In my first engineering job in the late 70's, I encountered a pneumatic analog computer. Compressed air was fed through a set of two dimensional channels that were the controller logic and there were compressed air inputs (signals) at various points and a controller output (also compressed air). It was essentially "hard coded" to perform a set controller task. Unlike a digital computer, there was no concept of a "stored program". It did have an advantage over an electronic controller in our application (which involved explosive vapor) in that it was inherently explosion proof.
pneumatic analog ... and then there is the early Ford Pinto emissions control, also pneumatic logic. Just a few months ago, I was presented with a pneumatic logic respirator designed for the pandemic emergency. ...it was easier to simplify and build existing designs.
The only type of analog-computers with something like a stored program back then had fast-change switchboards. Modern analog computers use a digital-computer/fpga part, which then can configure the electro-analoge-computer at runtime
Many years ago, I worked with a person who was in the army and stationed at a Nike Hercules base. He was a radar operator and would pass along stories of the different adventures that had with the missile. One in particular was a training episode when they were tracking any and everything that would fly near them. They were very surprised when they discovered a VERY fast moving target, which they promptly started tracking to see if they could get a firing solution. They found that they could arrive at a firing window but it was so short that it was too late. They later found out that they had been tracking a X15 .
So the missiles were essentially useless by then. Since the X-15 top speed was about Mach 3. My father worked on that program and always told us when to expect a sonic boom, which was not known to the general public at the time. Too bad they didn't notify the tracking operators!
@ bloody funny but the subtitles auto-generated is so wrong it's even more funny, cheers for the laugh, I can understand Scottish accents now my boss is Scottish so it helps a lot haha
I've been reviewing old military fortification maps from Revolutionary war, Civil War, and Cold War- there's an interesting tangent I've noticed - Most of the Nike missile bases around major US east coast cities are often located near, or at, prior locations of civil war fortifications. The Nike and Nike-Hercules emplacements were generally 10-15 miles from the city limits, and the Civil War defenses were usually at the same locations. In 1860s the emplacements chose the 'high ground' and did so again 100 years later.
those sites were chosen during the revolutionary and civil wars for their location. That location didn't change and made them good sites for modern day fortifications as well (and missile batteries are that).
Fort Washington, situated south of Washington DC at the confluence of Piscataway Creek and the Potomac River, was built in the early 1800s to defend DC from river attack and is now a national park, but for a while after the 9/11 attacks the Army deployed a Patriot missile battery there, which was plainly visible from the bike trail on the other side of the river.
As a teenager living in Alaska, my friends and I explored the Nike Hercules site outside of Fairbanks back in the early 80s. It was like a child's dream come true to be able to go anywhere in that complex because it was by then abandoned and because of the location there were no barriers around it. We simply rode our dirtbikes up the mountain to the top. Very cool footage you have of the sites operating the launchers and such as I always wondered what they looked like in action.
On the traditional AA guns: it's worth mentioning that the US and Britain had jointly developed the proximity fuse in WWII, which gave them much, _much_ better shells/kill ratios than the Germans and the Japanese. Curious Droid made an excellent video about them.
The shell had to get close enough to the target to actually detect the target and cause damage. That required accurate gun aiming. The Allied AAA gunners got that from three devices from 1944 onwards. The SCR-584 radar, which was the most advanced gun laying radar of WWII in that it could search for and track a single target automatically , the Bell M-9 Gun Director which could take the radar data and use it to aim up to 4 guns automatically and the Posit VT Fuze.
@@goldgeologist5320 my grandfather worked as an engineer on the proximity fuse project at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, left APL in 1948. Tho I wouldn't be surprised if the project was carried out at multiple locations.
According to US Navy records of antiaircraft kills versus 5" antiaircraft ammunition expended, the proximity fuze *doubled* kill probability - from 1000 rounds per aircraft downed with time and impact fuzes to 500 rounds per kill with proximity fuzes. Doesn't seem like much of an improvement (still 500 rounds!), but cutting ammunition use (and also barrel wear, obviously) *in half* made a game-changing difference.
Funny enough, the germans themselfes were aware of the problem and developed proximity fuses themselfes. The ones for artillery shells were actually close to combat testing, however they were dropped in favor of AA missile systems like the "Wasserfall" and air to air guided missiles like the Ruhrstahl X-4. Those systems too had proximity fuses, however, those obviously had to withstand much lower G forces, therefor were simpler and cheaper to produce. Another interesting thing to not is, that these proximity fuses were no radar doppler effect fuses, but a wild mix (depending on the usecase) of sound wave doppler effect fuses, magnetic fuses, simple passive radiowave homing devices and in the case of the Wasserfall even a mix between infrared homing device (similar to what was later used in the Sidewinder missile) and an infrared proximity fuse. Due to the mechanical and electronical simplicity, a lot of them were even combat proven and used on other guided bomb systems. Really, looking at what the germans came up with out of pure desperation is quite astonishing. :D
Hi Scott, greetings from Germany. I was LCCO in a Nike launch site here in Germany in 1987 (7:52 the guy which turns the knob). We fired one of the non-nuclear Nike-Hercules misslies in a test on Kreta, Greece (Nato missle firering installation, NAMFI). 'Blazing skies, mission surface to air, ...', this was the drill. Some memories are now popping up in my brain. Fly safe ;-)
From Germany too: (former East Germany as that...) In one of our 60s history school books there was a photo of a Nike Hercules. Of course the claim was, that these terrible imperialistic weapons were directed against us, the peaceful socialist peoples... No word that these missiles had a purely defensive role... Nevertheless: The sleek, sharp outlines of this rocket fascinated me as a kid... America was really "sexy" after all!! Thank you Scott for bringing back those memories!
@@11moonshot Inside the Nike launching area were three sections (alpha, bravo and charly) with those missiles. Section alpha was surrounded by an additional fence and we were not allowed to enter. We all know that there were those 'extra spicy' warheads. The maximum range of Nike Hercules was less than the distance to the german-german border. My fear was permanentely that I get the order to select section alpha (with turning the knob to 'A') and we fire a missile eastwards... In this case we would have a nuclear explosion somewhere in the middle of Germany. Thank god that this time is over!
I watched a launch from Crete (American spelling) in July 1984, but I don’t remember which army. We then launched a Lance surface to surface missile into the Mediterranean.
I’m a Nike Hercules veteran and I think this is the best description of the system by a lay person that I have seen. One small quibble I have is about his use of the term altitude instead of elevation when referring to the tracking radars’ inputs to the computer. The tracking radars provided target and missile locations via three polar coordinates, Elevation, Azimuth & Range. The computer would calculate Altitude based on the Height of Site, Elevation, Range and Earth Curvature.
We had these in Italy well into the 2000s. Nike-Hercules was officially decommissioned by the Italian Air Force on June 15, 2007. The last test launch of an Italian Nike-Hercules missile happened on Nov. 24, 2006 from the Capo Teulada range on the Sardinia island.
I was stationed at one of those Italian Air Force missile sites in the Veneto in the early to mid 80's. We were U.S. Army custodial teams for the special warheads. It was great duty for late era Cold Warriors. The Italian Air Force did most of the hard work. The Americans operated in 24 hour shifts, one day on standby, one day on, one day off. We got to explore the region on frequent one day passes. Occasionally we would be invited to dine in the Italian mess. It was a much appreciated break from our Army chow. The presence of the special weapons were supposed to be a secret, but one of the communist Italian newspapers published a map every year with the locations of all the installations.
@@glennmitchell9107 I served as a radar operator in the major radar station (11° Gr.R.A.M.) in northern Italy in '89 and '90. I remember we had direct communication channels to most of the missile sites in the same area. We worked together on every major exercise. Fun times.
Scott Manley: makes a channel that explains how all rockets are missiles, and basically everything about them. Audience: guh huh! Irony! I heard of that before! Let me tell someone!
The ground Attack option was for the Nike Batteries based in Europe. NATO operated Nike Hercules were fitted with US Supplied nuclear warheads (2 out of 3 of them in fact during the 1960s). The backbone of NATO Air Defence in West Germany was a line of Nike Hercules batteries running down the middle of the Country which had the airspace above 20,000 feet all to themselves. A Belt of MIM-23 HAWK batteries covered the first 40 miles of the Iron Curtain between West and East Germany and the Fighters operated behind the HAWK belt and Below the HERCULES Belt.
@@cbboegh NATO's war plan between 1957 and 1968 was called "Tripwire" and it was basically any Major Soviet aggression against NATO would lead to a massive "Can of Instant Sunshine" chuck fest response from NATO. Most NATO fighter bombers had access to US Nuclear Free Fall weapons under what was known as Project E. (The Non US NATO Nike Hercules units (Dutch, Belgium and West German) were the same), while British Canberra and Valiant Bomber units also had access to US Nuclear weapons. The British Army had Honest John and Corporal missiles, while the US Army had a butt load of nuclear weapons from the Davy Crockett to the Redstone, plus atomic artillery shells and demolition devices (basically nuclear land mines). Most of the Defence procurement and weapon development in the US and UK from 1957 through to 1968 was based on this war plan. In 1968, NATO moved to a plan called Flexible Response, which had NATO respond in kind to any Soviet aggression.
Arguably, that Nike site in your backyard is partially responsible for my existence. My dad was a 20yr-old PFC manning one of the Nike-Ajax batteries there in 1957 and 58 when I came along. Though his military career came to an end soon after, that location and that missile have been a significant part of our family lore.
Today, the US military is the greatest threat to the US and the world. They chase false enemies overseas while ignoring the true enemy behind the veil at home..
@@72marshflower15 20 years of revenge on Muslims in the Middle East is a based message to any other nation thinking about giving safe harbor to terrorists to attack America. Joe Biden's brutal withdrawal was a fitting end to a revenge slaughter the likes never seen before. It was poetic.
Thanks for this, Scott, it brought back memories. I was part of the US Army guard force on a Nike Herc site in then-West Germany in the early 70s. The Germans operated the missiles - which were armed, but we retained control and custody of the nuke warheads.
A colleague of mine was in the Bundeswehr, and he told me he was stationed at a German Nike-Hercules battery with US soldiers guarding nuclear warheads - so called "Nuclear Sharing" by NATO. He said once a week for guidance training they aimed at the Kopenhagen-Amsterdam passenger flight, and at the Hamburg main train station - track 6 (in the middle) as he joked.
