery is given a command to attack the target, the warning status light changes from blue to red. When the TTR and MTR radar are locked, the computer has a firing solution and the missile is reported to be active, the LA lamp turns from yellow to green, indicating the ability to shoot. At the moment the target information and intercept points are displayed on the plotting board and the BCO chooses the right time to fire manually.
The entire sequence of events from the decision to launch to the actual launch usually takes about 36 seconds. This includes about 30 seconds to develop tracks for the target; 4 seconds for the computer to develop a firing solution, and 2 seconds between the initial fire command command and missile launch. There is a 5 second allowance to launch the missile, if it fails to do so marked "rejected" and another missile is selected. A new missile can be launched about 11 seconds after the previous missile explosion or rejection. Based on the 'time to fly' of these missiles limit the overall battery level to about one launch every few minutes.
Surface-to-surface mode
Hercules also offers the ability to attack pre-location ground targets, after feeding in coordinates in operations that take about five minutes. For this mission the computer uses the MTR to guide the missile to a point above the target, then instructs it to dive vertically while measuring track changes when it falls. The missile will eventually pass the line-of-sight with the MTR, so the final arming information is given during the dive, and the warhead is triggered by a barometric fuse.
Intentional launch
- The launch of the Nike-H missile accidentally occurred on April 14, 1955, on the W-25 site at Fort George G. Meade containing National Security Agency headquarters
- Naha AFB, Okinawa June or July 1959, a similar incident occurred regarding Hercules anti-aircraft missiles in Okinawa which, according to some witnesses, complete with nuclear warheads, and was accidentally fired from Nike site 8 batteries at Naha Air Base. While the missile is undergoing a test of continuity of the firing circuit, known as the squib test, stray voltage causes a short circuit in the wrong cable lying in a puddle and allows the missile rocket engine to light up with the launcher still in a horizontal position. The Nike missile leaves the launcher and destroys the fence and descends to the coastal area past the warheads in the "rock-like" water. A rocket explosion killed two Army technicians and wounded one.
- Inchon, Korea. Reported on The Washington Post on December 5, 1998, the missile was unintentionally launched from the Nike missile site near the summit of Mount Bongnaesan where the explosion exploded over some reclaimed land from Songdo (now the Songdo International Business District) showering residential areas with debris, destroying parked cars, and breaking windows.
Operator
Former operator
- Ã, Belgium
- Ã, Denmark
- Ã, German
- Ã, Greek
- Italian
- Ã, Japan
- South Korea
- Ã, The Netherlands
- Norway
- Spanish
- Ã, Taiwan
- Turkish
- United States
Gallery
See also
- Missile list
- Project Nike
- W31
- Nike missile location list
Note
References
Quote
Bibliography
External links
- Nike Hercules in Designation-Systems.net
- Nike Historical Society
- Nike Hercules in Encyclopedia Astronautica
- Last North American operational unit
- Missile Nike Information
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments