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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 1337.PDF
FLIGHT International, 2 August 1962 165 Missiles and Spaceflight Seventeen years of system growth BY THE TECHNICAL EDITOR TWO weeks ago a Nike Zeus missile fired from a coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean successfully intercepted the slender, 16,000 m.p.h. re-entry vehicle of an Atlas ICBM fired from Vandenberg AFB, California, 4,300 miles to the east. If this sort of thing could be done reliably, and at a moment's notice, anywhere in the world it would have a profound effect on the military plans of die United States and Soviet Union. The latter nation has made various claims to have anti-missile defences actually in being; America is defenceless against ICBM attack—apart from her own ICBMs, the latest of which are secure in "hardened" bases—but has demonstrated her ability to acquire a measure of protection with the Zeus test of July 19. This appears to be an appropriate time at which to review the philosophy and engineering behind Nike Zeus, though to do so in a single article poses a problem, the magnitude of which can be summed up in three sentences. Nike Zeus is not just a missile but a weapon system weighing thousands of tons, occupying approxi mately 200 acres, and incorporating fundamentally new scientific discoveries and engineering accomplishments. The cost of deploy ing Zeus operationally would be astronomical, and it is widely felt that there must be a better defence against the ICBM than to try to intercept the descending warhead; but the alternative has yet to be found. Finally, Zeus is the third generation of a family, and for completeness one must begin in the middle of World War 2. There have been various estimates of the mean number of anti aircraft shells needed to destroy a single attacking aeroplane, but by 1942 the Germans had reached the conclusion that guided missiles appeared to offer a surer answer. Three years later the US Army studied the German systems carefully when it laid the groundwork for its own Project Nike,* and eventually decided to employ similar radar command guidance. So, for that matter, did the Russians, Swiss and French, while we British went straight to more sophisticated—and more difficult—solutions. Initially the programme was intended to have an 80 per cent kill probability against a target able to manoeuvre at 3g at a speed of l,500kt at 40,000ft. The missile was called Nike Ajax, and data for it are grouped in an accompanying table. Although the system is quite large and costly, its operation could scarcely be simpler, and the same basic method has been retained right up to the Zeus. Targets are first picked up by an acquisition radar, which feeds a computer to which is coupled a target-track radar (TTR). The TTR locks-on to the target and continuously supplies the computer with range, azimuth and elevation data. At the first possible moment the computer launches a missile, which is thereafter tracked by the missile-track radar (MTR). The computer then simply steers the missile by appropriate MTR instructions in order to bring the TTR and MTR data into coincidence as soon as possible. When this is achieved the computer commands the warhead (there are three in Ajax) to detonate. To produce the finished hardware the Army formed a tripartite team comprising Western Electric (prime), Bell Telephone Labora tories (system design) and Douglas Aircraft (missile). These or ganized a vast network of subcontractors who succeeded in develop ing the weapon system to the operational stage by 1953. Since that time Ajax has been deployed in hundreds of batteries throughout CONUS (the continental United States), US military installations throughout the world, and 12 or 13 members of NATO or SEATO. * Named after a lethal Greek goddess and pronounced "Nikey."
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