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
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
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