@@intercosmonaut It wouldn't surprise me, doing it for practice. It takes a lot of prep to actually get one ready for firing. We weren't in on that aspect; we just guarded them when they went into our barns or if the missiles were outside on the launch rails.
@@intercosmonaut, permit me to remind you of Tom Lehrer's "MLF Lullaby": "Sleep, baby, sleep -- in peace may you slumber. No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber. We've got the missiles, peace to determine -- and one of the fingers on the button will be German." Good song from the period! I'm just glad nobody ever had to push the button . . . .
@@doughudgens9275 Nope. At least, not our security contingent. The Germans handled the missiles proper, we just took care of the nuclear warhead security and "surity."
The Washington DC area had many Nike stations mixed into the suburban landscape. My sister had horseback lessons next door to one of them. Edit: site W-45.
@@thomas316 well it would depend on altitude and direction relative to a city. West coast yeah east coast yeee...not entirely. Wind tends to go west to east across the US. Emp damage would be the bigger issue, and maybe a semi reaction with partial yield from an ICBM that had survived the Nike warhead detonation.
I was station 22 mile west if D.C in Gaithersburg MD. W-92 wast it's location. A 4/1 ADA offers Muddy branch road. Thr booster drop zone was the National Gerographic building. I coild see the National breau of Standards outside my office building. The Washington National Golf course separated the Radar from the Launcher area.
Seeing the old video of those guys pushing the missile reminds me of how when I visited the Nike missile base in Marin some ten years ago as a kid they had a couple of us kids on the tour push the rocket along the track to demonstrate how easy it was to move. Probably one of the only rocket museums where they encourage people to touch and handle the rocket.
I was trained in Nike Hercules before they replaced it with the "Patriot" missle system. The missle actually leaves the rail at the speed of Mach 3 to Mach 5. Now that is coming OFF the launching rail. AND, the ground capability enabled the Fire Control to literally hit a 4x4 stuck in the ground, I witnessed it. SO it was accurate at times when needed.
Awesome timing, Scott, I was just reading up on Nike (again). When I was growing up there was a nearby abandoned Nike missile site situated to defend Philadelphia. It was out in farm land and had a rusty chainlink fence around it. Kids used to sneak in there and poke around. Parts of it were dangerous due to flooding and so on, but it was good "X-Files" type stuff. You should do a video about Nike-X/Sprint and the HiBex programs, ABMs that have ridiculous accelerations of 100G or more and went from 0 to Mach 10 in like 5 seconds upon launch. Fascinating technology.
If you ever saw the Blair Witch Project, the house in the final scene was right outside the gate of a Nike site west of Baltimore. I used to poke around out there. Later, it was all bulldozed.
As a past denizen of the Holloman High Speed Test Track. I can speak fondly of the the Nike booster rocket motors taken from the 4-pack Hercules booster. Old fashioned double-base propellant (~50% nitroglycerin / ~50% nitrocellulose + secret herbs and spices to stabilize the mix) extruded in long rectangular rods (like a stick of butter as long as the motor case). Very rugged and completely suitable for the test track vibration environment, they are nearly all used by now. The igniters for the motors is screwed in at the front of the motor prior to launch.
Just for reference, the Nike Hercules force alone had 2,550 nuclear warheads produced for it. That more than the US has deployed on all types of nuclear weapons today. The Nike Zeus Scott shows is the Zeus-A. It was replaced by the Zeus-B (neither of which entered service) which was subsequently replaced by the Spartan in service. The Spartan's 5 MT (with a "mega") warhead was tested in an underground nuclear test in Alaska. (See the Cannikan test.) Other US Surface to Air missiles with nuclear warheads were the Sprint, Bomarc, Talos, and Terrier.
It's amazing how much GDP went into systems that never entered service. Reading up on the era, it seems like it must've felt like everything was advancing faster than it could be kept in balance.
@@franceslarina5508 The nature of the beast. This kind of stuff is so difficult, and takes so long to develop, that if you wait until you need it to start working the problem it's too late.
My high school chemistry and physics teacher worked with this system. It was one of the reasons I have a fascination with hypergols and rockets in general.
Very interesting - we have several old Nike sites up here in Seattle and I had no idea several were the nuclear Hercules versions. Went to school just blocks from one.
The Sprint is one of the things I have to read about again every few years because, apparently, by brain will not accept that the numbers are real and refuses to store them. A 4 ton rocket with 340 tons of thrust if my math is right.
@@steveanderson9290, I was just reading up on it on Wikipedia, and according to that article, Sprint was meant to accelerate at 100 Gs. That's hellacious! But to intercept a warhead that's already descended below 250,000 feet altitude, that's what was needed. So . . . Wow! That's some engineering!
My dad was a missile battery commander at NY-56, Ft Hancock, in 1963-65. I recall having the run of the base (other than the missile sites themselves) while little more than a toddler myself. The ultimate gated community... 13 Hartshorne Drive was our humble abode.
I used to live near the town where the _plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb_ was produced, and back during the Cold War, there was apparently a Nike missile battery on the mountain overlooking the nuclear facility... because the facility was a known Soviet nuke target in the event of WW3 breaking out.
There were 4 Nike Ajax batteries around Hanford. When they switched to Hercules, three were closed in 1958 leaving only the site on Rattlesnake Mountain 46° 23.508'N, 119° 32.028'W which was closed in 1960. The Ajax sites are at 46° 41.724'N, 119° 42.163'W, 46° 44.519'N, 119° 25.602'W, and 46° 41.174'N, 119° 24.459'W. All GPS coords are for launch sites. The radar fire control sites overlooked them from a couple miles away.
My dad was station & then worked as civilian worker at NAS Alameda. I still remember those nuclear wessels there when my dad allowed us on-site for open house & other things.
@@dalethelander3781 I always thought that was funny to send a Russian to that naval base. One of the best Star Trek movies I have ever seen. So amusing and Philistines in the lift with bones
When I was a kid in the 60's I would go on Saturday to watch the Nike missiles stand up at 1:00pm. I thought this was very cool. Thanks Scott for this blast from the past!
I was stationed on an American Nike Hercules site in Germany, there were 3 sections, each section had 11 missiles of which 5 missiles had nuclear warheads. Nike Hercules nuke's had a 2kt, 20kt or a 40kt warhead, our site had mostly 20kt and a few 2kt warheads. The non-nukes were HE. The duty really sucked because of security and sooo much guard duty on the towers and gates and all the exercises with the missiles and inspections. The were 16 American firing Nike Hercules site's in Germany, we all knew we would be a high priority target if the Soviets had attacked, we would have been lucky to even fire off a missile before being attacked. Cool video!
Survivability sure wasn't helped by all of the Hi Power radars being in domes mounted on the highest point on the skyline...even if they did paint some of them green! And quite a few of them seemed to be within RPG range of the Autobahns...{!-{>
I've been to SF-88 ad i was fascinated by the relatively unknown history of the Nike sites. Thanks for doing the video to provide even more details - it's super interesting!
@@advorak8529 I'm good with that definition. Nike, the company is downright evil. Anyone who collaborates with government mandated forced slave labor has agreed to dance with the Devil. There is no amount of "Cool" that can justify ownership of anything with a 'Nike' label on it. And yeah, forced government slavery really does give new meaning to "Just do it"
I just watched a video on Battleship New Jersey about their fire control computer. Apparently, it is a series of gears and cogs that takes readings and you can dial in corrections. I assume its a generational leap from difference engines from earlier.
In many respects, not really. It was a fairly standard evolution of previous technology, just refined to exceptional precision. British and American warships developed exceptional fire control over the course of the war, including radar-guided guns, which is rather more impressive, all things considered. The battleship HMS Duke of York sunk the German battleship Scharnhorst with radar-directed guns at night in a snowstorm, for instance. An American fleet sunk the Japanese battleship Yamashiro with radar-directed gunnery as well, literally shooting the Japanese from over the horizon. The main revolution in computer technology in WW2 came about at Bletchley Park, through the work of Alan Turing and his colleagues. The computer they built to counter Axis encryption was an astonishing feat of engineering.
@@byrnemeister2008 The practical performance of the Norden bombsight was highly overrated. In combat conditions it fared no better than other allied and German tachometric bombsights. Its almost mythical status was to a degree boosted by Norden's own advertising efforts, once some of the secrecy had been lifted.
I live in SE Virginia, where there are so many military installations, so we had multiple Nike bases set up in outlying areas. One of them was turned into a park with outdoor trails and athletic fields, but with many of the original buildings still standing. Tours of this area were going on as late as 2019 (based on a Trip Advisor review), probably have not resumed due to Covid. The place is Carrollton Nike Park in the Carrollton area of Suffolk VA.
Thank You! I have been waiting for someone to do a real good in-depth piece on the Nike-Hercules system in general. It is hard to find good information and footage, ect. for this amazing Rocket System. Thanks again Scott! Also, side note the footage of the Nike-Hercules cast that was cut into and showing the components inside was amazing! I hope to get a chance to go visit the site out in San Francisco someday.
Interesting video, Scott. I got a kick out of seeing the electronics at 8:56 onward, I think I recognized the empty slots with green card-edge connectors as similar to one's used in F-101 Voodoo and F-4 Phantom fighter jets. In the late '70s I worked at a major defense contractor, and we still had to work on assemblies for those older jets once in a while. Amazing what the engineers did with basic components back then, as you pointed out analog computers and control systems were being used long before digital came along. Synchros and servos and resolvers, oh my! 😁
Don't forget "cap tachs" (Capacitive Tachometers). Weird little beasties from the INS computer on F4s. About the only thing I remember from being in a CRS (component repair squadron) in the USAF
@@thekinginyellow1744 I built, tested and repaired F-4 units for nose gear steering, brake pulsers (anti-lock brakes!) and 20mm gun control. Remember any of those? ☺
@@thekinginyellow1744 I was never in the military, but I consider my defense contractor work to be the next best thing in support of our country. Not that I'm in favor of war, either, just realize it's sometimes necessary.
I’m envious of you, Scott, with SF-88 being restored and preserved. W-64, the site in Lorton, VA that’s about a mile from my place is… well, the IFC site’s now a high school, and the 24 launchers are basically a parking lot.
@@Utube4chuck That would be cool. Maybe, DM him on Twitter. He seems to be quite approachable. By the way, it seems that we will have to bring back analog computers for machine learning. So, they are the past and the future, like so many other things.
