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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1806.PDF
896 FLIGHT, 6 December 1957 Missiles 1957 . . . ( U.S.A.—continued) ance, a major proportion of the airframe, themobile launcher, pallet and reusable container. A tracked vehicle carries three rounds at a timeand loads them on to the launcher. About 40 acres are needed for a site, weapon storagebeing underground. Several locations have been selected, including areas around NewYork and Washington/Baltimore. Fire con- control of Hawk can be co-ordinated by theMissile Master. Last month the prime con- tractor received $35m for continued develop-ment and production, $6m of this being rele- vant to plant-preparation and tooling. Develop-ment rounds have been manufactured at Andover, Mass., and the complete Hawk systemis now in pre-production, the Northrop com- ponents being planned for production at NorthDighton, Mass. Nike Ajax (originally Nike I) This famousU.S. Army anti-aircraft weapon is the most widely employed missile in the world, and isone of the few guided-weapon systems with which real experience suitable for statisticalanalysis has been acquired. Tens of thousands of rounds have been manufactured (over 1,500were fired before the system became operational in December 1953) and total expenditureamounts to well over $500m. A full history of the background to thedevelopment of Nike Ajax was published in our 1956 review. In retrospect it was probably anecessary evil to purchase this weapon in quantity, since, although it is of very early con-ception and has a system performance which falls short of that required to be certain ofdestroying modern bombers, it has enabled the U.S. Army to establish operational anti-aircraftweapon sites which will progressively improve as Nike Hercules and possibly later develop-ments are introduced. The bulk of the enor- mous expense and effort required to introducesuch a system to service, together with its asso- ciated electronic environment, storage andbase-support facilities, training programmes and logistic supply problems has already beendone, and numerous sites (40 were authorized in 1953 and most are now operational) are atpresent available for defensive purposes at an hour or two's notice. Each missile has a cruciform of delta wingsand a second cruciform of canard control sur- faces arranged around the nose. The manufac-ture of the weapon has been described in some detail, and involves such novel processes as theuse of "bubble gum" to reveal leaks in the 5,000 lb/sq in air pipes. Prime contractor forthe overall system is Western Electric/Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Nike Ajax hasalways been manufactured by Douglas Aircraft, originally at Santa Monica and now at theCharlotte Ordnance Plant in North Carolina. Most of the structure is conventional, but thecontrol surfaces are made of Douglas Aircomb, a Kraft-paper/phenolic honeycomb machinedto very close tolerances. The sustainer motor, by Bell Aircraft (origin-ally by Aerojet-General), operates on nitric acid and kerosine fed through external pipes underthe pressure of air stored in Menasco steel tanks. The single chamber has a rating of2,600 lb thrust at 10,000ft and, being lined with Niafrax A ceramic, operates uncooled at5,000 deg F and 330 lb/sq in absolute. Specific impulse is 212 and the maximum firing time 35seconds. Major airframe sub-contractors have included Hamilton Standard, Kaiser andRheem. The high-explosive warhead is sur- rounded by optimum fragments and has elec-ts o-mechanical fuzing by the Elgin National Watch Company. Eastern Industries supplyhydraulic pumps and electronic-pressurization units. The whole assembly is fired verticallyinto the air by a solid boost motor by the Hercules Powder Company housed in awrapped-steel casing by Goodyear. As we stated in our 1956 review, the weakestlink in the Nike Ajax system is its guidance (although this is improved in batteries modifiedto accommodate Nike Hercules). After the ver- tical launching and boost burn-out, the missileis steered by command guidance towards its target and is governed by a lead beam whichfollows tracking radars locked on to the target. Ground computation so controls the lead beamas to bring the missile to a pre-calculated posi- Fairchild Petrel AUM-N-Z Air-to-surface (air-to-underwater). Cruise propulsion in the air provided bya Fairchild J44 turbojet, underwater propulsion provided by Mk 13 torpedo machinery. Overall length, 24ft; wing span, 13ft; tailplane span, 8ft; launching weight, 3,800 Ib; flight speed, Mach 0.7; range, S miles. tion in space immediately beneath the nose ofthe attacking aircraft, whereupon the warhead is detonated through a command signal. In thedefence of the metropolitan U.S.A. the weapon is associated with, and to a considerable extentcontrolled by, superimposed electronic systems which organize the whole operational structureof CONAD (Continental Air Defense Com- mand). Chief of these is the SAGE (semi-automatic ground environment) and a second, more localized, system is the Missile Masterdeveloped by The Martin Company, which integrates the behaviour of a number of Nikebatteries to ensure that no duplication takes place, neither is any target ignored. Suchsystems are not essential to the operation of Nike, and the weapon is already in operationalservice in such areas as Greenland, Alaska, and Germany where no comparable super-imposed electronic environment exists. Earlier this year the U.S.S.R. publicly deni-grated the effectiveness of the system, basing their arguments largely on testimony offered toCongress by the U.S. Air Force who have long sought to prove that the weapon was obso-lescent The Army issued a prompt rebuttal, which included the statement that the guid-ance system "cannot be jammed." Wilbur Brucker, Secretary for the Army, recentlyannounced that by the end of next year about 70 per cent of the active anti-aircraft battalionsassigned to CONAD will be equipped with Nike. Typical of the strength of the installa-tions are those around Philadelphia, where there are twelve sites, four of which wererecently doubled in fire-power. The overall system is rather loosely described as "68 timesas effective