Project Nike

Warning Sign; Launching Area

Laws of Private Property

SF-88 Missile Site

A Nike Missile in its Magazine

During the Cold War Era there was new method of attack by foreign enemies. The Cold War was introducing new ways of fighting and one of the ways of fighting was done by more air attacks with nuclear weapons. The United States noticed that guns were an ineffective way of fighting against a jet plane at a high altitude. The U.S. new they needed to do something to stop these aircraft from dropping nuclear devices. The military introduced a new anti-aircraft missile that would be an effective way of taking down enemy aircraft planes and missiles. This was the beginning of the Nike Missile.
When The enemy would fly over in their jet, they didn't know where they were going. One thing that the United States did was they wanted to

Cautious symbol to enemy pilots

alerttheir enemies to be cautious because they had defensive weapons that would attack them if there was any danger. The Navy and Air Force had the first say in what they wanted done to the enemy.
The Nike Missiles stayed underground in an area called the Magazine. This area would protect the missile but when the missile was ready to be launched it would be elevated into its position of attack.
What made the Nike really obsolete was the advent of the ICBM. The ICBM (InterContinental Ballistic Missiles) carried the warhead up into the outer atmosphere and they would come down directly on top of the target. They would send the Nike Missile up to detonate and knock it down, you would have something coming down on top of you. It wasn't quite against the ICBM but they were effective toward the surface to air defense system. They never had to fire one at a hostile target as being a deterrent. That was because no one wanted to mess with them.

1955

SF-88L was opened up in 1955, which was one of 300 Nike Sites spread throughout the United States. Two of their well-equipped missiles

A Nike Missile ready to fire

were the Nike Ajax and the Nike Hercules.
Why were there so many Nike Missile Sites in the Northern California region.

Nike Ajax

The Ajax had three conventional warheads. One of them was in the main body of the missile, another warhead three quarters of the way up in the missile and the third one was in the tip of the missile. Most people have a misconception that it comes in contact with its target but that is incorrect. The missile would come within its proximity and would detonate, which would send a pressure wave or shrapnel to disable the target. When the warhead would detonate the shrapnel would turn into little bullets to detonate the target (it is like a grenade). The missile had a steering command within the missile that would receive commands from the ground that would give steering commands known as "pitch and ya commands." There were a set of fins in the middle of the missile and there were elevators (a certain type of fins) at the base of the missile.

Nike Missile Diagram

Nike Hercules

The same year they deployed the Nike Ajax they realized that the Nike Ajax was obsolete. Why? It could only knock down one aircraft at a time with a conventional warhead. So, the problem was that they could not afford to build more sites. They were already too expensive, they required too many people, too much resources to build them, and they realized that they needed to send a bigger bomb preferably a nuclear bomb and the Nike Ajax were too small of a footprint for a nuclear device so they needed a bigger missile. They started working on the Nike Hercules and it was deployed by 1958 and it would carry a bigger warhead to cause a bigger explosion.

Guard Duty

People had to pull roving guard duty, which some people had to do. They would post a guard in between two fences to walk between them to guard the base. They would wear full winter combat gear with an M-16 that would hold up to 90 rounds to help them guard the base. They would do guard duty for six hours and then would be relieved by someone else. One would do it from 6:00P.M. until 12:00A.M., and then he would be relieved and another one would be on from 12:00A.M. - 6:00A.M. There was also a back-up team duty where the people would keep all of their gear on with an Excalibur machine gun. The back-up guard duty could go to sleep but they were the ones who would help out in any emergency situation. Many times people would play practical jokes on one another by not showing up to their session during guard duty. This would make the person who was on active duty had to stay overtime for another six hours. Some people could not handle guard duty and they were sent home.
There was a Nike Hercules Site in West Germany. The people would work for 24 hours on duty and then they would be off for 24 hours. When you worked, you would spend eight hours on launch duty or cleaning up the facility and then they could rest after that. If they were caught dozing on guard duty then this would be court marshaled. People who were not mature enough, struggled on guard duty and a lot of times were sent home.

Tip of a Nike Hercules Missile

In the warhead building they would pull the warhead off in order to do preventive maintenance on the missile. Being a nuclear device, which was very secured, a person was not even allowed to see the warhead. Guys would come in and would take the warhead and put it into what was called a jacket to hide it from others. When someone was working around the missile there was known as the two-man rule where no one could be caught alone on site in the proximity of the missile. If one person was caught being alone around the missile, he could be shot by someone else for violating the two-man rule. There would always have to be two people and they would come in and take off the warhead.
Once a year, each sight was to gather a small crew to go down to White Sands, New Mexico (if they were stationed in the United States). If they were somewhere outside of the United States they would go somewhere else (such as if you were in Germany you would go to the Island of Cree). You were required to put a missile together and fire it at a target such as a test drum. The test drums were jet powered drums and even later than that they had developed an electronic simulation of a target (such as a virtual target for the missile to catch). The missile never came into physical contact with the target. It came within a proximity usually several yards in front of the missile and sometimes above the missile and then would detonate causing enough pressure and shrapnel to disable the target.

Back end of Nike Hercules

The Nike Hercules Missile would travel at Mach three and a half when it would hit its target (three and a half times the speed of sound, about 2,700 hundred miles per hour). Much faster than any bullet. It was a bullet literally trying to hit another bullet. It would also knock down jet- propelled aircrafts. They would do launch systems where they would send up one Nike system and then send up another Nike after it and they were successful.
The first guided missile system that was widely deployed in the United States was in 1952. The work started on it in 1945 after World War II. The difference between a missile and a rocket is a missile is guided and the rocket was not guided. The first guided missiles, was a two-stage missile where the initial stage would drop off after a few second of flight. Its idea was to get the missile up in the air and at a sufficient speed so the sustainer motor could take over and guide the missile to its target.

- How fast does the Nike Hercules accelerate from the surface once its launch to its target?

By the time the Hercules tail end had past the launcher it had broken the sound barrier. The blast wave of the Nike Hercules would have broken the windows out of most of the buildings and would rupture the eardrums of anybody who was not protected standing in the launch areas.

They never fired a Nike Missile at a hostile target but they did launch more than 25,500 test launches of the Nike Hercules. It cost about 55,000 dollars per missile in 1958.

Caution Sign

On the booster section, which was called the JATO unit or the JATO System takeoff. They put four of these boosters on the Hercules and it made the missile a lot faster and had a longer range. The missile range reached up to about 90 to 100 miles on an airborne target. The range on a surface target reached up to 120 miles.

If anyone wanted to come and work on the Missile they needed identification of who they were and they had to go through two fenced gates and also by the Guard tower to get onto the site.
The Nike Missile was one of the first ABM Missiles to ever be built. It was the beginning of a new project for the United States.

Introduction Timeline Project Nike Bomber Gap Missile Gap 1957-1961 Bibliography

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DoniloHarmon and Michael Shepherd