From 1972 thru 1975 I was on a Nike sight in Germany I worked in the IFC (integrated Fire Control) My job was the MTR (Missile Tracking Radar) operator. I was privileged to participate as a crew member to 3 Live firing at annual Service practice.
Really enjoyed this video. I live on the east coast and we have an old NIKE launch site in town. Until about 15 years ago the buildings remained standing and we used to love exploring the area when we were younger. Nice to finally hear some of the science behind it! Thanks Scott!
My ex father in law worked on installing the Nike Hercules systems for Chrysler Missile before transferringto NASA... Traveled all over including Hawaii training the crews and setting up the systems... He has great stories.... I have a test console for one...
Thank you so much for this video. I served in the US Army in Korea in '76-'77 in a direct support detachment (DSD 2/44) to the six Nike-Herc batteries in South Korea. I have also visited SF-88 in the Marin Headlands several times. Nike-Herc vets are aging and mostly a forgotten force. Thanks again.
I found the entire era when the Nike missiles were developed very interesting. The Army / Air Force rivalry during the period was almost to the point of mutiny. For the era the technology displayed in the systems were revolutionary. The SAGE sites with their AN/FSQ-7 computers that were among the largest computers ever built, provided the command and control. Besides the Nike missiles there was the Air Force's Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc that was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile that also could be armed with a nuclear warhead. As you mentioned, after billions of dollars spent when the system was in its final configuration it was obsolete. They did however, in their ABM research develop two of the most amazing missiles as follow-ons to the Nike Zeus, the Spartan and Sprint missiles. The Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F, requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat.
Such a cool video and something I've always tried to learn more about - I'm about ~45 miles outside of DC and there's a Nike site (now a state park) which disguised the radar and other operational buildings as grain silos and other farm structures. My father was retired USAF and always knew about the program locally and mentioned it when I was a kid, but it's fascinating to revisit it now that I can comprehend the program and what it meant to the national defense posture at the time. The technology is incredible as well.
I served at three different sites in the States and Germany, There was no attempt to disguise anything other than the use of general purpose camouflage nets in Germany. Things that move and must be deployed in minutes can’t be constrained by camo or disguises.
Great video, Scott. I grew up during the 1950s and 1960s and remember the Nike series very well. I assembled Revell model kits for both the Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules (and a lot of others). We had quite a number of Nike sites around Los Angeles. It would be very interesting if you could provide some footage and history of the Sprint anti-missile system (7,600+ mph).
Nike is such an attractive lawn ornament. Difficult to explain the purchase and placement to the wife, but non the less, very attractive :) The castings for the internal components are just massive, the cutaway view display is certainly eye candy! Oh my ! Birds of a feather :)
I live near this base and they actually had like 13 of these bases around the Bay Area each with nuclear weapons. They could only fire one missile at a time so I think they would not have been very useful. Too slow. A guy who manned a US base in Germany said his target was actually a bridge to be nuked.
@@Balthorium those are 2 very different things. This video is about surface to air. These missiles were designed to nuke incoming icbms or bombers/fighters with nuclear tipped missiles or bombs before the incoming nukes could destroy the city. The nuke in Germany was probably one of the mobile infantry based or armor based mobile platforms.
@@imperialamerican8209 no a former soldier was a guide at this museum and told me this story. His target was a bridge. He mentioned the dial for increased yield.
I was on contract with RCA Alaska, 1964-65, as a Field Engineer to maintain the microwave communications between the various Nike-Hercules sites around Anchorage, protecting Elmendorf Air Base. Very well done, comprehensive coverage, and perspective. I thank you Scott for all of these, your generous gifts to us.
A note on the SF site that Scott didn't mention - it is (COVID permitting) restored and open for tours, and as of 2015 a bunch of veterans of the sites were leading tours and answering questions. They aren't getting any younger, though, so if you're in the area I highly recommend going be for a visit. It's also a great bike ride through the Marin headlands, and close to even older WW2-era shore defense gun batteries on the ocean side of the peninsula - the SF Bay has been a vital military/logistic hub for a loooong time.
The discussion of the topic is very interesting, but I find myself drawn to the slideshow on the computer on the desk whenever the video cuts back to Scott...
My uncle served in a mobile Nike Hercules battery in the early '60s. It was a development and demonstration unit. Don't think it was ever operational. They just drove around the desert in big trucks and worked on the best ways to set up and break down the equipment.
I remember being told while the Nike started as a "mobile" system, it was reclassified as "moveable" because it would take a week to get all of the cables connected right and functional again! When I got to Germany we were with a Belgian unit and they had put all of the trailer launchers up on blocks to line them up and roll missiles out form the storage structure for launch. They hadn't taken the tires off of the trailers and and after 20+ years they were all hanging down from the rim like in old hillbilly cars in cartoons...{!-{>
This brings back childhood memories of reading books about airplanes/rockets/missiles. The Nike/Hercules was my favorite missile just because I thought it looked cool. The F104 Starfighter was my favorite fighter, and the XB70 was my favorite bomber. You might notice a trend there...
And Cole would you believe it... this was true as well for the kids living on the opposite side of the iron curtain! When my cousin visited us (he lived in West Germany) he managed to bring with him a paper (cut out and paste...) model of the F -104! I was speechless!! With aluminum foil, it looked so sharp!! Communist propaganda in school never could prevail over those forms... Funny to think... that all those weapons systems could have this never intended "side effect". After all - I am so very glad this conflict ended without any rocket fired in anger!! Michael, Dresden
Thanks Scott, can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to check this out while visiting my Aunt in San Raphael. We always wound up either in the City or out at the Redwoods.
As a kid in the 1950's we lived on an island in Puget Sound. On several occasions the Nike base on the island was opened to the public and I remember touring there. I saw the missile launchers and radar installations.
lots of former nike sites in washington state because of boeing, hanford and the large military presence here. strangely though, none of them are very well preserved, some of the launchers are still there, most had the doors removed and were filled in, none of the radar and control sites are intact though.
@@marzsit9833 I remember that were also anti aircraft gun installations at the Nike site and they were spinning them around like they were tracing airplanes.
By the way a British RAF guy was interviewed and in the RAF he was highly qualified. The trouble was he worked on Bloodhound missiles. They used valves!!! Not transistors. This was in the 80/90s. He had never encountered a transistor at work.
I grew up in a Boston suburb in the 60's and early 70's. We had both a Nike Hercules radar tracking facility and a launch facility (about a mile apart) in our town. We were never told they had nuclear warheads. By the late 60's control of the facilities had be transferred to the National Guard and we had the impression that the missiles were obsolete (which I gather they were). One snowy winter, I snowshoed across the lake and up through the woods and approached the launch facility and was shocked at the level of security... There was a double perimeter fence, dogs, and armed guards patrolling. In retrospect, this was due to the presence of the nuclear warheads, not the strategic importance of the site. The warheads were eventually removed by helicopter. Only after they were removed was the public made aware of their existance. There were Nike Hercules radar and launch facilities in a number of towns around Boston as well as on an island in Boston Harbor.
When I was a kid, I got to play with my Dads Lionel train set. One of the cars was a Nike launcher car. Probably never a real world car, but fun the less! 😄
Great video. Around 1995, while living in the Bay Area, I started sniffing around the Milagra Ridge (MR) Nike site (SF51). Some time later, I tagged along with bunch of park-rangers from Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and started talking to their head historian, who was leading the MR walk. Couple of weeks later, I was asked by him to lead a public walk of the site and pass on everything I had learned about SF51. Was quite surprised at the number of GGNRA staff who also turned up. Had some fascinating conversations with older members of the public who could describe the appearance of the Sweeney Ridge radar control site as well as the launch facility, as seen from outside, many years earlier. Keep up the good work, love what you do. Mark Atherton, New Zealand.
Was going to say he should talk about Safeguard, which was the spiritual successor to Nike with Spartan and Sprint. Spartan was a development of Zeus and Nike-X and Sprint was its own insanity with the HIBEX program.
Great episode Scott. I was a Launch and Fire Control Platoon Leader at a Herc site in Germany for three years as a lieutenant. Learned a lot there and we launched three times from the island of Crete at the NATO Missile Teat facility. Thanks for sharing!
I remember going with my dad into the mountains north of Seattle. I was about 10 or 12 and seeing that missile from the outside of the fence was awe inspiring. I don't know how he found out that it was being dismantled or when and where to go. I will always remember that shape.
I have vivid childhood memory's of a single unit, together with a Nike-Ajax and a Hawk launcher being exhibited on what used to be the RNAF museum in Soesterberg. Now they are displayed on the new National Military Museum at the former airbase in Soesterberg. Most Dutch missile batteries where deployed in Germany. Nowadays they only have Patriot batteries left, after decommissioning the Hawk's in 2004 and Nike-Hercules in '88.
I love that the Bay Area kept SF-88 as an example of that early cold war air-defense. If I recall correctly its now the only Nike site left in that condition; the rest having been dismantled. The first time I visited San Francisco I went over there to take the tour of SF-88 (and then wander through the older coast defense batteries in various states of preservation over there). It was very impressive seeing the big missile brought up out of the underground area and then elevated into launch ready position.
Thank you for the video, Scott. My grandpa was actually an electronics technician for the Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules missiles. I’m also pretty sure his unit was activated on high alert during the Cuban missile crisis, and he was stationed somewhere in New Jersey for that, near Philadelphia. Sadly he passed away in 2019 and there’s a lot I never got to hear him explain since we lived so far away from each other. The clip you included of the three guys working on the missile @ 6:48 ; the tallest guy looks an awful lot like him. Thanks again for sharing this.
Nice job Scott. This was a video close to my heart. During my military service, I was in a Hawk missile unit and went to Crete for a live fire. While we were there we got to see a Nike Hercules (conventional explosive) live fire. It was simply AWESOME to see first hand and that close.
During my time at the last US Officer crew to launch a Nike we got to watch the Japanese Nikes beside us fire, and a Hawk battery in the distance...that was one tough missile! One of then bounced off the desert floor three times and went up to still hit the target drone! {!-{>
It is no wonder you get so many views; you make some extremely interesting videos because you actually know what you are talking about, unlike many others. Please keep them coming.
This is a great video and I have been to that exact Nike site in your back yard. Your info and video was 10x greater than the guides there. Thanks for this.
