I was a missile control crewman (mtr operator) for the Nike Hercules stationed in South Korea in 70-71 (B battery/44th artillery/4th battalion). We were located next to the yellow sea in the south east coast of South Korea. Very isolated area back then. Our battery was used for the annual firing practice and competition. Got to see many launches. The missiles were launched from Sea Range and guided by our IFC site on top of a hill nearby.
Sort of like the the F-106 Delta Dart, the ultimate interceptor that was used for 3 decades by the USAF yet, despite many intercept missions, never fired a shot in anger.
My dad was an officer at a Nike site in Dillsboro, Indiana in the early 60's. We know now that Nike-Hercules was nuclear capable, but a few times growing up I asked my dad why he never talks about what he did in the army. He always answered that to his knowledge he still wasn't allowed to. My parents met while he was stationed there, my mom having grown up nearby. The Dillsboro site was part of the Cincinnati Air Defense system, three Nike sites protecting that city. The Dillsboro site is still there but now owned by private citizens, but a few of the buildings still stand and its missile magazine elevator still functions.
In '86 I was at an Army school training on munitions where they twice made offhand remarks that there are still Nike's in the inventory, but you'll never see them. Fast forward a few months while stationed in the 59th Ordnance Bde in Germany. The very first task I was given was to inventory a large tool set in a maintenance bunker in Buren, Germany. Bigger than Stuttgart, the very first thing I saw was a Nike missile glistening before me in all it's regal splendor. The unit was supporting the Belgian Army and was deactivated about a year later.
Excellent video covering the Nike system. A notable fact about this system is that it left an important legacy in South Korea: the South Korean Hyunmoo ballistic missile family was developed initially from the Nike Hercules System by the South Korean Army in the 1980s, shortly after it was decommissioned from US service in North America.
At last a video that explains what "daddy did during the cold war". In the early 70s I was a Nike Hercules fire control repair technician (MOS 24Q20) in Germany (Charlie Battery, 3rd Battlion, 71st Army Defence). Because of defense role, our alert status always a step higher than other Arny units and got moved to a higher state very frequently. It was a very good presentation of a little known topic. You didn't include so late stage additions to the radars like the HIPAR ( high power acquisition radar) and the TRR (target ranging radar).
I live in a suburb of Chicago. We have a park named Nike Park. It was, indeed, one of the missile battery sites. In fact, under one of the office buildings adjacent to the park there is still an underground bunker that one can tour. As for nuclear missiles to defend against nuclear bombers, there were also the Genie and Falcon missiles carried by F-102 and F-106 interceptors used for the same purpose.
Great details as always. In our Bridgeport defense zone only one of the five Nike sites (Ansonia) got the Nuclear Nike Hercules upgrade - just before the program was shut-down. In 1970 we used to sneak in and explore the local abandoned site - the same one in CT that inspired the Paul Newman movie “Rally Round the Flag”. The radar towers were a mile away and were a popular teenage hangout like the water tower in “That 70s Show”.
I once toured a NIKE site. Studying electronics, I was very impressed. What they accomplished, with what was available at the time, was quite amazing. It was close to stand down at the time, but it was still heavily secured, armed troops and all. If you climbed over a fence you would never reach the ground. A handler grabbed the fence and 5 sentry dogs appeared, intent on mayhem. And the troops would clean up what was left.
One of the things that was never mentioned was the accuracy of the system. At McGregor Range at Ft. Bliss there was a 30ft pole with a 55 gallon drum attached as a target for surface to surface shoots. Normally the procedure was to have the TTR lock onto the drum to give a target. I was told the average life span of the drum was five shoots. The reason was that approximately every fifth round would go into the drum, at 160,000 yards or approximately 90 miles downrange. And yes there are photos of missiles entering the drum at the Air Defense Museum.
There used to be a NIKE Missle base next to my neighborhood in Maryland during the early 80's. Since we were so close to Washington DC, there were and still are defensive measures all over the area.
they had to be, Nike missiles were very big (as were all long range missiles of the era). Each Nike Hercules weighed in at almost 5 metric tons, to give an idea, was 11 meters long with 3.5m wingspan.
Here in Bristol Rhode Island we have an abandoned site that’s been mostly filled with dirt on the edge of the roger Williams college property. There’s also an entire building gif limit island in the middle of Narragansett bay that has several (so I’m told because I’m not going to go piss of the us navy to explore) empty silos.
There is a public park and baseball field within walking distance of the house I grew up in that is a decommissioned Nike site (probably a site A and/or C judging by the size). The buildings are still in place just boarded up and sealed included a large locked metal garage type door that I always sparked my imagination as to what was behind it. There's also an active Air Force Reserve base a few miles away (not far behind my old elementary school) that probably contained the B site.
The Nike base in lawson Missouri "Nike KC10" is used for airsoft games. If you want to explore the old barracks and garage facilities go check out Mass Airsoft. I used to work for the airsoft field, spent many days using the old radar tower for a referee tower.
As a current Air Defender in the successor system fro Nike, Patriot, I must applaud your video. I had to write a history paper in my AIT about the history of AMD(Air and Missile Defense) and found this to be about what I expected, even adding in tidbits I didn't know about the original N-Ajax system. Nowadays the part about inspections is about the same, if any person on a crew at a patriot battery fails an evaluation table, especially the bi-quarterly table 8s or the pre-deployment table 12s, the entire crew will have to stay out in the field and keep doing the rotation until the entire crew succeeds, very strenuous!
I grew up next to a NIKE site in Palos Verdes. I think that siyte even had a spy giving outdated info to the Soviets. Was a great place to explore as a kid in the 80's and 90's....
