Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

The nUclear arena
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cost over $100 million more than twelve battalions without Mod I. Because the
Army was already short of funds for other projects, this expenditure was out of
the ques tion, and Army Chief of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer concurred in
August 1959 with a recommen dation to cancel the Mod I program. Cancellation of
the Mod I system left the Lacrosse without the one feature that might have made
the missile a reliable field-worthy weapon, and the Marine Corps announced its
immediate withdrawal from the program. Marine Brig. Gen. Harvey C. Tschirgi
later testified that
it takes a very simple device to interfere with the control of the Lacrosse. Lacrosse, as you
know, is controlled by a forward station and it must have the radio signals going back to it.
If any radio transmitter gets on the same frequency, the missile is lost.
If you put a nuclear warhead on one of these things, it is going to be a little bit unfortunate
if somebody guided it to the wrong place, or if it got to the wrong place without any guidance.
It is a $70,000 missile and it can be interfered with by another local station. 37
Even though the Lacrosse was susceptible to electronic countermeasures and
electronic inter ference, the Army’s official position was that substantial immunity to
these problems could not be accomp lished without a costly and extensive redesign
program. The Lacrosse was vulnerable during actual missile flight, particularly in
cases of heavy interference on the operating frequency or adjacent frequencies or
under concerted efforts of continuous jamming. Nevertheless, the Army concluded
that the Lacrosse might be employed effectively under many conditions without
serious results from interference or jamming. 38
The Army decided to field the Lacrosse in late 1959, but throughout its operational
phase the missile was beset with a multitude of problems. The decision
to deploy the Lacrosse was based on “operational requirements, atomic stockpile
planning, an analysis of Soviet tactical doctrine, timeliness of availability to [the]
troops, world situation, investment of over $200 million and other considerations.”
Army leaders felt that “this decision and the decision to terminate the Mod I gave
the Army an effective weapon in the field rather than on the drawing board, [and]
saved over $200 million. . . .” 39 Ordnance personnel continued to urge that Mod I
be reinstated, but to no avail.
The Lacrosse, with a range of 20 miles (32.2 kilometers), operated in a
single-firing battery battalion with four launchers (mounted on standard Army
trucks), four forward guidance sections, and two sets of assembly and loading
equipment. The battalion had an authorized aggregate strength of about 250. The
37 Ibid., pp. 101, 115–16, 125–27, 150, AMCOM files and copy in CMH files. See also U.S. Congress,
House, DOD Appropriations for 1961: Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on
Appropriations, 86th Cong., 2d sess., 1960, pt. 5, p. 163 (source of quotation).
38 DA Task Group, “Lacrosse Missile System: Army Fact Book on GAO Audit of the Lacrosse
Weapons System for Use in Potential Congressional Hearings,” June 1963, tab L, pp. 54–63, copy in CMH
files. It was later reported that in Europe the missile operated on German tele vision frequencies, which
seriously affected unit training. See notes on draft manuscript, March 1989, Historian’s files, CMH.
39 DA Task Group, “Lacrosse Missile System,” June 1963, tab A, encl. 3, pp. 12–17 (quoted words,
p. 16), copy in CMH files.