Thanks for putting this video together! My dad manned these in Florida from 1972-1974. He tells the story of his unit disembarking from a plane at White Sands Missile Range for training maneuvers and promptly being told to get back on the plane that they were going back to Florida. They get back to Florida, are quickly shuttled back to their batteries and are on alert for the next few days. He said it was the only time he saw the safeties come off the nukes. It was October 1973, the Tom Kippur war. One I find a bit more comical is that they had orders to radar track anything that came within their range, this include Air Force One when President Nixon would vacation in Florida. They knew who it was, but orders were orders, so they would "paint" the plane until NORAD called and told them to disengage.
Long ago when I still served in the Dutch army and my unit was stationed in Germany with Belgian and American units, we had something to do with err.. big cigars (it is still confidential after all those years). One day the yanks got a new commanding officer, so chance of command ceremony was organised, part of that was two dummy Nike Hercules to spice up the ceremony. We are talking about 1987.
Excellent timing, was just this moment working on the cad for a 1/3rd scale model to fly at a local rocket launch when I saw this in my feed. It's got a ton of interesting, different and difficult features if you want to do a reasonable scale model, very challenging. I'm in awe of the craftsmanship of the original builders, not to mention that analog computer. Amazing, and I'm glad we never fired one in anger.
I remember when some of the radar equipment appeared on the electronic surplus market in the mid 70s. On a more amusing note and not intending cast shade on you Scott, (you discuss some highly interesting topics). You misspoke when you said "Starship Prime" when it should have been "Starfish Prime." Amusing slip, but who among us has never misspoke?😎
I hope if they're not brought up in this video that Nike-Zeus, Nike-Sprint and Nike-X will get their own videos. Edit: One of them brought up but one thing that felt like it was left out is how these accelerated faster than many rocket enthusiasts say is possible with "inert" payloads.
Sprint or a modernized equivalent still seems to me like a system that would be handy to keep around, just in case... especially as more and more countries are working on hypersonic missiles. Perhaps with modern updates they could achieve kinetic kills instead of using a nuclear device... but, even today, it would still be better to have a few medium- to high-altitude low-yield neutron bombs go off than allow any high-yield airbursts or groundbursts.
@@ReptilianLepton Current versions of Standard (Tartar/Terrier lineage) have evolved to the point where they can hit missiles and low-orbit satellites. But I do see your point.
Hi Scott, this was a pretty good summary for the NIKE-System. I have been a BCO (Battery Control Officer) with the German Air Force. (Air Defense for the medium and high altitude was here Air Force, not Army.) To watch what technics were used (DC Analog Computers) and the idea behind it was quite fascinating. As we had nuclear also nuclear equipped missiles we had American guard units and a rather complex release procedure between NATO and American channels. It probably would have worked, but thankfully we never had to test it. On the up-side, I have got some very nice friends in the guard units and a interesting education on the system and tactics in GAFADS in Fort Bliss, Texas. The German military decided to upgrade the system to hold it operational with a digital computer that had a 8 inch (!) floppy disc with the operating system. It also changed the required testing accuracy for the radars with our test mast from 1 meter to 10 cm. That the system basically worked was tested for each battery once a year in NAMFI (NATO missile firing installation) on Crete. The engineers and technicians had developed quite a system although the aircraft and attack missile technology. With an SR71 the PKP (predicted kill point), the assumed "meeting point" the missile was guided to in the early stages of the flight, was basically out of range. ;-) Thanks for the good work! /r Stony (a nickname I've got from the American friends due to the family name)
Back in the day I lived close to the 4.FlaRakGrp "DeltaTigers" Nike installation near Bremen in Germany. We had about 30 Soldiers from the 51st USAAD delta team there. One of my schoolmates was the daughter of one of them and when I asked her mother what it is they are doing there she answered: "we are guarding your nukes!" 😀 Ok, that was funny because Germany was and is forbidden to own nuclear weapons, the former federal republic of Germany (i.E. west Germany) signed the Non Proliferation Treaty.
In the anti-war movement there were persistent rumors that NATO had plans to affix nuclear warheads on supposedly conventional missiles owned by European states, with those warheads secretly stockpiled on German soil so other NATO members could truthfully declare that they had no nuclear weapons on their soil. This leaves 2 possibilities: A the squadron in question was actually guarding such a secret stockpile, not running the SAM system on the same base. or B. the Nike missiles on that base were the actual tactical nuke version, but the political level had been promised plausible deniability.
Excellent video. I saw one of these sites with the missiles out off of the coast of Virginia in late 1967 at night. My Dad was a SAC B-52 pilot with thousands of hours, getting ready to transition to TAC for Vietnam. He said something about how these missiles would be obsolete soon. Not soon enough for his year in Vietnam. In early 1980, while finishing my Engineering Physics degree at Oregon State. We fooled around with the last Analog computer there. Shoved off into a corner. It was fun. You just plugged wires from one module to another on a very large board. To do derivation? Put the wires this way. For integration? A different connection. It was the first and only time I saw Calculus visually occurring in real time as I watched. Nobody cared about analog computers in 1979-1980. So we had free reign to mess around with them. This one was not fast but gave excellent results. As I know now, the accuracy of analog computers depended on the quality/accuracy of the components. Capacitors, resistors and inductors. I don't remember if any tubes were used, but I don't think so. So discrete diodes and transistors must have been used? I have no idea what the voltage or current was used during operation. So long ago, it seems like another lifetime.
In my first engineering job in the late 70's, I encountered a pneumatic analog computer. Compressed air was fed through a set of two dimensional channels that were the controller logic and there were compressed air inputs (signals) at various points and a controller output (also compressed air). It was essentially "hard coded" to perform a set controller task. Unlike a digital computer, there was no concept of a "stored program". It did have an advantage over an electronic controller in our application (which involved explosive vapor) in that it was inherently explosion proof.
The Nike guidance computer was much the same, hardcoded without a stored program. Roughly 100 tube opamps and only one job which it did to perfection.
pneumatic analog ... and then there is the early Ford Pinto emissions control, also pneumatic logic. Just a few months ago, I was presented with a pneumatic logic respirator designed for the pandemic emergency. ...it was easier to simplify and build existing designs.
The only type of analog-computers with something like a stored program back then had fast-change switchboards.
Modern analog computers use a digital-computer/fpga part, which then can configure the electro-analoge-computer at runtime
Analog and non -vonNeumann architectures will figure heavily in the future of AI.
@@-danR interesting, how so?
Many years ago, I worked with a person who was in the army and stationed at a Nike Hercules base. He was a radar operator and would pass along stories of the different adventures that had with the missile. One in particular was a training episode when they were tracking any and everything that would fly near them. They were very surprised when they discovered a VERY fast moving target, which they promptly started tracking to see if they could get a firing solution. They found that they could arrive at a firing window but it was so short that it was too late. They later found out that they had been tracking a X15 .
So the missiles were essentially useless by then. Since the X-15 top speed was about Mach 3. My father worked on that program and always told us when to expect a sonic boom, which was not known to the general public at the time. Too bad they didn't notify the tracking operators!
@@funnlivinit I am assuming the X15 came in lower than expected, that by the time a tracking solution was found it was too close.
X 15 has the record at mach 6.7
@@funnlivinit The X-15s highest recorded speed was mach 6.7.
@@viperfan7 Still unbeaten by Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin.
Whatever Scott is talking about it's always interesting.
This also applies for Scott the Woz
Agreed whatever it is he is saying it's interesting trying to work out whatever he is saying 🤣 I can't understand a single word
@@r4z0r84 Rab C Nesbitt has a bunch of tutorial videos on youtube.
@ bloody funny but the subtitles auto-generated is so wrong it's even more funny, cheers for the laugh, I can understand Scottish accents now my boss is Scottish so it helps a lot haha
Found the Elon musk fanboi
_"They were never fired in anger."_
Then they have a perfect deployment record. 100% success.
Bingo
Didn't expect you, of all people, to say this, Jack D. Ripper
I've been reviewing old military fortification maps from Revolutionary war, Civil War, and Cold War- there's an interesting tangent I've noticed - Most of the Nike missile bases around major US east coast cities are often located near, or at, prior locations of civil war fortifications. The Nike and Nike-Hercules emplacements were generally 10-15 miles from the city limits, and the Civil War defenses were usually at the same locations.
In 1860s the emplacements chose the 'high ground' and did so again 100 years later.
Areas with good lines of sight tend to be reused. I expect it was also helpful that the government still owned the land as well.
Probably had to do with the fact that the Forts were owned by the Army and the Nike system was a US Army weapon.
@@sferrin2 Most Missile sites in the west were based on land already owned by the Government.
those sites were chosen during the revolutionary and civil wars for their location. That location didn't change and made them good sites for modern day fortifications as well (and missile batteries are that).
Fort Washington, situated south of Washington DC at the confluence of Piscataway Creek and the Potomac River, was built in the early 1800s to defend DC from river attack and is now a national park, but for a while after the 9/11 attacks the Army deployed a Patriot missile battery there, which was plainly visible from the bike trail on the other side of the river.
As a teenager living in Alaska, my friends and I explored the Nike Hercules site outside of Fairbanks back in the early 80s. It was like a child's dream come true to be able to go anywhere in that complex because it was by then abandoned and because of the location there were no barriers around it. We simply rode our dirtbikes up the mountain to the top. Very cool footage you have of the sites operating the launchers and such as I always wondered what they looked like in action.
On the traditional AA guns: it's worth mentioning that the US and Britain had jointly developed the proximity fuse in WWII, which gave them much, _much_ better shells/kill ratios than the Germans and the Japanese. Curious Droid made an excellent video about them.
I believe the proximity fuse was developed at Carnegie geophysics research laboratory.
The shell had to get close enough to the target to actually detect the target and cause damage. That required accurate gun aiming. The Allied AAA gunners got that from three devices from 1944 onwards. The SCR-584 radar, which was the most advanced gun laying radar of WWII in that it could search for and track a single target automatically , the Bell M-9 Gun Director which could take the radar data and use it to aim up to 4 guns automatically and the Posit VT Fuze.
@@goldgeologist5320 my grandfather worked as an engineer on the proximity fuse project at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, left APL in 1948. Tho I wouldn't be surprised if the project was carried out at multiple locations.
According to US Navy records of antiaircraft kills versus 5" antiaircraft ammunition expended, the proximity fuze *doubled* kill probability - from 1000 rounds per aircraft downed with time and impact fuzes to 500 rounds per kill with proximity fuzes.
Doesn't seem like much of an improvement (still 500 rounds!), but cutting ammunition use (and also barrel wear, obviously) *in half* made a game-changing difference.
