Nike Hercules
| MIM-14 Nike Hercules | |
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| General Information | |
| Type | Surface-to-air guided missile system |
| Manufacturer | Western Electric, Bell , Douglas |
| development | 1952 |
| Commissioning | 1955 |
| Technical specifications | |
| length | 12.53 m |
| diameter | 1st step: 80.0 cm 2nd step: 53.0 cm |
| Combat weight | 4,850 kg |
| span | 1st step: 350.0 cm 2nd step: 180.3 cm |
| Drive First stage Second stage |
Solid rocket boosters Hercules M42 solid - rocket engine Thiokol M30 |
| speed | Mach 3.65 |
| Range | 6 km to 140 km, summit height 46 km |
| Furnishing | |
| Target location | Radar (with command steering of the LFK) |
| Warhead | 272 kg fragmentation warhead or W31 nuclear warhead |
| Detonator | Proximity and impact fuses |
| Weapon platforms | fixed rocket position |
| Lists on the subject | |
The Nike Hercules [ ˈnaɪki ˈhərkjuli: s ] (also SAM-A-25 and later MIM-14 ) was a long-range anti - aircraft missile of the Cold War era made in the USA . The system was intended for combating air targets at high altitudes, in particular for repelling strategic bombers of the Soviet Army .
development
In 1952, Western Electric was commissioned to develop a successor system to the Nike Ajax . The first test flight of the Nike Hercules took place on January 13, 1955. The first systems were delivered to the US Army in 1958 . A total of 25,500 guided missiles were produced. For three decades, the Nike Hercules represented the backbone of NATO air defense. From around 1960, large numbers of Nike Hercules were delivered to the armed forces of allied states, including the German Bundeswehr air force .
technology
The missiles were after the previous model Nike Ajax with conventional warheads Splitter had proved accurate as little, for the use of nuclear warheads type W31 designed. The new propulsion system, which made it possible to quadruple the power of the Ajax propulsion system, consisted of a bundle of four solid rockets (boosters) as the first stage and another significantly enlarged solid propulsion unit as the second stage, which transported the warhead to the target.
The nuclear warhead was intended to enable the missile to attack enemy bomber groups and thereby prevent the so-called "dead man effect": When attacking with conventional warheads, the navigation of which could not be carried out precisely enough with the control technology available at the time, was mostly only destroyed the aircraft itself, not the atomic bombs that it would most likely have carried in the event of an east-west confrontation. After the aircraft had been destroyed, the bombs would have been detonated by a standard coupling of the detonation mechanism to the integrated altitude measuring devices, which were activated when the border was crossed.
The W31 warhead of the Nike Hercules, which by suppressing the "boosted reaction" could develop various explosive force equivalents between 2 and 40 kilotons ( kT ) TNT, was supposed to completely destroy the enemy aircraft in the vicinity of the hit and crash aircraft at a greater distance.
The Nike Hercules did not have its own sensory equipment, but was guided into the target by analog radar radio commands from the associated ground instruments ( command steering ). It was not until the early 1980s that the analog computers used to calculate the interception rate were replaced by digital processors; the system continued to transmit its control commands to the missiles using analog radio signals.
The most important weak point of the system was the fact that each fire unit (battery, corresponds to the company level) with the radar equipment available to it could only fight one target at a time. Therefore, the whole system could be quickly "saturated" by an attack by several aircraft.
From 1975 the system was equipped for fighting ballistic missiles . In conjunction with an upstream line of defense made up of anti-aircraft missiles of the HAWK type , the defense against attackers flying low was expanded. A modification of the ignition circuit finally made it possible to use it as a tactical nuclear weapon against ground targets.
Deployment in Taiwan
During the second conflict over the coastal islands in the Taiwan Straits (so-called Second Quemoy Crisis ), the US moved a missile battalion of the 71st US Artillery Regiment with around 700 soldiers and around 48 anti-aircraft missile systems of the Nike Hercules type to Taiwan from October 1958 to August 1959 .
Stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany and Europe
There were 70 batteries in the Federal Republic of Germany, eight of which were under Belgian, twelve under Dutch, 24 under German and 26 under US orders. They were integrated into NATO's NADGE air defense system. A battery had 3 launch sections, each with a hall and 3 x 3 guided missiles on their launch equipment (so-called “launcher”).
The positions had an average distance of 30 kilometers and lay along the intended line of retreat of the NATO troops along the Rhine and the North Sea coast area. The range of the guided missiles was between 30 and 150 kilometers.
In the north and south, this locking bar continued to Greenland and Turkey. All positions were equipped with nuclear warheads, but conventional warheads were preassembled on the missiles. Since 1979 the positions have been equipped with earth walls, perimeter fences, watchtowers and additional anti-aircraft equipment as part of the “Long Range Security Program”. In each of these positions, in addition to the forces of the Allies, an American guard contingent was stationed to supervise the nuclear warheads, which were mostly stored in the innermost area in nuclear weapon bunkers. In an emergency, the US soldiers would have brought the warheads to the rockets and armed them so that they could then be fired by the respective crew.
The Nike-Hercules system was considered obsolete in the 1980s because its positions were known to the Eastern Bloc and thus represented a target and more suitable military means were available. In the spring of 1984 around 40 positions were still in operation in the FRG. The mission profile of the Nike Hercules is now perceived by the much more powerful MIM-104 Patriot missile system . Some of the positions were initially intended for conversion to the PATRIOT system. After the end of the Cold War, however, all became part of the conversion crowd. Many of the remote positions, often built on elevated positions, have not been used for any new purpose and are overgrown.
distribution
The anti-aircraft missile system has now been retired in all user states.
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Belgium
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Federal Republic of Germany
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Greece
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Italy
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Japan
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Netherlands
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Norway
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Taiwan
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South Korea
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Spain
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Turkey
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United States
literature
- Wilhelm von Spreckelsen, Wolf-Jochen Vesper: Blazing Skies. The history of the Air Force anti-aircraft missile force. Isensee, Oldenburg 2004, ISBN 3-89995-054-2 .
See also
Web links
- The NATO air defense belt in Lower Saxony - Nike FlaRak system
- Pictures of an abandoned Nike position
- Nike-Hercules on www.designation-systems.net (English)
- Nike Hercules in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Technical data for the Nike-Hercules at www.fas.org