Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

238 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
separate systems were complemen tary.
The Army was to develop a groundlaunched
missile with a shorter range
of 70 kilometers (43.5 miles), and the
Air Force was to cover deeper targets
with an air-launched missile as well as
direct aircraft strikes. 71
Pershing II Versus Cruise Missiles
The role of the Pershing missile
changed in the 1970s. Because NATO
no longer had a clear-cut nuclear superiority,
the old “trip-wire” philosophy
was not as appealing as it had been
in the early 1960s. Henceforth, the
Pershing units served mainly as a deterrent.
The Warsaw Pact nations enjoyed
both superiority in conventional
forces and nuclear parity. The strat egy
of the 1970s required that deterrence
derive from a credible capacity to fight
either a conventional or nuclear war.
By January 1979, the third-genera tion
Pershing II missile was in the engineering development stage. The major change
in the weapon was its terminal guidance system, which resulted in accuracies so
improved over the Pershing Ia that the use of very low nuclear yields, or even
conventional warheads, for a “surgical” attack on targets became possible, with
supposedly minimum collateral damage. An extended range of 1,000 nautical
miles (1,852 kilometers) was also planned for the Pershing II. With the improved
missile, there was the possibility that SACEUR could accomplish the command
tactical mission with fewer missiles, thus releasing some of the Pershings for the
use of regional commanders. Neverthe less, Congress voiced some opposition,
fearing that commanders might be tempted to use lower-yield nuclear warheads
and thereby cause events to escalate. 72
Pershing II missile
71 Glenn W. Goodman, Jr., “Jockeying With JTACMS,” Field Artillery Journal, January-February
1986, pp. 26–27.
72 Jolliff, “History of the Pershing,” 20 May 1974, pp. 157, 220–23, AMCOM files and copy in CMH
files; FA School Fact Sheet, [1979], sub: Pershing Ia and II, prepared for author, Historians files, CMH;
Moore, “Pershing,” pp. 27–28; Skemp, “Pershing Missile Update,” pp. 464–66; Henry T. Simmons,
“Pershing II,” Army, August 1974, pp. 17–20; “Pershing Go-Ahead,” International Defense Review, no.
3/1979): 315; Larry H. Hunt, “Pershing II,” Field Artillery Journal, May-June 1977, pp. 38–39; Lawrence
J. Korb, “The Question of Deploying US Theater Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” ibid., May-June 1981,
pp. 30–34.