Funny enough, the germans themselfes were aware of the problem and developed proximity fuses themselfes.
The ones for artillery shells were actually close to combat testing, however they were dropped in favor of AA missile systems like the "Wasserfall" and air to air guided missiles like the Ruhrstahl X-4.
Those systems too had proximity fuses, however, those obviously had to withstand much lower G forces, therefor were simpler and cheaper to produce.
Another interesting thing to not is, that these proximity fuses were no radar doppler effect fuses, but a wild mix (depending on the usecase) of sound wave doppler effect fuses, magnetic fuses, simple passive radiowave homing devices and in the case of the Wasserfall even a mix between infrared homing device (similar to what was later used in the Sidewinder missile) and an infrared proximity fuse.
Due to the mechanical and electronical simplicity, a lot of them were even combat proven and used on other guided bomb systems.
Really, looking at what the germans came up with out of pure desperation is quite astonishing. :D
Hi Scott, greetings from Germany. I was LCCO in a Nike launch site here in Germany in 1987 (7:52 the guy which turns the knob). We fired one of the non-nuclear Nike-Hercules misslies in a test on Kreta, Greece (Nato missle firering installation, NAMFI). 'Blazing skies, mission surface to air, ...', this was the drill. Some memories are now popping up in my brain. Fly safe ;-)
From Germany too: (former East Germany as that...) In one of our 60s history school books there was a photo of a Nike Hercules. Of course the claim was, that these terrible imperialistic weapons were directed against us, the peaceful socialist peoples... No word that these missiles had a purely defensive role... Nevertheless: The sleek, sharp outlines of this rocket fascinated me as a kid... America was really "sexy" after all!! Thank you Scott for bringing back those memories!
@@11moonshot Inside the Nike launching area were three sections (alpha, bravo and charly) with those missiles. Section alpha was surrounded by an additional fence and we were not allowed to enter. We all know that there were those 'extra spicy' warheads. The maximum range of Nike Hercules was less than the distance to the german-german border. My fear was permanentely that I get the order to select section alpha (with turning the knob to 'A') and we fire a missile eastwards... In this case we would have a nuclear explosion somewhere in the middle of Germany. Thank god that this time is over!
@@testbild9652 That would have been a bad day indeed.
@@11moonshot
Of cause they can be used as medium range attack weapons, it's just a different fly path and detonator programming.
I watched a launch from Crete (American spelling) in July 1984, but I don’t remember which army. We then launched a Lance surface to surface missile into the Mediterranean.
I’m a Nike Hercules veteran and I think this is the best description of the system by a lay person that I have seen.
One small quibble I have is about his use of the term altitude instead of elevation when referring to the tracking radars’ inputs to the computer.
The tracking radars provided target and missile locations via three polar coordinates, Elevation, Azimuth & Range.
The computer would calculate Altitude based on the Height of Site, Elevation, Range and Earth Curvature.
Yep, as astronomers we use altitude and azimuth, but that gets confusing when talking about pointing at things that aren’t a million miles away.
We had these in Italy well into the 2000s. Nike-Hercules was officially decommissioned by the Italian Air Force on June 15, 2007. The last test launch of an Italian Nike-Hercules missile happened on Nov. 24, 2006 from the Capo Teulada range on the Sardinia island.
Carbonara
I was stationed at one of those Italian Air Force missile sites in the Veneto in the early to mid 80's. We were U.S. Army custodial teams for the special warheads. It was great duty for late era Cold Warriors. The Italian Air Force did most of the hard work. The Americans operated in 24 hour shifts, one day on standby, one day on, one day off. We got to explore the region on frequent one day passes. Occasionally we would be invited to dine in the Italian mess. It was a much appreciated break from our Army chow. The presence of the special weapons were supposed to be a secret, but one of the communist Italian newspapers published a map every year with the locations of all the installations.
Look up Basso Tuono. It’s probably the best-preserved Nike site on the planet and it’s in Italy. It’s on my bucket list to see.
@@glennmitchell9107 I served as a radar operator in the major radar station (11° Gr.R.A.M.) in northern Italy in '89 and '90. I remember we had direct communication channels to most of the missile sites in the same area. We worked together on every major exercise. Fun times.
@@glennmitchell9107 are these anti-air only or can they fire surface to surface/anti-ship?
Scott Manley: Let me tell you about nuclear tipped anti-aircraft missiles...
Also Scott Manley: Fly safe.
Real slogan among Army Air Defenders
IF IT FLIES IT DIES
The irony is very palatable. :-)
scott putting the kids to sleep: "sleep tight, don't let the nuclear SAMs bite..."
Scott Manley: makes a channel that explains how all rockets are missiles, and basically everything about them.
Audience: guh huh! Irony! I heard of that before! Let me tell someone!
And to top it off he released the video on september 11th
The ground Attack option was for the Nike Batteries based in Europe. NATO operated Nike Hercules were fitted with US Supplied nuclear warheads (2 out of 3 of them in fact during the 1960s). The backbone of NATO Air Defence in West Germany was a line of Nike Hercules batteries running down the middle of the Country which had the airspace above 20,000 feet all to themselves. A Belt of MIM-23 HAWK batteries covered the first 40 miles of the Iron Curtain between West and East Germany and the Fighters operated behind the HAWK belt and Below the HERCULES Belt.
Sounds like, back then they were ready to go nuclear on the first day of WW3.
@@cbboegh NATO's war plan between 1957 and 1968 was called "Tripwire" and it was basically any Major Soviet aggression against NATO would lead to a massive "Can of Instant Sunshine" chuck fest response from NATO. Most NATO fighter bombers had access to US Nuclear Free Fall weapons under what was known as Project E. (The Non US NATO Nike Hercules units (Dutch, Belgium and West German) were the same), while British Canberra and Valiant Bomber units also had access to US Nuclear weapons. The British Army had Honest John and Corporal missiles, while the US Army had a butt load of nuclear weapons from the Davy Crockett to the Redstone, plus atomic artillery shells and demolition devices (basically nuclear land mines). Most of the Defence procurement and weapon development in the US and UK from 1957 through to 1968 was based on this war plan. In 1968, NATO moved to a plan called Flexible Response, which had NATO respond in kind to any Soviet aggression.
Arguably, that Nike site in your backyard is partially responsible for my existence. My dad was a 20yr-old PFC manning one of the Nike-Ajax batteries there in 1957 and 58 when I came along. Though his military career came to an end soon after, that location and that missile have been a significant part of our family lore.
Today, the US military is the greatest threat to the US and the world.
They chase false enemies overseas while ignoring the true enemy behind the veil at home..
@@72marshflower15 I am sure the world will be much happier if there is no US military. Especially China and Russia.
@@72marshflower15 And um, who is this "true enemy behind the veil"?
@@72marshflower15 20 years of revenge on Muslims in the Middle East is a based message to any other nation thinking about giving safe harbor to terrorists to attack America. Joe Biden's brutal withdrawal was a fitting end to a revenge slaughter the likes never seen before. It was poetic.
@@72marshflower15 How many viruses did the U.S. military release?
Thanks for this, Scott, it brought back memories. I was part of the US Army guard force on a Nike Herc site in then-West Germany in the early 70s. The Germans operated the missiles - which were armed, but we retained control and custody of the nuke warheads.
A colleague of mine was in the Bundeswehr, and he told me he was stationed at a German Nike-Hercules battery with US soldiers guarding nuclear warheads - so called "Nuclear Sharing" by NATO.
He said once a week for guidance training they aimed at the Kopenhagen-Amsterdam passenger flight, and at the Hamburg main train station - track 6 (in the middle) as he joked.
@@intercosmonaut It wouldn't surprise me, doing it for practice. It takes a lot of prep to actually get one ready for firing. We weren't in on that aspect; we just guarded them when they went into our barns or if the missiles were outside on the launch rails.
@@intercosmonaut, permit me to remind you of Tom Lehrer's "MLF Lullaby":
"Sleep, baby, sleep -- in peace may you slumber. No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber. We've got the missiles, peace to determine -- and one of the fingers on the button will be German."
Good song from the period! I'm just glad nobody ever had to push the button . . . .
Did they training fire your missile in Crete?
@@doughudgens9275 Nope. At least, not our security contingent. The Germans handled the missiles proper, we just took care of the nuclear warhead security and "surity."
The Washington DC area had many Nike stations mixed into the suburban landscape. My sister had horseback lessons next door to one of them. Edit: site W-45.
I lived a bicycle ride away from one on Long Island.
Of course, if they ever had been launched, the fallout would have blown back towards US cities. 🤔
@@thomas316 well it would depend on altitude and direction relative to a city. West coast yeah east coast yeee...not entirely. Wind tends to go west to east across the US. Emp damage would be the bigger issue, and maybe a semi reaction with partial yield from an ICBM that had survived the Nike warhead detonation.
@@thomas316 Making h-bombs created permanent sacrifice areas (Hanford, Savannah River, etc.) even if they are never detonated.
I was station 22 mile west if D.C in Gaithersburg MD. W-92 wast it's location. A 4/1 ADA offers Muddy branch road.
Thr booster drop zone was the National Gerographic building.
I coild see the National breau of Standards outside my office building.
The Washington National Golf course separated the Radar from the Launcher area.
Seeing the old video of those guys pushing the missile reminds me of how when I visited the Nike missile base in Marin some ten years ago as a kid they had a couple of us kids on the tour push the rocket along the track to demonstrate how easy it was to move. Probably one of the only rocket museums where they encourage people to touch and handle the rocket.
According to the subtitles from my phone, "it got manly here".
Got that right.
I was trained in Nike Hercules before they replaced it with the "Patriot" missle system. The missle actually leaves the rail at the speed of Mach 3 to Mach 5. Now that is coming OFF the launching rail. AND, the ground capability enabled the Fire Control to literally hit a 4x4 stuck in the ground, I witnessed it. SO it was accurate at times when needed.
Awesome timing, Scott, I was just reading up on Nike (again). When I was growing up there was a nearby abandoned Nike missile site situated to defend Philadelphia. It was out in farm land and had a rusty chainlink fence around it. Kids used to sneak in there and poke around. Parts of it were dangerous due to flooding and so on, but it was good "X-Files" type stuff. You should do a video about Nike-X/Sprint and the HiBex programs, ABMs that have ridiculous accelerations of 100G or more and went from 0 to Mach 10 in like 5 seconds upon launch. Fascinating technology.
