Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

The nUclear arena
his proposal the previous year, Jet
Propulsion Laboratory director Louis
G. Dunn had declared that
the successful completion of the Sergeant
weapon is dependent upon a logical and
orderly research and development program.
Any attempt to place the program on a
“crash” basis will inevitably result in compromise
decisions and ill-chosen designs
which will plague the system for many
years. A properly planned development
program will be no more costly in dollars
than a “crash” program and will be more
certain to produce a really usable weapon
at its completion.
227
Eight years later, the Army, having
insisted on a compressed schedule for
earlier operational capability, acquired
a costly weapon system full of engineering
“bugs” that did indeed “plague
the system for many years.” 42
Even with its defects, the Sergeant
system fielded in 1962 fulfilled its objective as a substantial improvement over
the Corporal. Equal to the Corporal in range and firepower, it was only half as
large and bulky and required less than one-third the ground support equip ment.
Its highly reliable solid-propellant motor was ready to fire within minutes,
while the Corporal’s liquid propulsion system required hours of preparation
and was susceptible to plumbing failures, fires, and explosions. Less complex
to operate and maintain than the Corporal, the air-transportable Sergeant used a
self-contained inertial guidance system that blocked any then-known electronic
countermeasures and that obviated the ground equipment so critical for the
Corporal’s command-type guidance system. Because of its solid-propellant motor,
fueling service equipment and personnel also were eliminated. Although development
of a high-explosive warhead was originally planned for the Sergeant, the
plans were later canceled on the recommendation of the assistant chief of staff for
force development. Thus, the Sergeant was suitable only for nuclear war fare. 43
Sergeant missile
The missiles were fielded in battalions, each organized with a headquarters and
headquarters battery and two firing batteries, each battery having one launcher. The
authorized aggregate strength of the battalion under its test tables of organization was
about 240. Each missile battery had its own survey, communications, maintenance,
42 Cagle, “History of the Sergeant,” p. 32, AMCOM files and copy in CMH files.
43 Ibid., pp. 199–202, 240, AMCOM files and copy in CMH files; R[ichard] M. Hurst, “The Sergeant
Takes Over,” Army Information Digest, January 1962, pp. 9–16.