I remember my home on the Lower Rhine and how many Nike missile sites there were there. As children, we always found the abandoned rocket sites very exciting, and it is hard to believe that sheep are now grazing where weapons of destruction used to be found. Something funny happened to a friend of my parents when he was young. At night after a visit to the disco he didn't want to drive home for almost 2 hours, so he drove to the forest to spend the night and stopped there in front of a fence. The nap was short, around sunrise there was a knock on the window. He looked into several gun barrels and angry shepherd eyes. (Sad fate, the dogs had to be killed because of their training after the rocket positions had been abandoned, they were too dangerous) The friend had parked directly on the driveway to the Nike Missle Site and was rudely asked to leave.
Same experience in the US, having grown up about 15 minutes away from a Nike site. This one was actually located right beside a public beach on the Atlantic Ocean, and what remains of the decommissioned batteries (to the best of my knowledge) are still there today on the sand facing the ocean.
There used to be a site at Coyote Hills in the SF Bay Area. You can still see some of the old bldgs at the top of what us kids called "Radar Hill' back in the 80s. The park HQ bldg is one of the old admin buildings and is still in use today.
Great video...early air defense tech is fascinating stuff. Does this mean you folks will be creating a similar short documentary on the SAGE system? I really hope that is already in the works. ✌✌💯💯
As a teen in the 60's I spent a lot of time at an island park in the Detroit River, less than a mile south of Ontario, CA. Belle Isle had a well "advertised" NIKE base anyone visiting the park could see and walk within yards of the fence. The silos and radar facilities were easily viewed on the island or by a boat. We felt well protected by these bases literally on the border at the time. No way Canadian airspace could not have been used in defense of the Detroit area!
My father served as a radar man for a Nike missile site on Mt Gleason in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. One amusing story he shared was visiting a launch site near El Monte, that, for reasons unknown, was located near a powerful radio station. Whenever the missiles at that site were placed on standby, the fins would move due to the signals from the radio station. As a result, none of the missiles were ever on 15-minute standby, for fear of an accidental launch. The El Monte site was the first in the Los Angeles area to be deactivated. As far as I know, the site is still there, though the buildings have been removed-the radio station is still there, though. The Mt Gleason site is a work camp for L.A. County inmates.
There was a Nike-Ajax battery located in my town responsible for the defense of Boston. It was active from 1955 to 1961. Some remnants still remain today.
I watched this video, then watched a programme on Opperation Oxcart (a US top secret project from 1958 onwards, The Clearance for Oxcart was a special level of clearance all on its own. Just wondering will you be covering this in the future?.. Another informative episode as ever David & team 👏🏼. Apparently the Americans got the top secret ingredient some 93% was Titanium, a material which at the time no-one had made a aircraft from because the aircraft had to have the ability to withstand temperatures caused by air friction & flying through the atmosphere at 2000 miles an hour. The Americans (the CIA) obtained the Titanium from the Soviet Union, we just don't know how they did it. 2000 workers worked on the black project
I suppose our Bloodhound MK1 was the UK equivalent to this. Both marks of Bloodhound needed constant fettling to be anything like reliable ! Radar resolution is a factor of antenna beamwidth and wavelength. This is why X band or above is used for weapons radar rather than 2.5 to 6 Ghz band
I had an Armor MOS (11 echo) and was assigned to an infantry company whose sole duty was to guard the Nike Missle Base at Camp Ames So. Korea. That was 1965. In 66, the changed it to an MP company and I got shipped up north towards the DMZ. I was a kid, 18 years old, and I Knew as to yell "halt, Chongee" 3 times and if whoever it was did not stop I was to shoot them with my M14 Rifle.
I grew up near a Nike site in New Jersey. It was gross. Not because Nike missiles. The launch pads are still being used as a parking lot for the city's municipal vehicles. The school busses are specifically kept there.
In addition to US sites, overseas the U S Army deployed sites in West Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Taiwan. I am not sure if the sites in Turkey and Greece were US sites originally or not. In addition Nike Hercules was deployed in many NATO countries. From memory Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, West Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey. Additionally NATO made subsUkraine. hardware upgrades to their systems. Replacing vacuum tubes with solid state components. Upgraded magnetron to name a few. Some of the placement of West German bundles Luftwaffe sites gave them considerably reach into Warsaw Pact territory. Also Nike Hercules had a limited Anti Tactical Ballistic Missile ability. It was never tested, but the ability was there. I can remember one morning the USAF staged a live ecm jamming exercise that we burned our way thru. Nike Hercules was capable of many things. What caught up to Nike was the inability to deal with the massive numbers of aircraft the Soviets and Warsaw pact could throw at it. (ever see a radar scope with over 1000 unidentified aircraft on it) One of the reasons for Patriot was its ability to track and engage large numbers of targets. One of the tactics that the Russians are using in The Ukraine
It's also kind of funny how it went from ground guns defending against planes, to planes to defend against planes, to missiles to defend against planes, to the realization that 'this thing we've built to defend against these nuclear bombers could just cut out the plane all together'. In the end the defense became the offense.
For interested parties willing to make the trek, there is one FUNCTIONAL Nike site available for visits. Battery SF-88 in the Marin Headlands near San Francisco opens its battery to the public on occasional Saturdays. It is quite an experience to see a Nike-Hercules brought out of its protective bay and elevated up to launch position.
In the Washington, DC suburbs, Fairfax County Virginia has incorporated 3 former Nike sites into parks. "Great Falls Nike Park" is what used to be the launch area of Nike site W-83, and the control area is now Observatory Park, next to Turner Farm. Observatory Park has a working roll-top clamshell roof and a telescope used for events coordinated by the Analemma Society. There are also historical markers for both the Nike site and the birth of the U.S. Army Topographic Service.
