Project Nike was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft missile system, the Nike Ajax, in 1953. A great number of the technologies and rocket systems used for developing the Nike Ajax were re-used for a number of functions, many of which were given the "Nike" name . The missile's first-stage solid rocket booster became the basis for many types of rocket including the Nike Hercules missile and NASA's Nike Smoke rocket, used for upper-atmosphere research.
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established as the White Sands Proving Ground on 9 July 1945. White Sands National Park is located within the range.
The Nike Hercules, initially designated SAM-A-25 and later MIM-14, was a surface-to-air missile (SAM) used by U.S. and NATO armed forces for medium- and high-altitude long-range air defense. It was normally armed with the W31 nuclear warhead, but could also be fitted with a conventional warhead for export use. Its warhead also allowed it to be used in a secondary surface-to-surface role, and the system also demonstrated its ability to hit other short-range missiles in flight.
The Marin Headlands is a hilly peninsula at the southernmost end of Marin County, California, United States, located just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, which connects the two counties and peninsulas. The entire area is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Headlands are famous for their views of the Bay Area, especially of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Milagra Ridge is a 275-acre (111 ha) open space park that is an isolated island ecosystem, located about 7 miles (11 km) south of San Francisco, between the cities of Pacifica and Daly City. It was first inhabited by the Ohlone indigenous people, and was later claimed by Spanish settlers and Mexican ranchers.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting 82,116 acres (33,231 ha) of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the United States Army. GGNRA is managed by the National Park Service and is the most visited unit of the National Park system in the United States, with more than 15 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world, with a size two-and-a-half times that of the consolidated city and county of San Francisco.
Fort MacArthur is a former United States Army installation in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. A small section remains in military use by the United States Air Force as a housing and administrative annex of Los Angeles Air Force Base. The fort is named after Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur. His son, Douglas MacArthur, would later command American forces in the Pacific during World War II.
Fort Baker is one of the components of California's Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Fort, which borders the City of Sausalito in Marin County and is connected to San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge, served as an Army post until the mid-1990s, when the headquarters of the 91st Division moved to Parks Reserve Forces Training Area. It is located opposite Fort Point at the entrance to the San Francisco Bay.
Ground Equipment Facility J-33 is a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar station of the Joint Surveillance System's Western Air Defense Sector (WADS) with an Air Route Surveillance Radar (ARSR-4). The facility was previously a USAF general surveillance radar station during the Cold War.
Sweeney Ridge, is a 1,200-acre (5 km2) hilly hiking area of ridges and ravines between San Bruno and Pacifica, California, about a 25-minute drive south from San Francisco. The ridge's 1,200-foot-high summit, covered with coastal scrub and grassland, slopes down to San Francisco Bay on the east and to the Pacific Ocean on the west. The ridge is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Historically, the ridge is the location of the San Francisco Bay Discovery Site, commemorating the Portolá expedition's first sighting of San Francisco Bay on November 4, 1769.
Fort Funston is a former harbor defense installation located in the southwestern corner of San Francisco. Formerly known as the Lake Merced Military Reservation, the fort is now a protected area within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). It was named in honor of Frederick N. Funston (1865–1917), a Major General in the United States Army with strong connections to San Francisco, and included several artillery batteries. The fort is located on Skyline Boulevard at John Muir Drive, west of Lake Merced.
The 6th Air Defense Artillery Regiment is an air defense artillery regiment in the United States Army, first formed in 1898 as the 6th Regiment of Artillery. The 6th and 7th U.S. Artillery Regiments were constituted on 8 March 1898, three weeks after the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba on 15 February 1898, as the United States' declaration of war on Spain and commencement of the Spanish–American War seemed imminent.
The Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System, better known as Missile Master, was an electronic fire distribution center to computerize Cold War air defense (AD) command posts from manual plotting board operations to automated command and control of remote surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch batteries. The 10 United States Army C3 systems used radar netting ("electronic umbrella") at Missile Master military installations for coordinating ground-controlled interception by Nike and MIM-23 Hawk missiles. The vacuum tube fire control logic reduced the time to designate the appropriate missile battery to launch if an enemy target had intruded into a defense area where an AN/FSG-1 system was deployed.
The 251st Coast Artillery was a coast artillery regiment in the California National Guard, constituted in 1924 as a harbor defense regiment for the 9th Artillery District and re-designated in 1930 as an antiaircraft regiment. It served in World War II in that capacity.
The Western Electric System 1393 Radar Course Directing Central (RCDC) was a Cold War complex of radar/computer systems within the overall Improved Nike Hercules Air Defense Guided Missile System. The RCDC was installed at the "battery control areas" of ~5 hectares each which was for commanding a nearby missile Launching Area (LA), firing a missile from the LA, and guiding a launched missile to a burst point near an enemy aircraft.
Forts Baker, Barry, and Cronkhite near Sausalito, California is a combination of historic sites that, as a group, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1973. Fort Baker is a major part.
A command, control, and coordination system (CCCS) was a Cold War computer system for United States command posts to use a single location to coordinate multiple units' ground-controlled interception and may refer to:
The United States Army's Nike Ajax was the world's first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM), entering service in 1954. Nike Ajax was designed to attack conventional bomber aircraft flying at high subsonic speeds and altitudes above 50,000 feet (15 km). Nike was initially deployed in the US to provide defense against Soviet bomber attacks, and was later deployed overseas to protect US bases, as well as being sold to various allied forces. Some examples remained in use until the 1970s.
Fort Cronkhite is one of the components of California's Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Today part of the National Park Service, Fort Cronkhite is a former US Army post that served as part of the coastal artillery defenses of the San Francisco Bay Area during World War II. The soldiers at Cronkhite manned gun batteries, radar sites, and other fortifications on the high ridges overlooking the fort.
Fort Barry is a former United States Army installation on the West Coast of the United States, located in the Marin Headlands of Marin County, California, north of San Francisco. Opened 115 years ago in 1908, the fort was part of the Coast Artillery Corps and operated throughout the 20th century, before its closure and eventual transfer to the National Park Service.
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