Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE
Downing ballistic missiles after launch was essentially impossible.
One secondary source claims there were two such instances,
but, alas, neither can be confirmed. 3 There is documentation,
however, of British investigations of the concept of
firing an artillery barrage into the missile’s path after the defenders
were alerted by radar. Although the British estimated
that they could down 3 to 10 percent of the V-2s they engaged,
the scheme would have required 20,000 shells to destroy one
V-1. Of greater consequence, the British expected that about 2
percent of the shells would not detonate and that these duds and
the debris from the exploding shells would cause more casualties
than the V-2s that might be intercepted. 4
Meanwhile, the US military was looking into ballistic missile
defense (BMD). In March 1946, the Army Air Forces (AAF) began
two missile defense projects: General Electric’s Project Thumper
(MX-795) that lasted only until March 1948, while the other,
the University of Michigan’s Project Wizard (MX-794), survived
somewhat longer. It was designed to defend the continental
United States but was pitted against the Army’s Nike project that
was intended for theater operations. In 1958, the Air Force
conceded it was too costly, and thus the Department of Defense
(DOD) merged it with the Nike-Zeus project. 5
Army Development
The Army was making progress on the issue of ballistic missile
defense. In January 1949, the Army established a formal
requirement for ballistic missile defense that early in 1951
spawned the PLATO Project that was to provide antiballistic
missile (ABM) protection for the field army. The Army increased
the requirement in 1954 to defend against intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBM) in the 1960–70 time frame. A number
of studies emerged, with one in 1956 suggesting a Nike-Zeus
variant. PLATO was shut down in 1959, not for technical reasons,
but because of funding problems. 6
The follow-on to PLATO was the Field Army Ballistic Missile
Defense System (FABMDS) program that began in 1959. However,
as this had a long lead time, with an expected operational
date of 1967, the Army sought other equipment. Early on, the
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