If you ever saw the Blair Witch Project, the house in the final scene was right outside the gate of a Nike site west of Baltimore. I used to poke around out there. Later, it was all bulldozed.
he did do some video a long time ago
Yes please 🤣
I was waiting for him to mention the sprint missiles but he never did.
I was at a corporate function in the 90’s held near Philadelphia at a summer camp next to an abandoned Nike base. I wonder if it’s the same one.
As a past denizen of the Holloman High Speed Test Track. I can speak fondly of the the Nike booster rocket motors taken from the 4-pack Hercules booster. Old fashioned double-base propellant (~50% nitroglycerin / ~50% nitrocellulose + secret herbs and spices to stabilize the mix) extruded in long rectangular rods (like a stick of butter as long as the motor case). Very rugged and completely suitable for the test track vibration environment, they are nearly all used by now. The igniters for the motors is screwed in at the front of the motor prior to launch.
As soon as I saw it, I saw Holloman Test Track in my mind.
Sandia still uses these.
Just for reference, the Nike Hercules force alone had 2,550 nuclear warheads produced for it. That more than the US has deployed on all types of nuclear weapons today.
The Nike Zeus Scott shows is the Zeus-A. It was replaced by the Zeus-B (neither of which entered service) which was subsequently replaced by the Spartan in service. The Spartan's 5 MT (with a "mega") warhead was tested in an underground nuclear test in Alaska. (See the Cannikan test.) Other US Surface to Air missiles with nuclear warheads were the Sprint, Bomarc, Talos, and Terrier.
I wanted to write genie but it’s not a SAM but with similar Profil to the Nike system just air born ;)
It's amazing how much GDP went into systems that never entered service. Reading up on the era, it seems like it must've felt like everything was advancing faster than it could be kept in balance.
@@MrTrashmasterfx It had a nuke. That's where the similarity ended. It's range was about 5 miles and no guidance system.
@@franceslarina5508 The nature of the beast. This kind of stuff is so difficult, and takes so long to develop, that if you wait until you need it to start working the problem it's too late.
My high school chemistry and physics teacher worked with this system. It was one of the reasons I have a fascination with hypergols and rockets in general.
Very interesting - we have several old Nike sites up here in Seattle and I had no idea several were the nuclear Hercules versions. Went to school just blocks from one.
I'd love to hear Scott talk about Sprint, the later ABM that could reach Mach 10 in 5 seconds.
If you talk about Sprint, you have to cover Spartan, too. They were a matched set of endo- and exo-atmospheric interceptors.
The Sprint is one of the things I have to read about again every few years because, apparently, by brain will not accept that the numbers are real and refuses to store them. A 4 ton rocket with 340 tons of thrust if my math is right.
@@steveanderson9290, I was just reading up on it on Wikipedia, and according to that article, Sprint was meant to accelerate at 100 Gs. That's hellacious! But to intercept a warhead that's already descended below 250,000 feet altitude, that's what was needed.
So . . . Wow! That's some engineering!
Scott: "I hope you don't mind me talking about weapons"
Me with legs crossed: "nopleasecontinue"
Ihopedforthistypeofquestions 😂
Soundsgay
thats FUNNY ! :D
My dad was a missile battery commander at NY-56, Ft Hancock, in 1963-65. I recall having the run of the base (other than the missile sites themselves) while little more than a toddler myself. The ultimate gated community... 13 Hartshorne Drive was our humble abode.
I used to live near the town where the _plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb_ was produced, and back during the Cold War, there was apparently a Nike missile battery on the mountain overlooking the nuclear facility... because the facility was a known Soviet nuke target in the event of WW3 breaking out.
There were 4 Nike Ajax batteries around Hanford. When they switched to Hercules, three were closed in 1958 leaving only the site on Rattlesnake Mountain 46° 23.508'N, 119° 32.028'W which was closed in 1960. The Ajax sites are at 46° 41.724'N, 119° 42.163'W, 46° 44.519'N, 119° 25.602'W, and 46° 41.174'N, 119° 24.459'W. All GPS coords are for launch sites. The radar fire control sites overlooked them from a couple miles away.
I can never hear "Alameda" mentioned without subsequently thinking, "That's where they keep the nuclear wessels."
My dad was station & then worked as civilian worker at NAS Alameda. I still remember those nuclear wessels there when my dad allowed us on-site for open house & other things.
Nuclear wessels is just out of this world
NU-CLEE-ARRR WESSELS!
*cop looks at Checkov suspiciously*
@@dalethelander3781 I always thought that was funny to send a Russian to that naval base. One of the best Star Trek movies I have ever seen. So amusing and Philistines in the lift with bones
@@collincovid6950 "Doctor gave me a pill, I grew a new kidney!"
When I was a kid in the 60's I would go on Saturday to watch the Nike missiles stand up at 1:00pm. I thought this was very cool. Thanks Scott for this blast from the past!
I was stationed on an American Nike Hercules site in Germany, there were 3 sections, each section had 11 missiles of which 5 missiles had nuclear warheads. Nike Hercules nuke's had a 2kt, 20kt or a 40kt warhead, our site had mostly 20kt and a few 2kt warheads. The non-nukes were HE. The duty really sucked because of security and sooo much guard duty on the towers and gates and all the exercises with the missiles and inspections. The were 16 American firing Nike Hercules site's in Germany, we all knew we would be a high priority target if the Soviets had attacked, we would have been lucky to even fire off a missile before being attacked. Cool video!
Survivability sure wasn't helped by all of the Hi Power radars being in domes mounted on the highest point on the skyline...even if they did paint some of them green! And quite a few of them seemed to be within RPG range of the Autobahns...{!-{>
I've been to SF-88 ad i was fascinated by the relatively unknown history of the Nike sites. Thanks for doing the video to provide even more details - it's super interesting!
When you have a Nike nuclear missile, "Just Do It" takes on a very different sinister meaning.
i'm pretty sure it's based on a murderer's last words
'Sinister'?
@@frankmueller2781 Certainly not dexter. Sinister -- very much left.
@@advorak8529 I'm good with that definition. Nike, the company is downright evil. Anyone who collaborates with government mandated forced slave labor has agreed to dance with the Devil. There is no amount of "Cool" that can justify ownership of anything with a 'Nike' label on it.
And yeah, forced government slavery really does give new meaning to "Just do it"
Yeah the original is sinister enough!
Designed in the spirit of ... "And if that doesn't work, use more gun." (Engineer, Team Fortress 2)
Plus every designer in the US Navy through the end of WW2.
Well, designing a better radar is harder than adding more gun, so... Yeah
"How'd that plan work out for ya, dummy?!"
More dakka!
Getting a little too used to talking about SpaceX, you said "Starship Prime" rather than "Starfish Prime."
I just watched a video on Battleship New Jersey about their fire control computer. Apparently, it is a series of gears and cogs that takes readings and you can dial in corrections. I assume its a generational leap from difference engines from earlier.
In many respects, not really. It was a fairly standard evolution of previous technology, just refined to exceptional precision. British and American warships developed exceptional fire control over the course of the war, including radar-guided guns, which is rather more impressive, all things considered. The battleship HMS Duke of York sunk the German battleship Scharnhorst with radar-directed guns at night in a snowstorm, for instance. An American fleet sunk the Japanese battleship Yamashiro with radar-directed gunnery as well, literally shooting the Japanese from over the horizon.
The main revolution in computer technology in WW2 came about at Bletchley Park, through the work of Alan Turing and his colleagues. The computer they built to counter Axis encryption was an astonishing feat of engineering.
Not that much of a leap when you think of it. It's just a bunch of (relatively) simple mechanical computing units hooked to the same output.
I saw the New Jersey fire in 1983.
You should look into the Norden Bombsite. The third most expensive weapons program of WW2 after the B29 and the Manhattan program.
@@byrnemeister2008 The practical performance of the Norden bombsight was highly overrated. In combat conditions it fared no better than other allied and German tachometric bombsights. Its almost mythical status was to a degree boosted by Norden's own advertising efforts, once some of the secrecy had been lifted.
I live in SE Virginia, where there are so many military installations, so we had multiple Nike bases set up in outlying areas. One of them was turned into a park with outdoor trails and athletic fields, but with many of the original buildings still standing. Tours of this area were going on as late as 2019 (based on a Trip Advisor review), probably have not resumed due to Covid. The place is Carrollton Nike Park in the Carrollton area of Suffolk VA.
The Johnson Island High Altitude tests showed the danger of EMP effects.
I remember touring a NIKE AJAX site on a school trip in the 50's
Thank You! I have been waiting for someone to do a real good in-depth piece on the Nike-Hercules system in general. It is hard to find good information and footage, ect. for this amazing Rocket System. Thanks again Scott! Also, side note the footage of the Nike-Hercules cast that was cut into and showing the components inside was amazing! I hope to get a chance to go visit the site out in San Francisco someday.
This was great. A family member of mine was just discussing his work with these back in the 60’s. TY for making this video!
Interesting video, Scott. I got a kick out of seeing the electronics at 8:56 onward, I think I recognized the empty slots with green card-edge connectors as similar to one's used in F-101 Voodoo and F-4 Phantom fighter jets. In the late '70s I worked at a major defense contractor, and we still had to work on assemblies for those older jets once in a while. Amazing what the engineers did with basic components back then, as you pointed out analog computers and control systems were being used long before digital came along. Synchros and servos and resolvers, oh my! 😁
Don't forget "cap tachs" (Capacitive Tachometers). Weird little beasties from the INS computer on F4s. About the only thing I remember from being in a CRS (component repair squadron) in the USAF
@@thekinginyellow1744 I built, tested and repaired F-4 units for nose gear steering, brake pulsers (anti-lock brakes!) and 20mm gun control. Remember any of those? ☺
@@bobblum5973 never had to work on them, but I remember them. I still have a 20mm practice round that I found sitting on the flight line.
@@thekinginyellow1744 I was never in the military, but I consider my defense contractor work to be the next best thing in support of our country. Not that I'm in favor of war, either, just realize it's sometimes necessary.
I’m envious of you, Scott, with SF-88 being restored and preserved. W-64, the site in Lorton, VA that’s about a mile from my place is… well, the IFC site’s now a high school, and the 24 launchers are basically a parking lot.
More please! Loved this content. Would love an episode on analogue computers.
