Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

240 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
system remained the responsibility of the Army, while the ground-launched cruise
missile was assigned to the Air Force. 75
The Defense Department approved full-scale engineering devel opment of the
Pershing II, which was deployed in the same manner as the Pershing Ia. In addition
to its greater range and increased accuracy, the new Pershing had lower operating
and support costs, plus improved flexibility in employ ment because of lower warhead
yields and the earth-penetrator option. Under the 57-month engineering development
program, which began in February 1979, it was estimated that a full-scale
production decision would not be made before 1985, but in mid-1979 Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown ordered an initial operating capability in 1983 rather than
the previously planned December 1984. 76
The new Pershing became operational in December 1983. The missile had a
range of 1,200 miles (1,930.8 kilometers), an improved warhead, and rapid emplacement
and displacement times. But in December 1987, the United States and the
Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which
spelled the end of the Pershing. The missiles were phased out gradually, and the
last of the Pershing battalions was inactivated in 1991 (Table 23). 77
End of an Era
In the mid-1980s, twelve field artillery missile battalions were on active duty
in the Regular Army, four Pershing and eight Lance. None was organized in either
the Army Reserve or Army National Guard. All but three, which were at Fort Sill,
were serving in Europe with the NATO forces. 78 Al though the Pershing was operating
under SACEUR because of its long-range and nuclear warhead, the Pershing II,
with its superior accuracy and expanded operational capability, was recommended
for use in the tactical arena, at least at the shorter ranges. The Lance provided the
battlefield commander the flexibility for a short-range missile with a powerful punch,
using either nuclear or high-explosive warheads. Its rapid mobil ity and accu racy
extended the commander’s artillery range capability consid erably.
But the INF Treaty, which took effect on 1 June 1988, signified the death of
field artil lery’s strategic nuclear role in the Cold War. The Pershing was eliminated.
The Army expected the new multi ple-launch rocket system (MLRS) to take over the
Lance missile’s conven tional role, freeing that weapon for nuclear use, but when the
president ordered the withdrawal of all nuclear weapons in Europe in 1990, the MLRS
and the new Army tactical missile system (ATACMS) replaced the Lance altogether.
75 Hearings on Military Posture and H.R. 10929, pt. 3, 1:728–32; “AUSA Reports on 1979 Defense
Budget,” Pentagram News, 30 November 1978, p. 9; Army Times, 30 October 1978, p. 2.
76 “Pershing II Go-Ahead,” p. 315; “The New Pershing II,” Casemate Chronicle, October 1980, pp.
22–23; Benjamin F. Schemmer, “New Hardware Bow Wave Dries Army Budget, Jeopardizes Efficient
Buys and Even Its Missions,” Armed Forces Journal International, June 1979, pp. 20–21, 58–59.
77 USAFAC and Fort Sill Annual Command History, 1991, pp. 232–38, FA School files and
copy in CMH files.
78 One battery from one of the Lance battalions at Fort Sill deployed to Korea in 1988; see PO
323–599, USAFAC and Fort Sill, 19 Nov 87.