We live 9 miles from the one (MS-20) in Roberts Wisconsin on 120th street. The main control center is now owned by a family who uses one of the buildings as their home. The rest of the control part of the base is rented as a storage facility. We stored our RV there for years. The launch part of the base is about 1/4 mile away on the other side of the road and is owned by someone else who has left the launch site intact. Funny thing about this was that the owner was able to find a surplus Nike Hercules missile with mobile trailer somewhere in Germany in a junk yard and had it shipped over here. It sat right next to my camper when I had it parked there. I use to joke with the owner about having the most protected storage space in the world, it’s guarded by a nuclear missile. After about a year and a half then it was moved to some veterans park in northern Wisconsin.
There are two Nike missiles on display (with launch mechanisms) in very good condition in front of the American Legion Post at Cedar Lake, Indiana. One is a Nike Ajax and the other a Nike Hercules.
I was a Nike Hercules Launcher Control Technician in the Army. I served at McGregor Range annex to Fort Bliss, Texas and also the 44th Ordnance Company on Okinawa, repairing Nike launchers on the missile sites on the Island.
Spent 4 years at MCGREGOR Range. From 1978 to 1982 MY MOS was 24Papa Defense Aquisition Radar Mechanic on the Lopar . Participated in over 35 firings ! Actually shook hands with Anwar Sadat in the field firing 3 missiles that day in September!! Budget Hearings come up in October got to spend that money ! The Eerie thing is Anwar Sadat was Assassinated October 6 1981 ..!Probably for signing the Peace Treaty with Israel...
Was the missile repair shop just down the road from the motor pool still there and operational when you were there. When I was there in 1968, the shop had Launcher, Section 6, Internal guidance. Learned how to, and did trouble shoot modules in Section 6 until they realized that that was not my MOS and I didn't belong there. LOL. I hope your time spent at McGregor was as enjoyable as mine was. @@polarbear1412
I was a 24u20 at McGregor Range/ Ft Bliss 1973 to 75 we fired them off all the time. You Radar Hi Power guys made my hair stand up when ever you locked on to test it. We had that you never saw this, that, or them
I was a 16c10 (fire control crewman) with the nike hercules back in 1970 stationed on the south east coast of south korea. b battery 4th bn, 44th arty.
I go by the LA-96 Nike site in Van Nuys California every morning on my walk. Funnily enough it is right next-door to the Tillman reclamation plant which is better known to Star Trek fans as Starfleet headquarters from the TNG era! I still need to go up into the Hills and check out the control site. I imagine people of the arrow would be glad to have something defending their neighborhood but also it seems like it could make them a target as well which is probably why some people were against it.
A large issue around Ajax and Hercules was that they were not autonomous. They required a complex on-ground radar control system. So the missiles worked well in themselves but guidance greatly reduced effectiveness. Like....greatly....
I was a 16C Hercules Fire Control Crewman at 2 sites in CONUS [NY56 an HM69] and one in Germany [A-5-6 ADA]. I'm not sure what you mean by autonomous, but it was precisely the complex Fire Control system on the ground that made them any more effective than a lawn dart. These missiles were command guided toward a continuously updated Predicted Intercept Point every step of the way. Ideally, there were several layers of higher authority Command & Control directing the firing units to ensure all targets were efficiently engaged. In the event we lost contact with them we had procedures for operating autonomously to identify and select hostile targets for engagement. It was a robust system.
@ypdave01 I think he's referring to them not being Active Radar Homing missiles which can guide themselves after launch with mid course guidance updates from ground based radars... something only realized by ground based air defense in the mid 90s... Command guidance is pretty good for 50s and 60s era missiles, but SARH and eventually TVM would ultimately be the method of choice. Still is today with phased radar arrays making it hard to locate sites. Of course the new schtick is third party targeting. You launch it, I guide it. US Navy firing and guiding Patriot PAC3, F35 guiding SM6 and now Patriot radars guiding SM2,3,6 are all real capabilities announced by our military. Absolute madness!
Wow, imagine pulling up in the 1965 Mustang, with the family, and taking pictures with the missle. Of course, a six pack of beer and bologna sandwiches would have been part of the family day. And, also of course, all the trash would just be tossed on the ground. lol. Except the beer cans, as they would of been thrown out the window on the drive there.
Mentioning the Middletown NJ Nike explosion, I was a student at Bayview grade school when the explosion took place, shaking the whole building. Soldiers later searched the town for missile parts and body parts. The missile location was next to the Earle Navy ammunition road and railroad track.Ammunition is still shipped by that railroad to supply ships on a 3 mile pier out into the Raritan Bay.