Good show. Nice set, too. I went to high school across the street from a Nike site guarding Los Angeles. We could see the missiles being exercised up and down. Very cool. Good thing one of the nukes didn't goof up.
I was in the Special Weapons (Nuclear) support unit TUSALOG located at Homestead AFB south of Miami, FL from 1966 to 1969. We serviced 4 batteries one of which was in the middle of Everglades National Park along with a bazzillion snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes. My specialty was electronics and I maintained the various electrical test equipment and conducted warhead teardown, replacement, and testing. It never bothered me at the time, but now that I'm an old man I have nightmares and occasional bad memories that bring me to tears. The thought that we kids were allowed to tinker with nukes and could have set off WWIII along with the tremendous loss of life still frightens me. Our mission was to protect against Soviet attacks from Cuba. In that regard your graphic showing installation location omits south Florida. You also omitted the fact that the Nike-Hercules could be configured as a ground-to-ground tactical weapon. Think about that. It meant that had war broken out Havana would still be a smoking pool of glass. Ok, I have to stop, the tears are coming.
KC-60. The magazines are still there, about a mile south of the school, on private property. They look welded shut. When the school district bought the property, they used the magazines as storage. The radar tracking center and command base buildings were used as classrooms. There were boxes upon boxes of leftover scratch paper we got to use.
There is a Nike missile base in Indiana that was turned into an airsoft/paintball park and it is amazing being able to have free range of a former nuclear missile base
I remember doing "duck & cover" drills in school, as a child. It made me feel better, but only about a mile from O'Hare Airport, west of Chicago, I don't think we would have survived a nuclear attack (to say the least). Also, there was a Nike site at the airport.
Its funny how when i was younger i played hockey at a place called the Nike Base...this was Hamburg NY....ends upbitnwas one of these sites lol so cool.
I had the same thought when I first heard of the NIKE program, but other than NIKE AJAX, the rest of the NIKE program used nuclear or thermonuclear weapons to stop enemy bombers. The AJAX missiles had conventional explosives, but... The NIKE Hercules had a 40 kiloton nuclear warhead, similar to what was used in Japan during World War II. The NIKE Zeus B missile had a 400 kiloton nuclear warhead. The NIKE Spartan missile had a 5 megaton thermonuclear warhead. The cold war stayed a 'cold' war because of our defense systems like NIKE. I'm sure the former Soviet Union had a similar system.
NIKE started the government using IBM for its procurement. IBM developed the computer systems coordinating, communicating and computing the various radar tracking systems for the purpose of missile intervention. Soon after IBM dominated large business computing.
I was stationed in Friedberg Germany from 96-99 . When I first got there, my sponsor wanted to " show me something cool," so he took me very close to Giessen Germany, we parked, then walked up a small road, which led to a fence line and a guard shack. He told me it was an abandoned Hawk site. I have no idea how to verify what type of site it actually was. All I know is that it was very close to Gissen Depot. Does anyone have any idea ?
Bell labs also was the birthplace of the transistor, the basis for the tech we are watching this video. While not related to the Nike-Hercules, the US Air Forces had a Genie nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile to explode thousands of feet above five servicemen. The guys survived. This was to show that nukes exploding high in the sky did not create the damage feared it would do.
Another notable difference between Ajax and Hercules was the propulsion. Ajax used highly toxic liquid fuel that had to be pumped into the rockets soon before launch, a relatively dangerous process under potentially immense pressure. Occasional leaks and spills were inevitable and a real headache to clean up. Hercules's rockets were solid-fueled, which made them much safer to work with and quicker to launch.
The Nike Hercules made sense when the AIM Genie unguided rocket was a thing for the Air Force. It was almost a ground based version of that. The Genie was an air launched unguided nuke rocket designed to be launched into the middle of a bomber stream to take out the entire bomber stream. So someone on the Nike team must have been aware of it and just decided to upgraded the Nike to it. Now the Genie used the W54 if I remember right where this used a W51.
The Genie and the Nike missiles were both built by Douglas, so there was likely some developmental crossover but without doing more research, I would not be confident to say that Genie birthed Hercules or vice versa.
@@TheColdWarTV apart from the political part (Air Force and Army both wanting nuclear tipped anti aircraft systems because of inter-service rivalry) I don't see many places where there could be cross over. Even the warheads are different (the main area where you'd think they'd speed up development and reduce cost by going for parts commonality).
It's not the 'Coast Guard Artillery Corps,' it's the Coast Artillery Corps. They were a branch of the Army (mostly later transitioned into the Air Defense Artillery) and not part of the Coast Guard. I had two ancestors in the CAC. One spent the First World War manning heavy artillery in France and the other spent most of WWII driving ammunition trucks in the Pacific.
Also 35,000 soldiers assigned to air defense goes into perspective that in a given year between 1955 and 1965 the US military drafted on average about 125,000 men, on top of voluntary enlistments and those already in the services.
hey, just curious: when a sponsor company approaches a youtuber, do they insist on their ad being placed at the start of the video rather than at the end? and if not, do they offer more remuneration if the youtuber *does* choose to place it at the start? not making a veiled comment, just tryin to find out.
The Nike missile in NJ that had a rocket fuel leak/fire that caused a nuclear disaster is 15 minutes from my house. Some of the plutonium melted into the ground water and was not recovered. All the ponds and streams have signs that say not to eat the fish due to pesticides in the water... ☢️☢️☢️
The site at MacGuire AFB was a BOMARC site not Nike. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOMARC_missile_accident_site) The worst accident I heard about with Nike was an accidental missile firing of a liquid fueled Nike Ajax round that was being moved by truck. The round traveled down a road before exploding. I do not know more of the details, other than the Warrant Officer responsible was severly disiplined.(no moving a liquid fueled round was not SOP)
Hercs, by doctrine could be used in a surface to surface role , fired from mobile launchers with a range of 200 miles. Somewhat off topic; I caught a new crewman climbing onto a launch rail using the second stage lanyard as hand hold. I thought I’d have a heart attack. First to Fire.