I maintained the analog computer on a few sites in the Baltimore Washington air defense. I hope to talk to Scott. I live here in the bay area near him
@@Utube4chuck That would be cool. Maybe, DM him on Twitter. He seems to be quite approachable. By the way, it seems that we will have to bring back analog computers for machine learning. So, they are the past and the future, like so many other things.
From 1972 thru 1975 I was on a Nike sight in Germany I worked in the IFC (integrated Fire Control) My job was the MTR (Missile Tracking Radar) operator. I was privileged to participate as a crew member to 3 Live firing at annual Service practice.
Where did you get your training?
Was a 24U Nike Mechanic. 72-74, then reclassified to 24N Chaparral mechanic.
@@kevinbrown7171 Ft. Bliss was the Home for ADA schooling until 2000s when it got ship back to FT.Sill where it wad born.
@@bradhanley8368 my father retired in 72 at Ft. Bliss. He spent most of his career on the Nike program, and later Safeguard. :-)
Really enjoyed this video. I live on the east coast and we have an old NIKE launch site in town. Until about 15 years ago the buildings remained standing and we used to love exploring the area when we were younger. Nice to finally hear some of the science behind it! Thanks Scott!
My ex father in law worked on installing the Nike Hercules systems for Chrysler Missile before transferringto NASA... Traveled all over including Hawaii training the crews and setting up the systems... He has great stories....
I have a test console for one...
This program was one of my favorite examples of what one can do with aerospace designs without having to use digital computers for guidance.
"extra spicy warhead option!" Classic!
Thank you so much for this video. I served in the US Army in Korea in '76-'77 in a direct support detachment (DSD 2/44) to the six Nike-Herc batteries in South Korea. I have also visited SF-88 in the Marin Headlands several times. Nike-Herc vets are aging and mostly a forgotten force. Thanks again.
I found the entire era when the Nike missiles were developed very interesting. The Army / Air Force rivalry during the period was almost to the point of mutiny. For the era the technology displayed in the systems were revolutionary. The SAGE sites with their AN/FSQ-7 computers that were among the largest computers ever built, provided the command and control. Besides the Nike missiles there was the Air Force's Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc that was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile that also could be armed with a nuclear warhead. As you mentioned, after billions of dollars spent when the system was in its final configuration it was obsolete. They did however, in their ABM research develop two of the most amazing missiles as follow-ons to the Nike Zeus, the Spartan and Sprint missiles. The Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F, requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat.
Never heard of this! 100g!! Oh my! Nearly a gun shot... would be another story for Scott!
Such a cool video and something I've always tried to learn more about - I'm about ~45 miles outside of DC and there's a Nike site (now a state park) which disguised the radar and other operational buildings as grain silos and other farm structures. My father was retired USAF and always knew about the program locally and mentioned it when I was a kid, but it's fascinating to revisit it now that I can comprehend the program and what it meant to the national defense posture at the time. The technology is incredible as well.
I served at three different sites in the States and Germany,
There was no attempt to disguise anything other than the use of general purpose camouflage nets in Germany. Things that move and must be deployed in minutes can’t be constrained by camo or disguises.
I keep picturing the launch director sitting there thinking "... just do it".
Good one, but booooooo at the same time! LOL
Great video, Scott. I grew up during the 1950s and 1960s and remember the Nike series very well. I assembled Revell model kits for both the Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules (and a lot of others). We had quite a number of Nike sites around Los Angeles. It would be very interesting if you could provide some footage and history of the Sprint anti-missile system (7,600+ mph).
Nike is such an attractive lawn ornament. Difficult to explain the purchase and placement to the wife, but non the less, very attractive :) The castings for the internal components are just massive, the cutaway view display is certainly eye candy! Oh my ! Birds of a feather :)
Scott, no need to apologize for this not being your normal content. This was a great listen/watch!
I️ live a quarter of a mile from one of these former sites. It’s hard to believe nukes were stationed there in the sixties.
I live near this base and they actually had like 13 of these bases around the Bay Area each with nuclear weapons. They could only fire one missile at a time so I think they would not have been very useful. Too slow. A guy who manned a US base in Germany said his target was actually a bridge to be nuked.
@@Balthorium those are 2 very different things. This video is about surface to air. These missiles were designed to nuke incoming icbms or bombers/fighters with nuclear tipped missiles or bombs before the incoming nukes could destroy the city.
The nuke in Germany was probably one of the mobile infantry based or armor based mobile platforms.
@@imperialamerican8209 no kidding. I live 20 minutes from this museum I have visited numerous times.
@@imperialamerican8209 no a former soldier was a guide at this museum and told me this story. His target was a bridge. He mentioned the dial for increased yield.
@@Balthorium Trying to decipher your sentences is becoming to exhausting. GL, sorry our educational system failed you.
I was on contract with RCA Alaska, 1964-65, as a Field Engineer to maintain the microwave communications between the various Nike-Hercules sites around Anchorage, protecting Elmendorf Air Base.
Very well done, comprehensive coverage, and perspective.
I thank you Scott for all of these, your generous gifts to us.
that's a significant area denial weapon for sure - crude but effective
A note on the SF site that Scott didn't mention - it is (COVID permitting) restored and open for tours, and as of 2015 a bunch of veterans of the sites were leading tours and answering questions. They aren't getting any younger, though, so if you're in the area I highly recommend going be for a visit.
It's also a great bike ride through the Marin headlands, and close to even older WW2-era shore defense gun batteries on the ocean side of the peninsula - the SF Bay has been a vital military/logistic hub for a loooong time.
The discussion of the topic is very interesting, but I find myself drawn to the slideshow on the computer on the desk whenever the video cuts back to Scott...
ded kitty
@@ultima8250 Certainly gets one's attention.
My uncle served in a mobile Nike Hercules battery in the early '60s. It was a development and demonstration unit. Don't think it was ever operational. They just drove around the desert in big trucks and worked on the best ways to set up and break down the equipment.
I remember being told while the Nike started as a "mobile" system, it was reclassified as "moveable" because it would take a week to get all of the cables connected right and functional again! When I got to Germany we were with a Belgian unit and they had put all of the trailer launchers up on blocks to line them up and roll missiles out form the storage structure for launch. They hadn't taken the tires off of the trailers and and after 20+ years they were all hanging down from the rim like in old hillbilly cars in cartoons...{!-{>
This brings back childhood memories of reading books about airplanes/rockets/missiles. The Nike/Hercules was my favorite missile just because I thought it looked cool. The F104 Starfighter was my favorite fighter, and the XB70 was my favorite bomber. You might notice a trend there...
F105 = Thunderchief
F104 = Starfighter
@@stevendorris5713 Fast typing.
And Cole would you believe it... this was true as well for the kids living on the opposite side of the iron curtain! When my cousin visited us (he lived in West Germany) he managed to bring with him a paper (cut out and paste...) model of the F -104! I was speechless!! With aluminum foil, it looked so sharp!! Communist propaganda in school never could prevail over those forms... Funny to think... that all those weapons systems could have this never intended "side effect". After all - I am so very glad this conflict ended without any rocket fired in anger!! Michael, Dresden
Thanks Scott, can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to check this out while visiting my Aunt in San Raphael. We always wound up either in the City or out at the Redwoods.
As a kid in the 1950's we lived on an island in Puget Sound. On several occasions the Nike base on the island was opened to the public and I remember touring there. I saw the missile launchers and radar installations.
lots of former nike sites in washington state because of boeing, hanford and the large military presence here. strangely though, none of them are very well preserved, some of the launchers are still there, most had the doors removed and were filled in, none of the radar and control sites are intact though.
@@marzsit9833 I remember that were also anti aircraft gun installations at the Nike site and they were spinning them around like they were tracing airplanes.
By the way a British RAF guy was interviewed and in the RAF he was highly qualified. The trouble was he worked on Bloodhound missiles. They used valves!!! Not transistors. This was in the 80/90s. He had never encountered a transistor at work.
These videos are my sustainer. Thanks Scott!
I grew up in a Boston suburb in the 60's and early 70's. We had both a Nike Hercules radar tracking facility and a launch facility (about a mile apart) in our town. We were never told they had nuclear warheads. By the late 60's control of the facilities had be transferred to the National Guard and we had the impression that the missiles were obsolete (which I gather they were). One snowy winter, I snowshoed across the lake and up through the woods and approached the launch facility and was shocked at the level of security... There was a double perimeter fence, dogs, and armed guards patrolling. In retrospect, this was due to the presence of the nuclear warheads, not the strategic importance of the site. The warheads were eventually removed by helicopter. Only after they were removed was the public made aware of their existance. There were Nike Hercules radar and launch facilities in a number of towns around Boston as well as on an island in Boston Harbor.
Most of the warheads were nuclear. We didn’t want to miss.
When I was a kid, I got to play with my Dads Lionel train set. One of the cars was a Nike launcher car. Probably never a real world car, but fun the less! 😄
Great video. Around 1995, while living in the Bay Area, I started sniffing around the Milagra Ridge (MR) Nike site (SF51). Some time later, I tagged along with bunch of park-rangers from Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and started talking to their head historian, who was leading the MR walk. Couple of weeks later, I was asked by him to lead a public walk of the site and pass on everything I had learned about SF51. Was quite surprised at the number of GGNRA staff who also turned up. Had some fascinating conversations with older members of the public who could describe the appearance of the Sweeney Ridge radar control site as well as the launch facility, as seen from outside, many years earlier. Keep up the good work, love what you do. Mark Atherton, New Zealand.
I was always partial for the Sprint, the acceleration on those looks *brutal.*
Was going to say he should talk about Safeguard, which was the spiritual successor to Nike with Spartan and Sprint. Spartan was a development of Zeus and Nike-X and Sprint was its own insanity with the HIBEX program.
Great episode Scott. I was a Launch and Fire Control Platoon Leader at a Herc site in Germany for three years as a lieutenant. Learned a lot there and we launched three times from the island of Crete at the NATO Missile Teat facility. Thanks for sharing!
HHB 2 Bn 1 st ADA Wackernheim, Germany 1972-1974.
These things were hidden and not so hidden away in practically everyone's backyard if you lived near the coast or northern border.
Thanks for this! My dad worked on these during his stint in the Army. He will love this.
I believe you said "Starship Prime" instead of "Starfish Prime"
Love this sort of content. The military-technical aspects from the early cold war to to so often get overlooked.