I was a security MP at Site Summit Alaska in the middle 1970's. What is left of the site is still standing. Tours are available in the summer. Site Summit was closed in the summer of 1979.
My dad worked for Western Electric in the 1950s & 1969s, QWe lived in Omaha, near Offutt. We were proud of WE's contributions to Nike, but the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 had us pretty worried.
That must be the one just northwest of the old Loring AFB, in northeastern Maine! I was just reading about that on the web. A beautiful base, despite the “ugly” old military buildings where it was “function over form”, in those days. There is also an old AT&T “long lines” microwave antenna site nearby in the unincorporated Connor township as well. Designed for long-distance telephone calls, a lot of those were hardened against nuclear attack so the US Military could maintain communications after a nuclear attack. Most of the old AT&T Long Lines facilities were decommissioned in the 1990s, or earlier, rendered obsolete by both the advent of satellite and fiber optic communications. We still had two of those old microwave towers, with their giant, ugly antenna “horns”, the size of a full size van, here in the Southwestern Bell Houston, TX market area in the early 2000s. It was tough to find any parts for them, by then. I was born in Houlton, Maine. That’s why I was checking out the Nike missile and AT&T Long Lines sites, up there in Aroostook county.
On a driving trip up to Canada with my mother in 1965, IIRC, I remember seeing these missles elevated and pointed to the sky, ready to launch outside of Detroit.
I was a launcher crewman 16b20 1968 to 1970. I was station 35 miles from Fairbanks Alaska at C battery. Also at Wheeler Indiana and Union Lake Michigan
I downloaded a map of Nike sites all around the Los Angeles area. I Never knew that there was so many of them during the cold war. Today, Some of the sites are gone or there being used for storage by the county of Los Angeles. Great video.
How come no mention of the old Nike Sprint missiles? They could travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, and get up to that speed in only 45 seconds. Very impressive to watch being launched. They were designed to be used to take out incoming nuclear warheads.
That project has been abandoned. When two people are doing the job (mostly), rust doesn't sleep. Too much work was needed to finish the project. The Navy Sea Cadets were able to help once in a while, but it still wasn't enough. We could never get enough interest to help restore the site. It was a fun project that hoped to raise awareness of Lake County's role in the Cold War and World War II.
It was a great system, and a sleek Bird. While at McGregor Range I was able to witness many annual service practice Nike launches, both Ajax and Hercules.
@@Oxmix66 It's something where the idea is excellent but the idea of being near it, if something happens, discourages people from having it be near. It's not rational just like the fear of flying. The chances of something going wrong is unlikely but people perceive it to be more likely.
Cool.....I know where a bunch of old sites that were to protect NYC .....they are on long island you can still see where they were.....lido beach, Brookville , Amityville, Hicksville..... Lido beach and Brookville are easily accessible ,!!!!............cool stuff to see once you know what was once there !!!!!.......so if we had these counter measures in place back in the mid 50's... imagine what we have now ????................. Erik
If a projectile is very small compared to a missile or warhead, it might cost a lot less. Certain arguments argue against ABM systems with the argument that the enemy can make more missiles to compensate for the defense. A BB travelling at ten kilometers per secind might put a hoke all the way through a nuclear warhead with inch thick steel plate armor. . A lot of tiny rockets in space travelling every which way might be able to destroy thousands of missiles at any point over the Earth. Another possibility is tiny solar planes powered by tiny solar ram jets that are always travelling every which wsy. If they don't need any fuel, they can be much lighter and always be in the sky. Traveling at 10 kilometers per second, they could reach any target on the dark side of the Earth in about ten minutes. Since they can change their durection without fuel which is required to maneuver in space where there is no air, they could be much smaller. Maybe as small as one centimeter long. Microelectronic detectors and guidance might cost $10. The microelectronics 8n one smart phone would have cost millions of dollars not many years ago. If the defense can deploy a million planes for the cost of one enemy ICBM, the expense argument is not much of an argument. If the solar plane is travelling about the same speed and direction as a missile or warhead, it can approach close to it and send precise location and trajectory data to the defense system which can dispatch planes in the area to the target. The system would also be a defense against conventional missiles and planes lower in the atmosphere. Even ground targets. A tiny plane could be fired out of an air gun on the ground and take out a nuclear warhead 50 miles up in the sky. If you have a long narrow swept wing plane with mirrored wings like a trough parabolic mirror focused on a cylinder with a slit in the side covered with glass to let cincentrated sunlight inside, the plane can be pointed towards the sun to accelerate and gain altitude. Once it is going faster than the sun sets, it can remain airborne indefinitely abive the clouds. A rwo gram plane teavelling at ten kilometers per second has about as much destructive energy as a half poind of TNT.