I grew up playing paintball on a retired Nike missile base, and the area wasn't very big, mostly barracks, offices and the like, and I used to ask my grandpa where the missiles would've been, and he said "oh, they were stored under the fields around here, which is why I never eat local farm veggies unless I grew them myself" and until watching this, I always thought he was kidding about NIKEs being nuclear capable
to be honest, I would be more concerned about the damage to the soil that may have occurred from the liquid propellant used in the Nike-Ajax missiles...the nuclear warheads themselves were sealed and would have been relatively safe. The liquid propellant however could be messy and posed quite the hazard when accidents happened.
@@TheColdWarTV I didn't think about that, my grandpa wasn't ever around missiles in the service like I was, but even now I still forget how dangerous that stuff was
One of the significant contaminants found on ex Nike sites was a cleaner/solvent called trichloroethylene. It is only in the last decade or so that it was recognized as a cause of a variety of ailments.
Interesting to think how doctrine might of been different if the US air-force got control of anti-air systems. I would expect less friendly fire incidents but in general being less effective
I am very disappointed not once did he talk about the role of the Nike in Europe I was at C/2/56 in Germany for 3 years as a MTR operator and am very proud of what we did.
I've been studying Cold War material for over a decade now and I've never heard the term "Fortress America" used. The first google result is a board game and I could find nothing regarding the use of the term by contemporary news media or policymakers at all. I have no idea where this channel got that information but I am humbly suggesting that it may not be accurate.
There was a Nike base in San Pedro Ca. I remember it as a kid. Every so often you could see missiles raised up on elevators in a ready to fire position. Really felt safe knowing the military was on guard. Radar domes on top of Palos Verdes looked like huge golf balls. America was strong then and safe. Nowadays we have become lax and allow anyone in over our borders. I know something bad will happen and it'll be our fault we didn't keep our leadership on the ball.
I'm glad it was a missile defense system named after the goddess of victory rather than an offensive system. Thank you for another nifty informative video! God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)
Our farm was a mile away from a Nike base in western Wisconsin. My dad grew up there during the cold War. He always joked we would be the first to know if the Russians launched something.
Are you sure the missile would explode in the middle of the radar signal? That doesn't sound very smart. Planes are relatively easy to take out if you get shrapnel in them--why not use a cluster bomb in front of the planes?
This is the Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Hercules In Marin county, in the San Francisco bay area, a group is restoring a Nike site. One of the things that makes this unique is the restoration of the fire control area, as well as the launcher area.
I've been there a few times. They give tours and they'll go through a "launch" and bring one of the missiles up. www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm here's a video someone shot of the tour: ua-cam.com/video/xB1g_4GH1mI/v-deo.html
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I am glad Cold War is your sub channel, high value look at longest past ideogical post WW2 conflict, from not only warfare side, great addition!
I was a missile control crewman (mtr operator) for the Nike Hercules stationed in South Korea in 70-71 (B battery/44th artillery/4th battalion). We were located next to the yellow sea in the south east coast of South Korea. Very isolated area back then. Our battery was used for the annual firing practice and competition. Got to see many launches. The missiles were launched from Sea Range and guided by our IFC site on top of a hill nearby.
Sort of like the the F-106 Delta Dart, the ultimate interceptor that was used for 3 decades by the USAF yet, despite many intercept missions, never fired a shot in anger.
My dad was an officer at a Nike site in Dillsboro, Indiana in the early 60's. We know now that Nike-Hercules was nuclear capable, but a few times growing up I asked my dad why he never talks about what he did in the army. He always answered that to his knowledge he still wasn't allowed to. My parents met while he was stationed there, my mom having grown up nearby. The Dillsboro site was part of the Cincinnati Air Defense system, three Nike sites protecting that city. The Dillsboro site is still there but now owned by private citizens, but a few of the buildings still stand and its missile magazine elevator still functions.
The next episode: "SOVIETS RESPONSE - PROJECT ADIDAS"
Gopnik missile?
Germans respond, PROJECT PUMA
They would do so with GERMAN technology. ADIDAS is a GERMAN sportswear and sports shoe company.
@@pirx9798 With vodka-fueled missiles
@@SpiritOfMontgomery The UK can only afford Project Keds.
In '86 I was at an Army school training on munitions where they twice made offhand remarks that there are still Nike's in the inventory, but you'll never see them. Fast forward a few months while stationed in the 59th Ordnance Bde in Germany. The very first task I was given was to inventory a large tool set in a maintenance bunker in Buren, Germany. Bigger than Stuttgart, the very first thing I saw was a Nike missile glistening before me in all it's regal splendor. The unit was supporting the Belgian Army and was deactivated about a year later.
Excellent video covering the Nike system. A notable fact about this system is that it left an important legacy in South Korea: the South Korean Hyunmoo ballistic missile family was developed initially from the Nike Hercules System by the South Korean Army in the 1980s, shortly after it was decommissioned from US service in North America.
At last a video that explains what "daddy did during the cold war". In the early 70s I was a Nike Hercules fire control repair technician (MOS 24Q20) in Germany (Charlie Battery, 3rd Battlion, 71st Army Defence). Because of defense role, our alert status always a step higher than other Arny units and got moved to a higher state very frequently. It was a very good presentation of a little known topic. You didn't include so late stage additions to the radars like the HIPAR ( high power acquisition radar) and the TRR (target ranging radar).