I remember going with my dad into the mountains north of Seattle. I was about 10 or 12 and seeing that missile from the outside of the fence was awe inspiring. I don't know how he found out that it was being dismantled or when and where to go. I will always remember that shape.
Nike Hill, Bothell, WA (I live there now). Base is still here as a National Guard /FEMA base.
I have vivid childhood memory's of a single unit, together with a Nike-Ajax and a Hawk launcher being exhibited on what used to be the RNAF museum in Soesterberg. Now they are displayed on the new National Military Museum at the former airbase in Soesterberg. Most Dutch missile batteries where deployed in Germany. Nowadays they only have Patriot batteries left, after decommissioning the Hawk's in 2004 and Nike-Hercules in '88.
@@andystevens7557
Thanks, I was too young to know exactly where he drove us. Bothell makes sense. Back then we lived in Edmonds.
@@michaelvangundy226 There was one in Renton too.
@@tomboyd7109 Additional sites were Cougar Mouton and on Vashon Island....
I love that the Bay Area kept SF-88 as an example of that early cold war air-defense. If I recall correctly its now the only Nike site left in that condition; the rest having been dismantled.
The first time I visited San Francisco I went over there to take the tour of SF-88 (and then wander through the older coast defense batteries in various states of preservation over there). It was very impressive seeing the big missile brought up out of the underground area and then elevated into launch ready position.
11:54 Starship Prime would be a cool name for a redesign of Starship!
Yes i would, as I heard it i thought what does starship have to do,with nukes but then I came to it was starfish prime
maybe if jeff Bezos partners up with elon Musk in a joint space adventure it could be called that ---- lol
Not for Elon, he's already been sued by Ford. This would be Toyota. (prius prime)
@@stevehill4615 hahah yeah, package delivered in 3...2....1.
@@dosmastrify all that for just £7.99 a month --- bargain --- lol
Thank you for the video, Scott. My grandpa was actually an electronics technician for the Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules missiles. I’m also pretty sure his unit was activated on high alert during the Cuban missile crisis, and he was stationed somewhere in New Jersey for that, near Philadelphia. Sadly he passed away in 2019 and there’s a lot I never got to hear him explain since we lived so far away from each other. The clip you included of the three guys working on the missile @ 6:48 ; the tallest guy looks an awful lot like him. Thanks again for sharing this.
11:54 Scott even cannot say Starfish in these Starship days :)
Nice job Scott. This was a video close to my heart. During my military service, I was in a Hawk missile unit and went to Crete for a live fire. While we were there we got to see a Nike Hercules (conventional explosive) live fire. It was simply AWESOME to see first hand and that close.
During my time at the last US Officer crew to launch a Nike we got to watch the Japanese Nikes beside us fire, and a Hawk battery in the distance...that was one tough missile! One of then bounced off the desert floor three times and went up to still hit the target drone! {!-{>
11:55 "Starship Prime". When Elon creeps into your head.
elon is just getting rich by tax payers money...
Bit of a typo...it was "Starfish Prime"....
@@Darusdei Don't forget that he also makes decent amount of $$ by manipulating unregulated markets and his cult-like followers.
@@Darusdei That's called "being a government contractor".
@@DonVigaDeFierro yeaah, just like tesla? (tesla doesn't even make most of it's money from their cars but?)
It is no wonder you get so many views; you make some extremely interesting videos because you actually know what you are talking about, unlike many others. Please keep them coming.
4:55 Thats the first rule of combat: if brute force doesn't work you aren't using enough of it
there is no such thing as overkill...
All over the world snipers lifts an eyebrow.
Let’s see a sniper take down a bomber.
@@ypdave01 Kill the pilots while they are on the ground.
This is a great video and I have been to that exact Nike site in your back yard. Your info and video was 10x greater than the guides there. Thanks for this.
There is a retired Nike launch center less then a mile from my house. Now it’s a beautiful hill.
Same here.
Ober-Olmer Forest near Mainz-Finthen, Germany
Loved this, thanks for all of the research.
"Extra-spicy warhead option..."
🤣😂👏
Thanks for putting this video together! My dad manned these in Florida from 1972-1974. He tells the story of his unit disembarking from a plane at White Sands Missile Range for training maneuvers and promptly being told to get back on the plane that they were going back to Florida. They get back to Florida, are quickly shuttled back to their batteries and are on alert for the next few days. He said it was the only time he saw the safeties come off the nukes. It was October 1973, the Tom Kippur war.
One I find a bit more comical is that they had orders to radar track anything that came within their range, this include Air Force One when President Nixon would vacation in Florida. They knew who it was, but orders were orders, so they would "paint" the plane until NORAD called and told them to disengage.
The test was "Starfish Prime," not "Starship Prime." :) Thankfully, I don't think Elon has launched a nuclear-tipped Starship... yet.
Shhhh don’t give him ideas 😱
Keep up the good work, I find myself looking forward to your videos all the time!
Long ago when I still served in the Dutch army and my unit was stationed in Germany with Belgian and American units, we had something to do with err.. big cigars (it is still confidential after all those years). One day the yanks got a new commanding officer, so chance of command ceremony was organised, part of that was two dummy Nike Hercules to spice up the ceremony. We are talking about 1987.
Excellent timing, was just this moment working on the cad for a 1/3rd scale model to fly at a local rocket launch when I saw this in my feed. It's got a ton of interesting, different and difficult features if you want to do a reasonable scale model, very challenging. I'm in awe of the craftsmanship of the original builders, not to mention that analog computer. Amazing, and I'm glad we never fired one in anger.
I remember when some of the radar equipment appeared on the electronic surplus market in the mid 70s.
On a more amusing note and not intending cast shade on you Scott, (you discuss some highly interesting topics).
You misspoke when you said "Starship Prime" when it should have been "Starfish Prime." Amusing slip, but who among us has never misspoke?😎
There are some interesting Nike Historical web sites. Some quite extensive. Ed Thelen... etc.
Perhaps he was thinking about Starfish Prime and Starship Troopers?
Heinlein's concept of the Mobile Infantry is super dope.
Thanks Scott. Love your history videos.
I hope if they're not brought up in this video that Nike-Zeus, Nike-Sprint and Nike-X will get their own videos. Edit: One of them brought up but one thing that felt like it was left out is how these accelerated faster than many rocket enthusiasts say is possible with "inert" payloads.
Definitely Nike X!
Sprint which was part of the Nike-X system, 0 to Mach 10 in 5 seconds. Video of launches are insane to watch.
Sprint or a modernized equivalent still seems to me like a system that would be handy to keep around, just in case... especially as more and more countries are working on hypersonic missiles. Perhaps with modern updates they could achieve kinetic kills instead of using a nuclear device... but, even today, it would still be better to have a few medium- to high-altitude low-yield neutron bombs go off than allow any high-yield airbursts or groundbursts.
@@ReptilianLepton Current versions of Standard (Tartar/Terrier lineage) have evolved to the point where they can hit missiles and low-orbit satellites. But I do see your point.
@@wilsonj4705 Sorry, my memory was a bit hazy as it was ages since I read up on it, you're correct.
Hi Scott,
this was a pretty good summary for the NIKE-System.
I have been a BCO (Battery Control Officer) with the German Air Force. (Air Defense for the medium and high altitude was here Air Force, not Army.)
To watch what technics were used (DC Analog Computers) and the idea behind it was quite fascinating. As we had nuclear also nuclear equipped missiles we had American guard units and a rather complex release procedure between NATO and American channels. It probably would have worked, but thankfully we never had to test it. On the up-side, I have got some very nice friends in the guard units and a interesting education on the system and tactics in GAFADS in Fort Bliss, Texas.
The German military decided to upgrade the system to hold it operational with a digital computer that had a 8 inch (!) floppy disc with the operating system. It also changed the required testing accuracy for the radars with our test mast from 1 meter to 10 cm.
That the system basically worked was tested for each battery once a year in NAMFI (NATO missile firing installation) on Crete.
The engineers and technicians had developed quite a system although the aircraft and attack missile technology. With an SR71 the PKP (predicted kill point), the assumed "meeting point" the missile was guided to in the early stages of the flight, was basically out of range. ;-)
Thanks for the good work!
/r Stony (a nickname I've got from the American friends due to the family name)
Dang, I was hoping this would be about the Nike Sprint, which was stupidly, insanely, mine boggling fast
I grew up next to a decommissioned Nike site and always had a vague idea of what they were but I learned so much more from your video. Thanks!
Back in the day I lived close to the 4.FlaRakGrp "DeltaTigers" Nike installation near Bremen in Germany. We had about 30 Soldiers from the 51st USAAD delta team there. One of my schoolmates was the daughter of one of them and when I asked her mother what it is they are doing there she answered: "we are guarding your nukes!" 😀
Ok, that was funny because Germany was and is forbidden to own nuclear weapons, the former federal republic of Germany (i.E. west Germany) signed the Non Proliferation Treaty.
The nukes were American, many of them intended to be carried by German aircraft to pre-selected targets when the release authorization had been given.
In the anti-war movement there were persistent rumors that NATO had plans to affix nuclear warheads on supposedly conventional missiles owned by European states, with those warheads secretly stockpiled on German soil so other NATO members could truthfully declare that they had no nuclear weapons on their soil.
This leaves 2 possibilities: A the squadron in question was actually guarding such a secret stockpile, not running the SAM system on the same base.
or B. the Nike missiles on that base were the actual tactical nuke version, but the political level had been promised plausible deniability.
@@johndododoe1411 My guess is B 😊
Excellent video.
I saw one of these sites with the missiles out off of the coast of Virginia in late 1967 at night. My Dad was a SAC B-52 pilot with thousands of hours, getting ready to transition to TAC for Vietnam. He said something about how these missiles would be obsolete soon. Not soon enough for his year in Vietnam.
In early 1980, while finishing my Engineering Physics degree at Oregon State. We fooled around with the last Analog computer there. Shoved off into a corner. It was fun. You just plugged wires from one module to another on a very large board. To do derivation? Put the wires this way. For integration? A different connection. It was the first and only time I saw Calculus visually occurring in real time as I watched. Nobody cared about analog computers in 1979-1980. So we had free reign to mess around with them. This one was not fast but gave excellent results. As I know now, the accuracy of analog computers depended on the quality/accuracy of the components. Capacitors, resistors and inductors. I don't remember if any tubes were used, but I don't think so. So discrete diodes and transistors must have been used? I have no idea what the voltage or current was used during operation.
So long ago, it seems like another lifetime.