Nike System Effectiveness

In order to understand the Nike system’s effectiveness in defending the US, the hostile actions and aerial strength of the USSR must be put into context. The main reason for the creation of the Nike missile system was to defend and deter the rapid technological advances of the USSR. After World War II, the USSR was able to acquire German scientists that had been working on the infamous V-2 rockets, as well as nuclear research. In addition, the USSR was also able to acquire some of the US’s bombers. For example, in 1944 three B-29 superfortresses, the same type of aircraft that dropped the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had landed in the USSR for emergency purposes. The bombers immediately became the property of Joseph Stalin and
were used to create the Tupolev-4 “Bull”; the USSR’s first long range bomber that could be equipped with an atomic bomb.However, it was incapable of making round trip missions to the US, but in the event of a full-scale nuclear assault one trip was all it needed. In 1949, the USSR had successfully detonated its first atomic bomb, breaking the nuclear monopoly the US briefly had. A year later the Korean war began, confirming the hostility of the USSR and its supposed goal in spreading communism throughout the world. In such a short amount of time the USSR had obtained the necessary devices to pose as a threat to the US.
A development that could have been preventable through possible disarmament negotiations after the war, had the US not underestimated the USSR. Considering the aftermath of World War II, the USSR had lost an estimate of 22 million lives and had large decimated areas of land. The US couldn’t possibly see the USSR as a military threat due to the heavy casualties the nation had sustained. In all likeliness, the US may have thought that “nuclear diplomacy” would be enough to quell the USSR if the need arose. A decade later the USSR had displayed its very own jet-bomber called the Mya-4 “Bison”. In 1955, an American air force attache, had observed twice the number of Bisons that were estimated to have been made. This jet-bomber was far more capable of inflicting injury upon the US than the Tu-4, and to further the anxiety of the US, the USSR had detonated its first thermonuclear weapon in
1955.
Kenneth Schaffel, a military analyst, said that “[A] Soviet first strike could not be considered any more improbable or irrational than Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor so the enhancement of air defense since the outbreak of fighting in Korea seemed logical.” This observation is only strengthened by the fact that the USSR had been conducting espionage flights over portions of Alaska, as well as, “shadow airliners on their way to New York.” The CIA also estimated that the USSR had twenty-two nuclear bombs in 1950 and that stockpile was projected to increase by ten times in four years. Indeed, the USSR seemed to have the offensive capability of dealing a significant amount of damage onto the US, but why was an attack never conducted?
In reality most reports of the USSR’s production rates of certain weapons were grossly over estimated and the USSR was able to successfully deceive the US concerning its weapons cache. When the Bisons were observed in 1955, only a small amount of Bisons were used to conduct flybys that made it seem that there were more planes. Also, with the help of the U-2 reconnaissance plane, it was uncovered that USSR’s bomber force was smaller than what had been anticipated. But by the time these discoveries were made, the USSR had moved on to working on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS) which were an entirely different type of weapon to defend against. The USSR may have possessed the necessary equipment to inflict injury unto the US but it never had the power to do so. ‘ Defensive capability There were 211 Nike missile sites across the country which sought to protect populated areas that acted as military assets.
For example, over 22 Nike missile sites located in Chicago due to the city’s steel industry. Another notable location was Los Angeles, where significant aerospace studies were being conducted. The first generation Nike missile, known as the Nike Ajax, was created to destroy these soviet manned bombers. Equipped with three high-explosive warheads, the Ajax could destroy a single enemy aircraft within its 60 feet blast radius. It could intercept aircraft flying as high as 70,000 feet within a range of 30 miles at more than twice the speed of sound. The missile was guided by three radars, one to track the target, one to track and communicate the missile, and one to control the actual missile. Based on the missile’s specifications, the Nike Ajax is more than capable enough to destroy any straggling Russian bombers that make it past the Air Force’s interceptors. Its ceiling and speed overtakes that of the Russian bombers by a significant margin. A report labeled the NSC 140/1 claimed that once Nike-Ajax missiles were deployed and other defense improvements were made, the destruction of USSR bombers was to increase from seven to twenty seven
percent.