I live in a suburb of Chicago. We have a park named Nike Park. It was, indeed, one of the missile battery sites. In fact, under one of the office buildings adjacent to the park there is still an underground bunker that one can tour.
As for nuclear missiles to defend against nuclear bombers, there were also the Genie and Falcon missiles carried by F-102 and F-106 interceptors used for the same purpose.
Great details as always. In our Bridgeport defense zone only one of the five Nike sites (Ansonia) got the Nuclear Nike Hercules upgrade - just before the program was shut-down. In 1970 we used to sneak in and explore the local abandoned site - the same one in CT that inspired the Paul Newman movie “Rally Round the Flag”. The radar towers were a mile away and were a popular teenage hangout like the water tower in “That 70s Show”.
I once toured a NIKE site. Studying electronics, I was very impressed.
What they accomplished, with what was available at the time, was quite amazing. It was close to stand down at the time, but it was still heavily secured, armed troops and all. If you climbed over a fence you would never reach the ground. A handler grabbed the fence and 5 sentry dogs appeared, intent on mayhem. And the troops would clean up what was left.
How long back was this ?
@@vedantmehra6970 1971 or 1972.
One of the things that was never mentioned was the accuracy of the system.
At McGregor Range at Ft. Bliss there was a 30ft pole with a 55 gallon drum attached as a target for surface to surface shoots. Normally the procedure was to have the TTR lock onto the drum to give a target. I was told the average life span of the drum was five shoots. The reason was that approximately every fifth round would go into the drum, at 160,000 yards or approximately 90 miles downrange. And yes there are photos of missiles entering the drum at the Air Defense Museum.
Great video! I did have to snicker a little bit at the 23,000 feet per second spec, around the 5:04 mark. That's a tad over Mach 20. 😆
Thank you, David. A great tribute to Cold Warriors like me. ❤
You are the reason this video exists today!
A related anti-ballistic missile system, Nike Zeus, was tested but not deployed. It was cancelled in 1963.
There used to be a NIKE Missle base next to my neighborhood in Maryland during the early 80's. Since we were so close to Washington DC, there were and still are defensive measures all over the area.
there was one that people would go try and explore when i was a kid, I was not aware it was a nuclear missile silo
@@WakeAndBakeBeats
Do you remember what area it was in?
@@RicArmstrong not really just heard about it a lot growing up!
Saw the remnant concrete foundations of a former NIKE installation in the outskirts of Boston, in Waltham. Seemed to be pretty big missile batteries.
They were. The illustrations in the videos don't do them justice. Equal in scale to the old coastal artillery battery forts.
they had to be, Nike missiles were very big (as were all long range missiles of the era).
Each Nike Hercules weighed in at almost 5 metric tons, to give an idea, was 11 meters long with 3.5m wingspan.
We have a couple old Nike installations in the area but not much if anything remains. Thanks for the insight of what used to be there.
Here in Bristol Rhode Island we have an abandoned site that’s been mostly filled with dirt on the edge of the roger Williams college property. There’s also an entire building gif limit island in the middle of Narragansett bay that has several (so I’m told because I’m not going to go piss of the us navy to explore) empty silos.
There is a public park and baseball field within walking distance of the house I grew up in that is a decommissioned Nike site (probably a site A and/or C judging by the size). The buildings are still in place just boarded up and sealed included a large locked metal garage type door that I always sparked my imagination as to what was behind it. There's also an active Air Force Reserve base a few miles away (not far behind my old elementary school) that probably contained the B site.
The Nike base in lawson Missouri "Nike KC10" is used for airsoft games. If you want to explore the old barracks and garage facilities go check out Mass Airsoft. I used to work for the airsoft field, spent many days using the old radar tower for a referee tower.
As a current Air Defender in the successor system fro Nike, Patriot, I must applaud your video. I had to write a history paper in my AIT about the history of AMD(Air and Missile Defense) and found this to be about what I expected, even adding in tidbits I didn't know about the original N-Ajax system. Nowadays the part about inspections is about the same, if any person on a crew at a patriot battery fails an evaluation table, especially the bi-quarterly table 8s or the pre-deployment table 12s, the entire crew will have to stay out in the field and keep doing the rotation until the entire crew succeeds, very strenuous!
I grew up next to a NIKE site in Palos Verdes. I think that siyte even had a spy giving outdated info to the Soviets. Was a great place to explore as a kid in the 80's and 90's....
I remember my home on the Lower Rhine and how many Nike missile sites there were there. As children, we always found the abandoned rocket sites very exciting, and it is hard to believe that sheep are now grazing where weapons of destruction used to be found.
Something funny happened to a friend of my parents when he was young. At night after a visit to the disco he didn't want to drive home for almost 2 hours, so he drove to the forest to spend the night and stopped there in front of a fence. The nap was short, around sunrise there was a knock on the window. He looked into several gun barrels and angry shepherd eyes. (Sad fate, the dogs had to be killed because of their training after the rocket positions had been abandoned, they were too dangerous) The friend had parked directly on the driveway to the Nike Missle Site and was rudely asked to leave.
Good story!
Same experience in the US, having grown up about 15 minutes away from a Nike site. This one was actually located right beside a public beach on the Atlantic Ocean, and what remains of the decommissioned batteries (to the best of my knowledge) are still there today on the sand facing the ocean.
Of course I watch your reactions from start to finish. Love seeing some of my fav movies through your eyes, insightful & fun reactions.
There used to be a site at Coyote Hills in the SF Bay Area. You can still see some of the old bldgs at the top of what us kids called "Radar Hill' back in the 80s. The park HQ bldg is one of the old admin buildings and is still in use today.
