Nike Hercules

The Nike Hercules is an American surface to air missile that entered service in 1958. Its two solid fuel stages gave it roughly three times the range of its predecessor, the Nike Ajax, reaching about ninety miles, and it could be fitted with either a conventional high explosive warhead or a W31 nuclear warhead yielding two to twenty kilotons. The system used command guidance, tracking the target and the missile with separate radars linked to a fire control center kept apart from the launcher area, which required substantial construction at each firing site. At its Cold War peak the United States deployed Nike Hercules batteries at more than 130 bases, and NATO forces kept it in service into the late 1980s, though it was never fired in an actual conflict. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/