So as stated in video they would go out 70 miles with a blast radius of 500 miles. D-2-44 Korea. Asked a launcher guy he said 100 miles with the 500 blast radius.
No. I served in Fire Control at 3 sites in the 70's. The nuclear warheads were small [20kt] so they wouldn't damage the ground below if the intercepts were at typical bomber altitudes. We had engagement procedures to take all that into consideration.
We live 9 miles from the one (MS-20) in Roberts Wisconsin on 120th street. The main control center is now owned by a family who uses one of the buildings as their home. The rest of the control part of the base is rented as a storage facility. We stored our RV there for years. The launch part of the base is about 1/4 mile away on the other side of the road and is owned by someone else who has left the launch site intact.
Funny thing about this was that the owner was able to find a surplus Nike Hercules missile with mobile trailer somewhere in Germany in a junk yard and had it shipped over here. It sat right next to my camper when I had it parked there. I use to joke with the owner about having the most protected storage space in the world, it’s guarded by a nuclear missile. After about a year and a half then it was moved to some veterans park in northern Wisconsin.
There are two Nike missiles on display (with launch mechanisms) in very good condition in front of the American Legion Post at Cedar Lake, Indiana. One is a Nike Ajax and the other a Nike Hercules.
I was at the Porter Indiana nike missile base radar did range radar 63 65 also at grand island ny
I was a Nike Hercules Launcher Control Technician in the Army. I served at McGregor Range annex to Fort Bliss, Texas and also the 44th Ordnance Company on Okinawa, repairing Nike launchers on the missile sites on the Island.
Spent 4 years at MCGREGOR Range. From 1978 to 1982 MY MOS was 24Papa Defense Aquisition Radar Mechanic on the Lopar . Participated in over 35 firings ! Actually shook hands with Anwar Sadat in the field firing 3 missiles that day in September!! Budget Hearings come up in October got to spend that money ! The Eerie thing is Anwar Sadat was Assassinated October 6 1981 ..!Probably for signing the Peace Treaty with Israel...
Was the missile repair shop just down the road from the motor pool still there and operational when you were there. When I was there in 1968, the shop had Launcher, Section 6, Internal guidance. Learned how to, and did trouble shoot modules in Section 6 until they realized that that was not my MOS and I didn't belong there. LOL. I hope your time spent at McGregor was as enjoyable as mine was. @@polarbear1412
@@polarbear1412
Most definitely why he was assassinated
Sounds amazing to have served the way you did. The NIKE program sounds impressive.
Good job
I was a 24u20 at McGregor Range/ Ft Bliss 1973 to 75 we fired them off all the time. You Radar Hi Power guys made my hair stand up when ever you locked on to test it. We had that you never saw this, that, or them
@@polarbear1412I was a 24P20 1977-1981. Ft Bliss, Key Kargo, Dallau Germany, I only “saw” one firing but it was inside the IFC van on Crete.
I was a 16c10 (fire control crewman) with the nike hercules back in 1970 stationed on the south east coast of south korea. b battery 4th bn, 44th arty.
Nike range radar crewman 63 65 porter indiana, huey crew chief in south Korea
I go by the LA-96 Nike site in Van Nuys California every morning on my walk. Funnily enough it is right next-door to the Tillman reclamation plant which is better known to Star Trek fans as Starfleet headquarters from the TNG era!
I still need to go up into the Hills and check out the control site. I imagine people of the arrow would be glad to have something defending their neighborhood but also it seems like it could make them a target as well which is probably why some people were against it.
A large issue around Ajax and Hercules was that they were not autonomous. They required a complex on-ground radar control system. So the missiles worked well in themselves but guidance greatly reduced effectiveness. Like....greatly....
Unless you were shooting a 5 MT Herc into a swarm of bombers.
I was a 16C Hercules Fire Control Crewman at 2 sites in CONUS [NY56 an HM69] and one in Germany [A-5-6 ADA].
I'm not sure what you mean by autonomous, but it was precisely the complex Fire Control system on the ground that made them any more effective than a lawn dart. These missiles were command guided toward a continuously updated Predicted Intercept Point every step of the way.
Ideally, there were several layers of higher authority Command & Control directing the firing units to ensure all targets were efficiently engaged. In the event we lost contact with them we had procedures for operating autonomously to identify and select hostile targets for engagement. It was a robust system.