Great video...early air defense tech is fascinating stuff. Does this mean you folks will be creating a similar short documentary on the SAGE system? I really hope that is already in the works. ✌✌💯💯
We'll see how this video does first ;)
Oooo, this was also written about in "The Long Gray Line." One of the officers covered began his career at a Nike site.
As a teen in the 60's I spent a lot of time at an island park in the Detroit River, less than a mile south of Ontario, CA. Belle Isle had a well "advertised" NIKE base anyone visiting the park could see and walk within yards of the fence. The silos and radar facilities were easily viewed on the island or by a boat. We felt well protected by these bases literally on the border at the time. No way Canadian airspace could not have been used in defense of the Detroit area!
Vault boy here. I'm proud.
My father served as a radar man for a Nike missile site on Mt Gleason in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. One amusing story he shared was visiting a launch site near El Monte, that, for reasons unknown, was located near a powerful radio station. Whenever the missiles at that site were placed on standby, the fins would move due to the signals from the radio station. As a result, none of the missiles were ever on 15-minute standby, for fear of an accidental launch. The El Monte site was the first in the Los Angeles area to be deactivated. As far as I know, the site is still there, though the buildings have been removed-the radio station is still there, though. The Mt Gleason site is a work camp for L.A. County inmates.
There was a Nike-Ajax battery located in my town responsible for the defense of Boston. It was active from 1955 to 1961. Some remnants still remain today.
we have an old nike launcher base by my house that hid its launcher under a big pond. old command center is now a fire station.
Lots of the sites have had pieces repurposed; they are all over the US but unless you know, you would never know.
Interesting stuff, CW. Cheers from Tennessee
Nice to know a little more about little known historical events
Excellent explainer! I sometimes explore decommissioned Nike sites near my L.A. home, but was only vaguely aware of their backstory. So, thank you!
I watched this video, then watched a programme on Opperation Oxcart (a US top secret project from 1958 onwards, The Clearance for Oxcart was a special level of clearance all on its own. Just
wondering will you be covering this in the future?.. Another informative episode as ever David & team 👏🏼.
Apparently the Americans got the top secret ingredient some 93% was Titanium, a material which at the time no-one had made a aircraft from because the aircraft had to have the ability to withstand temperatures caused by air friction & flying through the atmosphere at 2000 miles an hour.
The Americans (the CIA) obtained the Titanium from the Soviet Union, we just don't know how they did it.
2000 workers worked on the black project
My Dad's first assignment when he joined the Army in the 60's was as a Nike-Hercules missileer before transitioning to the Hawk system.
Great video! Hope there will be an episode on the ABM-programmes ;-)
I suppose our Bloodhound MK1 was the UK equivalent to this. Both marks of Bloodhound needed constant fettling to be anything like reliable ! Radar resolution is a factor of antenna beamwidth and wavelength. This is why X band or above is used for weapons radar rather than 2.5 to 6 Ghz band
There are numerous abandoned Nike missile sites in the San Francisco area and they are very easy to visit
A hill I grew up down the street from was called Nike Hill. Most people my age thought it was named after the company.
I had an Armor MOS (11 echo) and was assigned to an infantry company whose sole duty was to guard the Nike Missle Base at Camp Ames So. Korea. That was 1965. In 66, the changed it to an MP company and I got shipped up north towards the DMZ. I was a kid, 18 years old, and I Knew as to yell "halt, Chongee" 3 times and if whoever it was did not stop I was to shoot them with my M14 Rifle.
I grew up near a Nike site in New Jersey. It was gross. Not because Nike missiles. The launch pads are still being used as a parking lot for the city's municipal vehicles. The school busses are specifically kept there.
In addition to US sites, overseas the U S Army deployed sites in West Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Taiwan. I am not sure if the sites in Turkey and Greece were US sites originally or not.
In addition Nike Hercules was deployed in many NATO countries. From memory Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, West Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey.
Additionally NATO made subsUkraine. hardware upgrades to their systems. Replacing vacuum tubes with solid state components. Upgraded magnetron to name a few.
Some of the placement of West German bundles Luftwaffe sites gave them considerably reach into Warsaw Pact territory.
Also Nike Hercules had a limited Anti Tactical Ballistic Missile ability. It was never tested, but the ability was there.
I can remember one morning the USAF staged a live ecm jamming exercise that we burned our way thru. Nike Hercules was capable of many things. What caught up to Nike was the inability to deal with the massive numbers of aircraft the Soviets and Warsaw pact could throw at it. (ever see a radar scope with over 1000 unidentified aircraft on it)
One of the reasons for Patriot was its ability to track and engage large numbers of targets. One of the tactics that the Russians are using in The Ukraine
There is a (I think the only) Nike missile site SF-88 I’ve been to near San Francisco/Marin. Once a year they open it up for tours.
It's also kind of funny how it went from ground guns defending against planes, to planes to defend against planes, to missiles to defend against planes, to the realization that 'this thing we've built to defend against these nuclear bombers could just cut out the plane all together'.
In the end the defense became the offense.
For interested parties willing to make the trek, there is one FUNCTIONAL Nike site available for visits. Battery SF-88 in the Marin Headlands near San Francisco opens its battery to the public on occasional Saturdays. It is quite an experience to see a Nike-Hercules brought out of its protective bay and elevated up to launch position.
In the Washington, DC suburbs, Fairfax County Virginia has incorporated 3 former Nike sites into parks. "Great Falls Nike Park" is what used to be the launch area of Nike site W-83, and the control area is now Observatory Park, next to Turner Farm. Observatory Park has a working roll-top clamshell roof and a telescope used for events coordinated by the Analemma Society. There are also historical markers for both the Nike site and the birth of the U.S. Army Topographic Service.
Good show. Nice set, too.
