Shortly after World War II, the United States Army realized that German aircraft and missile technology had outpaced America's conventional artillery. They also realized the potential threat of Soviet Union bombers breaching U.S. borders, so the Army directed their focus toward developing a surface-to-air guided missile system that could intercept and destroy bombers. The resulting system was a ground-based, anti-aircraft, guided-missile system that could detect, target, and destroy enemy bombers. It was named Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory.
The system was developed by Bell Laboratories, Western Electric Company, and Douglas Aircraft. The first iteration was finished in 1954 and called the Nike-Ajax, designated SAM-A-7, and deployed to Fort Meade, Maryland. The Nike Hercules, designated SAM-N-25, "B", was an improvement upon the Nike Ajax and designed to intercept a formation of supersonic enemy bombers and operate at both high and low altitudes. The Nike Hercules began replacing the Nike Ajax in 1958.
Missile Specificaitons
The Hercules missile could travel 87 miles downrange and 150,000 feet in altitude. It had great maneuverability and a speed of mach 3.65 (2,707 miles per hour). It could be armed with either a high explosive or nuclear warhead. Nike was considered to be the most formidable of the Army's anti-aircraft weapons. By the mid-1960s, there were 274 Nike-Hercules batteries and 10,000 missiles across the U.S.
THE CACHE:
Traditional hide.