@ypdave01 I think he's referring to them not being Active Radar Homing missiles which can guide themselves after launch with mid course guidance updates from ground based radars... something only realized by ground based air defense in the mid 90s...
Command guidance is pretty good for 50s and 60s era missiles, but SARH and eventually TVM would ultimately be the method of choice. Still is today with phased radar arrays making it hard to locate sites.
Of course the new schtick is third party targeting. You launch it, I guide it. US Navy firing and guiding Patriot PAC3, F35 guiding SM6 and now Patriot radars guiding SM2,3,6 are all real capabilities announced by our military. Absolute madness!
I've hiked all the ones that are still around in CT
Their locations weren't kept secret. As you said, they were right out there for the public to see.
Wow, imagine pulling up in the 1965 Mustang, with the family, and taking pictures with the missle.
Of course, a six pack of beer and bologna sandwiches would have been part of the family day.
And, also of course, all the trash would just be tossed on the ground. lol. Except the beer cans, as they would of been thrown out the window on the drive there.
Have a subscriber, nice work. Never heard of it..
I lived and worked at the farming dale NY site. It was on a us army base to protect Grumman, republic aircraft manufacturer of the f14 tomcat.
Mentioning the Middletown NJ Nike explosion, I was a student at Bayview grade school when the explosion took place, shaking the whole building. Soldiers later searched the town for missile parts and body parts. The missile location was next to the Earle Navy ammunition road and railroad track.Ammunition is still shipped by that railroad to supply ships on a 3 mile pier out into the Raritan Bay.
I was a security MP at Site Summit Alaska in the middle 1970's. What is left of the site is still standing. Tours are available in the summer. Site Summit was closed in the summer of 1979.
My dad worked for Western Electric in the 1950s & 1969s, QWe lived in Omaha, near Offutt. We were proud of WE's contributions to Nike, but the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 had us pretty worried.
I was a 16B and 24U for the Nike Hercules system from 1984 thru 1987 in W. Germany and Bliss.
Really nicely made video! I own a Nike launcher site in the northeast corner of the country.
Thank you! It’s interesting how a lot of these sites have been redeveloped
@@JHPhotography I find it a shame but it makes the remaining ones rare and unique.
That must be the one just northwest of the old Loring AFB, in northeastern Maine! I was just reading about that on the web. A beautiful base, despite the “ugly” old military buildings where it was “function over form”, in those days.
There is also an old AT&T “long lines” microwave antenna site nearby in the unincorporated Connor township as well. Designed for long-distance telephone calls, a lot of those were hardened against nuclear attack so the US Military could maintain communications after a nuclear attack.
Most of the old AT&T Long Lines facilities were decommissioned in the 1990s, or earlier, rendered obsolete by both the advent of satellite and fiber optic communications.
We still had two of those old microwave towers, with their giant, ugly antenna “horns”, the size of a full size van, here in the Southwestern Bell Houston, TX market area in the early 2000s. It was tough to find any parts for them, by then.
I was born in Houlton, Maine. That’s why I was checking out the Nike missile and AT&T Long Lines sites, up there in Aroostook county.
@@perrybonney9090 Perry. My place hasn't been featured on the web except for coordinates. Either way I'm lucky to have it and love being there.
@@weh000000000000001 No, but I’ve still seen it ON the web, unless your Nike site isn’t the one in Maine.
All the best.
On a driving trip up to Canada with my mother in 1965, IIRC, I remember seeing these missles elevated and pointed to the sky, ready to launch outside of Detroit.
I was a launcher crewman 16b20 1968 to 1970. I was station 35 miles from Fairbanks Alaska at C battery. Also at Wheeler Indiana and Union Lake Michigan
In hobart high school class of 68. I knew 2 girls that dated Nike workers in wheeler
This is so good and I just came here for the Detroit content
I downloaded a map of Nike sites all around the Los Angeles area. I Never knew that there was so many of them during the cold war. Today, Some of the sites are gone or there being used for storage by the county of Los Angeles. Great video.
I like the thumbnail photo, however, the Russians did not have American F-100s being shot down by a Nike Hercules missile . The video is good tho.
How come no mention of the old Nike Sprint missiles? They could travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, and get up to that speed in only 45 seconds.
Very impressive to watch being launched.
They were designed to be used to take out incoming nuclear warheads.
Because those came into service 20 years later. And also reached their speed in 5 seconds, not 45.
@@durt214 wow. I finally get an answer, and a good one!
I was actually on one of those Cub Scout tours as a little boy. I was very disappointed that they wouldn't show us the missiles themselves.