I went to high school across the street from a Nike site guarding Los Angeles. We could see the missiles being exercised up and down. Very cool. Good thing one of the nukes didn't goof up.
I was in the Special Weapons (Nuclear) support unit TUSALOG located at Homestead AFB south of Miami, FL from 1966 to 1969. We serviced 4 batteries one of which was in the middle of Everglades National Park along with a bazzillion snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes. My specialty was electronics and I maintained the various electrical test equipment and conducted warhead teardown, replacement, and testing. It never bothered me at the time, but now that I'm an old man I have nightmares and occasional bad memories that bring me to tears. The thought that we kids were allowed to tinker with nukes and could have set off WWIII along with the tremendous loss of life still frightens me. Our mission was to protect against Soviet attacks from Cuba. In that regard your graphic showing installation location omits south Florida. You also omitted the fact that the Nike-Hercules could be configured as a ground-to-ground tactical weapon. Think about that. It meant that had war broken out Havana would still be a smoking pool of glass. Ok, I have to stop, the tears are coming.
There is one of those sites near Rodeo Beach in California
I remember some of these near Fort Meade in Maryland. I think it was just a monument however
I was station at the Abilene Texas Nike Hercules site... and at the Mainbullau Germany missile site.
One of the Nike Missile sites here in Kansas was replaced and a elementary school was built. The school is called Nike Elementary School.
KC-60. The magazines are still there, about a mile south of the school, on private property. They look welded shut. When the school district bought the property, they used the magazines as storage. The radar tracking center and command base buildings were used as classrooms. There were boxes upon boxes of leftover scratch paper we got to use.
They had one of these Nike sites near where my dad lives in NJ. They turned it into an art park later on
Site SF88 in the San Francisco Bay Area is a museum of a Nike base. Looks to be worth a visit if you are in the area.
There is a Nike missile base in Indiana that was turned into an airsoft/paintball park and it is amazing being able to have free range of a former nuclear missile base
I remember Nike Hercules sites being placed all around the Chicago area with its major rail hubs was a primary target.
Another great episode!
I remember doing "duck & cover" drills in school, as a child. It made me feel better, but only about a mile from O'Hare Airport, west of Chicago, I don't think we would have survived a nuclear attack (to say the least). Also, there was a Nike site at the airport.
At 5:02 you say 23000 feet per second but that is 7km/s nearly orbital velocity, it is actually 2300 feet per second.
Its funny how when i was younger i played hockey at a place called the Nike Base...this was Hamburg NY....ends upbitnwas one of these sites lol so cool.
I grew up in SoCal with a Nike base and radar just around the corner from my home.
And let's not forget about the Cuban missile crisis when both Nike Hercules and Hawk missile systems were deployed to south Florida...
Great video.
I wonder if the battery's single channel-of-fire meant that it was unlikely to have been able to get all missiles away.
I had the same thought when I first heard of the NIKE program, but other than NIKE AJAX, the rest of the NIKE program used nuclear or thermonuclear weapons to stop enemy bombers.
The AJAX missiles had conventional explosives, but...
The NIKE Hercules had a 40 kiloton nuclear warhead, similar to what was used in Japan during World War II.
The NIKE Zeus B missile had a 400 kiloton nuclear warhead.
The NIKE Spartan missile had a 5 megaton thermonuclear warhead.
The cold war stayed a 'cold' war because of our defense systems like NIKE. I'm sure the former Soviet Union had a similar system.
There was a Nike-Hercules missile site in Anchorage, Alaska.
1st/ 43rd ADA if I remember correctly.
The National Park Service has a preserved site in the Everglades.
Interesting as hell
I got to see the test launches at White Sands, NM in 1970
NIKE started the government using IBM for its procurement. IBM developed the computer systems coordinating, communicating and computing the various radar tracking systems for the purpose of missile intervention. Soon after IBM dominated large business computing.
Awesome wallet and KeyCase 🔥
I was stationed in Friedberg Germany from 96-99 . When I first got there, my sponsor wanted to " show me something cool," so he took me very close to Giessen Germany, we parked, then walked up a small road, which led to a fence line and a guard shack. He told me it was an abandoned Hawk site. I have no idea how to verify what type of site it actually was. All I know is that it was very close to Gissen Depot. Does anyone have any idea ?
Bell labs also was the birthplace of the transistor, the basis for the tech we are watching this video.
While not related to the Nike-Hercules, the US Air Forces had a Genie nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile to explode thousands of feet above five servicemen. The guys survived. This was to show that nukes exploding high in the sky did not create the damage feared it would do.
Another notable difference between Ajax and Hercules was the propulsion. Ajax used highly toxic liquid fuel that had to be pumped into the rockets soon before launch, a relatively dangerous process under potentially immense pressure. Occasional leaks and spills were inevitable and a real headache to clean up. Hercules's rockets were solid-fueled, which made them much safer to work with and quicker to launch.
Ah yes, 50s and 60s the era that both US and USSR stick everything with nuclear warhead.
the need for guaranteeing a kill without having the accuracy to do it with a conventional warhead was a big driver there.
The joke was close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear warheads.
The Nike Hercules made sense when the AIM Genie unguided rocket was a thing for the Air Force. It was almost a ground based version of that. The Genie was an air launched unguided nuke rocket designed to be launched into the middle of a bomber stream to take out the entire bomber stream. So someone on the Nike team must have been aware of it and just decided to upgraded the Nike to it. Now the Genie used the W54 if I remember right where this used a W51.
The Genie and the Nike missiles were both built by Douglas, so there was likely some developmental crossover but without doing more research, I would not be confident to say that Genie birthed Hercules or vice versa.
The unguided Genie had nothing like the capabilities of the Nike System. For one, its range was only 6 miles and was a fire and forget weapon.