as conventional weapons." Other batteries are stationed at Thule, Greenland andfour sites have been chosen in Western Ger- many. A site diagram was published on p. 900of our 1956 review. Each battery has electronic equipment worth some $300,000 and contain-ing 3,500 valves; these are not always "on the air" and must be allowed an adequate warm-uptime. No Nike Aiax missiles were procured fromFY57 funds; 300 were cancelled on contract and it is anticipated that termination orders willbe issued for 400 more. On the other hand, the Army has requested FY58 funds to rebuildapproximately 4,000 Nike Ajax weapons, some of which have actually been in launchers fortwenty months. Corrosion and deterioration of parts from exposure and repeated check-outoperations have made the weapons non-opera- tional, and it was stated that the cost of rebuild-ing Nike far exceeded that of conventional weapons "due to low densities, high compon-ent and parts costs and requirement for highly trained and skilled maintenance technicians."The Army stated that periodic rebuilding was essential to ensure precise calibration foreffective firing. Nike Hercules Pride of the U.S. Army,this impressive weapon, formerly known as Nike B, is the largest anti-aircraft rocket in thewestern world. Compared with its predecessor, Nike Ajax, it has a body with a greater lengthand much larger diameter, together with greatly improved guidance and much increasedthrust. These improvements, together with large wings and a new control system, conferan operational performance claimed to exceed that of any other anti-aircraft weapon in theworld (with the sole exception of Bomarc which has greater range). As a result, Nike Herculescan reach out and destroy any existing bomber before the latter could reach the point of releaseof a free-falling bomb aimed at the area pro- tected by the missile. Development prototypes had liquid-propel-lant sustainers, but production rounds have one of the new series of Thiokol solid-propel-lant motors which employ a new type of plastic-base polymer/oxidizer combination giv-ing very high specific impulse. The boost unit comprises four Nike Ajax barrels joined at thefront to a thrust casting and at the rear to a wrapping plate to which are attached four stabilizing fins. More than three-quarters ofthe length of the body is occupied by the cruci- form of delta wings, which have acutely sweptleading edges and are fitted with control "elevens" carried on projecting arms at thetrailing edge. The latter surfaces are actuated by a control ring surrounding the sustainermotor tube, and the missile is stressed to man- oeuvre with accelerations very much greaterthan the limits of the canard Nike Ajax. Prime contractor is Western Electric, whomanufacture ground and airborne guidance and control equipment at Burlington and Winston-Salem. It is possible to integrate Nike Hercules into the ground-control equipment of NikeAjax after suitably modifying the latter (which also increases the effectiveness of the earlierweapon). The first production set of ground- guidance gear was released from Burlington atthe beginning of the year and the equipment is now operational at several sites at presentarmed with Nike Ajax. Nike Hercules is described as "15 times as effective as NikeAjax" and one Hercules battalion "armed with a nuclear weapon can deliver the equivalentfire-power of 40 anti-aircraft artillery batta- lions equipped with 90mm guns." The radio-frequency power is reported to bein excess of 100,000 W and the missile itself undoubtedly incorporates some form of radarhoming. It is noteworthy that the small axial aerials ahead of the wings are retained in thenew weapon (they assist in damping out oscilla- tion in flight) and it is possible that radarreceiving equipment may be contained within the pointed nose. Two of the chief contractorsfor the warhead are Aerojet-General and Rheem. Current h.e. warheads embody newprinciples of fragmentation and incorporate a body structure of resin-bonded glass fabric.General Electric (MOSD) and W. L. Maxson are supplying electro-mechanical fuzing, arm-ing and detonating systems. Next year the weapon will be available with nuclear warheadsof five different yields, each costing in the neighbourhood of $lm. As in the case of Nike Ajax, production hasbeen assigned to Douglas Aircraft who have manufactured development rounds at SantaMonica and are now following-up these deliver- ies with bulk production at the Charlotte Ord-nance Missile Plant, North Carolina. Douglas are also responsible for components of theassociated launching equipment. The first pre- production ground equipment was released fortest at White Sands Proving Ground at the beginning of the year and late in February itwas announced that the complete weapon sys- tem was undergoing final testing. WilburBrucker, Secretary for the Army, stated in the summer that Nike Hercules had exceeded itsdesign objectives and that it would shortly go into bulk production. Shortly thereafterGeneral Maxwell Taylor, Army Chief of Staff, spoke of "six and eight cylinder Nikes to come"implying that there are yet more advanced versions. It is still uncertain what form the finaldefence of the U.S.A. will take and at present Nike Hercules is competing with Talos forthe point-defence role. It is hardly surprising that Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, Army chief ofresearch and development, recently said, "We will not abandon Nike Hercules as of thismoment," since it represents a logical continua- tion of the overall Nike system which has beendeveloped by the ATny O-dnance Corps, Western Electric, Bell Telephone Laboratoriesand Douglas Aircraft for fully ten years, and represents an investment measured in billionof dollars. Moreover, the system may be car- able of further improvement to operate again-:tballistic missiles, although this possibility •-* becoming increasingly remote (see below). Nike-Zeus The U.S. Army attach grc?rimportance to this system, since it represents probably the ultimate phase of the whole N«eprogramme and loss of it would mean virtual* the surrender of the defence of America to t>i«U.S.A.F. at some future date. The missile
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