C-94 in Illinois(Vernon Hills) is getting restored, last I heard. The launch elevators are in the waste water treatment plant parking lot.
That project has been abandoned. When two people are doing the job (mostly), rust doesn't sleep. Too much work was needed to finish the project. The Navy Sea Cadets were able to help once in a while, but it still wasn't enough. We could never get enough interest to help restore the site. It was a fun project that hoped to raise awareness of Lake County's role in the Cold War and World War II.
Hawk systems are still being used today. Spain is refurbishing them and sending them to Ukraine where they are taking out Russian cruise missiles.
#СлаваУкраїні! #SlavaUkraini!I
Why on earth adding the ukrainian Sieg heil to this post???
damn those nike hercules look impressive, its like thunderbirds but better
It was a great system, and a sleek Bird. While at McGregor Range I was able to witness many annual service practice Nike launches, both Ajax and Hercules.
You could see D-06 from the back yard of my wife's childhood home. Launch and IFC.
sounds like a nice thing to have as long as it doesn't have to be next to where I live
Why would you say that? Despite being nuclear tipped they were extremely safe to be around. I never felt unsafe working around them.
@@Oxmix66 It's something where the idea is excellent but the idea of being near it, if something happens, discourages people from having it be near. It's not rational just like the fear of flying. The chances of something going wrong is unlikely but people perceive it to be more likely.
Cool.....I know where a bunch of old sites that were to protect NYC .....they are on long island you can still see where they were.....lido beach, Brookville , Amityville, Hicksville.....
Lido beach and Brookville are easily accessible ,!!!!............cool stuff to see once you know what was once there !!!!!.......so if we had these counter measures in place back in the mid 50's... imagine what we have now ????................. Erik
Now? Since 1974 we've got nothing protecting major metro areas except a few fighters. Pitiful.
The USSR never really came up with a potent intercontinental bomber. SAM system development stalled out as a result.
If a projectile is very small compared to a missile or warhead, it might cost a lot less. Certain arguments argue against ABM systems with the argument that the enemy can make more missiles to compensate for the defense. A BB travelling at ten kilometers per secind might put a hoke all the way through a nuclear warhead with inch thick steel plate armor. . A lot of tiny rockets in space travelling every which way might be able to destroy thousands of missiles at any point over the Earth.
Another possibility is tiny solar planes powered by tiny solar ram jets that are always travelling every which wsy. If they don't need any fuel, they can be much lighter and always be in the sky. Traveling at 10 kilometers per second, they could reach any target on the dark side of the Earth in about ten minutes. Since they can change their durection without fuel which is required to maneuver in space where there is no air, they could be much smaller. Maybe as small as one centimeter long. Microelectronic detectors and guidance might cost $10. The microelectronics 8n one smart phone would have cost millions of dollars not many years ago. If the defense can deploy a million planes for the cost of one enemy ICBM, the expense argument is not much of an argument. If the solar plane is travelling about the same speed and direction as a missile or warhead, it can approach close to it and send precise location and trajectory data to the defense system which can dispatch planes in the area to the target.
The system would also be a defense against conventional missiles and planes lower in the atmosphere. Even ground targets. A tiny plane could be fired out of an air gun on the ground and take out a nuclear warhead 50 miles up in the sky.
If you have a long narrow swept wing plane with mirrored wings like a trough parabolic mirror focused on a cylinder with a slit in the side covered with glass to let cincentrated sunlight inside, the plane can be pointed towards the sun to accelerate and gain altitude. Once it is going faster than the sun sets, it can remain airborne indefinitely abive the clouds.
A rwo gram plane teavelling at ten kilometers per second has about as much destructive energy as a half poind of TNT.
So as stated in video they would go out 70 miles with a blast radius of 500 miles. D-2-44 Korea. Asked a launcher guy he said 100 miles with the 500 blast radius.
No. I served in Fire Control at 3 sites in the 70's. The nuclear warheads were small [20kt] so they wouldn't damage the ground below if the intercepts were at typical bomber altitudes. We had engagement procedures to take all that into consideration.
The old nimby problem!
Yeah but the Nike Sprint was cool! 😅
Too sad I can only apllaud you with one like.
Nike missiles were defensive anti aircraft missiles not ICBM nuclear missiles, duh, do your research.
Your comment suggests that you did not watch the entire video.
The government tax dollar waste will NEVER go away.
War is a waste of human life as well as a waste of resources. Always was , Always will be 😢
You better believe there are still ABM's in Washington D.C.! Right on the White House premises and around D.C....