@@TheColdWarTV apart from the political part (Air Force and Army both wanting nuclear tipped anti aircraft systems because of inter-service rivalry) I don't see many places where there could be cross over. Even the warheads are different (the main area where you'd think they'd speed up development and reduce cost by going for parts commonality).
This is a very strange line of reasoning and you are mistaken
It's not the 'Coast Guard Artillery Corps,' it's the Coast Artillery Corps. They were a branch of the Army (mostly later transitioned into the Air Defense Artillery) and not part of the Coast Guard. I had two ancestors in the CAC. One spent the First World War manning heavy artillery in France and the other spent most of WWII driving ammunition trucks in the Pacific.
Also 35,000 soldiers assigned to air defense goes into perspective that in a given year between 1955 and 1965 the US military drafted on average about 125,000 men, on top of voluntary enlistments and those already in the services.
1950s and 1960s military tech project meetings:
"That's great, but can you put a nuke on it"
hey, just curious: when a sponsor company approaches a youtuber, do they insist on their ad being placed at the start of the video rather than at the end? and if not, do they offer more remuneration if the youtuber *does* choose to place it at the start? not making a veiled comment, just tryin to find out.
Launch area missile assembly, PH58 - 1962-1965.
The Nike missile in NJ that had a rocket fuel leak/fire that caused a nuclear disaster is 15 minutes from my house. Some of the plutonium melted into the ground water and was not recovered. All the ponds and streams have signs that say not to eat the fish due to pesticides in the water... ☢️☢️☢️
That accident happened with a Nike Ajax missile which had only high explosive and not nuclear warheads.
The site at MacGuire AFB was a BOMARC site not Nike. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOMARC_missile_accident_site)
The worst accident I heard about with Nike was an accidental missile firing of a liquid fueled Nike Ajax round that was being moved by truck. The round traveled down a road before exploding. I do not know more of the details, other than the Warrant Officer responsible was severly disiplined.(no moving a liquid fueled round was not SOP)
Hercs, by doctrine could be used in a surface to surface role , fired from mobile launchers with a range of 200 miles.
Somewhat off topic; I caught a new crewman climbing onto a launch rail using the second stage lanyard as hand hold. I thought I’d have a heart attack.
First to Fire.
I grew up playing paintball on a retired Nike missile base, and the area wasn't very big, mostly barracks, offices and the like, and I used to ask my grandpa where the missiles would've been, and he said "oh, they were stored under the fields around here, which is why I never eat local farm veggies unless I grew them myself" and until watching this, I always thought he was kidding about NIKEs being nuclear capable
to be honest, I would be more concerned about the damage to the soil that may have occurred from the liquid propellant used in the Nike-Ajax missiles...the nuclear warheads themselves were sealed and would have been relatively safe. The liquid propellant however could be messy and posed quite the hazard when accidents happened.
@@TheColdWarTV I didn't think about that, my grandpa wasn't ever around missiles in the service like I was, but even now I still forget how dangerous that stuff was
One of the significant contaminants found on ex Nike sites was a cleaner/solvent called trichloroethylene.
It is only in the last decade or so that it was recognized as a cause of a variety of ailments.
Nikke: Goddess of victory
Interesting to think how doctrine might of been different if the US air-force got control of anti-air systems. I would expect less friendly fire incidents but in general being less effective
For someone interested in locating the former site where could I find such information
Nike Hercules... I remember footage of officers standing under a nuclear blast to prove it wouldn't be dangerous.
Please do the Soviet counterparts video
The Goddess of Victory 😬
I am very disappointed not once did he talk about the role of the Nike in Europe I was at C/2/56 in Germany for 3 years as a MTR operator and am very proud of what we did.
Anyone know - wondering what happened to all those missiles? AND all those warheads???
Did they literally scrap all those missiles for metal?
Great question!
Blazing Skies!
I've been studying Cold War material for over a decade now and I've never heard the term "Fortress America" used. The first google result is a board game and I could find nothing regarding the use of the term by contemporary news media or policymakers at all. I have no idea where this channel got that information but I am humbly suggesting that it may not be accurate.
Anyone else come here just to hear our host David pronounce the word "against"? 😂
Rather hoping you watch for more than just that
There was a Nike base in San Pedro Ca. I remember it as a kid. Every so often you could see missiles raised up on elevators in a ready to fire position. Really felt safe knowing the military was on guard. Radar domes on top of Palos Verdes looked like huge golf balls. America was strong then and safe. Nowadays we have become lax and allow anyone in over our borders. I know something bad will happen and it'll be our fault we didn't keep our leadership on the ball.
I'm glad it was a missile defense system named after the goddess of victory rather than an offensive system. Thank you for another nifty informative video!
God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)
How many truly Intercontinental strategic bombers did the Soviets even field at a maximum?
Our farm was a mile away from a Nike base in western Wisconsin. My dad grew up there during the cold War. He always joked we would be the first to know if the Russians launched something.
Are you sure the missile would explode in the middle of the radar signal? That doesn't sound very smart. Planes are relatively easy to take out if you get shrapnel in them--why not use a cluster bomb in front of the planes?
120 Gun Mk1 what a name.
This is the Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Hercules
In Marin county, in the San Francisco bay area, a group is restoring a Nike site. One of the things that makes this unique is the restoration of the fire control area, as well as the launcher area.
PS there is a site with all the technical information on Nike and manuals describing the operation. I will try to find it again.
SF-88. Didn't know they were still in the process of restoring it. Good to know.
I've been there a few times. They give tours and they'll go through a "launch" and bring one of the missiles up. www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm here's a video someone shot of the tour: ua-cam.com/video/xB1g_4GH1mI/v-deo.html
"CORPORAL! Throw shoes at em!"