Nike Zeus Submunition

[US-Subs]

I've had this piece for decades, always thinking it looked a lot like a submunition, but never able to identify it. There was always a certain level of doubt, because this item had something I had never seen before, a stud on the back end, with a half turn locking slot. Not exactly a normal submunition feature.

Leafing through some declassified documents I recently obtained I was very surprised last night when I saw a drawing of the submunition, as loaded for an experimental warhead for the Nike Zeus high altitude SAM. The submunition - still unnamed - now takes its rightfull place on the shelf with its brothers and sisters.

This photo does not show the stud, but is all I have on file, I'll take another photo this weekend and post.

 

[butterfly]

I love items like this that you can never be certain about, then one day the information comes to light that confirms your gut feeling. (this goes for any field of collecting). There is nothing like the feeling you get either when your instincts prove correct!!

Well done US-Subs - always nice to confirm an items identity and another nice piece for your shelf.

would love to see a picture of the other side too when you get a chance!!

regards Kev

 

[GTR003121]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks for sharing and congrats on confirming what it is at last! Look forward to more pics when you can take them.

 

[dano1917]

epiphone

That is one of the sweetest things in our hobby to me, is the revelation in discovering the identity of a piece previously not known to you exactly what it is. Nice piece Jeff, and if finding out something like that don't get your blood flowing, what can? The heart-rate races when a piece can be identified in such a manner. Awesomeoso........Dano

 

[V40]

Very nice piece of a submuntion you have there.

Question that comes to mind is what were they trying to accomplish for a high altitude missle that is designed to intercept in coming Bombers/Fighters flying over the U.S. at very high altitudes?

 

[pzgr40]

Very nice piece of a submuntion.

Question that comes to mind. Why would they place these devices in a high altitude SAM?

I think it functions as follows:
It's like a aimed clusterbomb against airplanes. The warhead will function at a certain distance from the target releasing the submunitions in a precicely orchestrated and predictable release pattern (using the half turn locking device), making the chances of a hit appr. 100%. Especially if between the release of each "ring" of submunitions -from top to bottom- there is a 0.01 to 0.1 seconds delay on release. Upon impact with the plane the submunition (which will most probably have an all ways fuze) will detonate.

Ps: the fuze has a delay element , so the submunition most probably has a pyrotechnic self destruct element.

I think however US Subs will have more info.

 

[V40]

Now that is what I was thinking to. Thanks pzgr40 for getting me a more detailed explanation of what it does and the theory behind it!

 

[US-Subs]

I think it functions as follows:
It's like a aimed clusterbomb against airplanes. The warhead will function at a certain distance from the target releasing the submunitions in a precicely orchestrated and predictable release pattern (using the half turn locking device), making the chances of a hit appr. 100%. Especially if between the release of each "ring" of submunitions -from top to bottom- there is a 0.01 to 0.1 seconds delay on release. Upon impact with the plane the submunition (which will most probably have an all ways fuze) will detonate.

Ps: the fuze has a delay element , so the submunition most probably has a pyrotechnic self destruct element.

I think however US Subs will have more info.

Nice thought, but not quite right.

The concept was for intercept of high level incoming ICBM warheads.

Lacking the pin-point accuracy needed to hit a bullet with a bullet, they opted to hit a bullet with fragments of exploding shot (submunitions) from a shotgun (warhead).

Due to the velocity and capacity of the missile, it was necessary to lock down the submunitions to ensure the specific pattern desired for dispersal and to prevent damage to the missile and the submunitions during launch. The lockdown points were carefully calculated to provide the perfect submunition pattern, no delays in dispersal. At the desired point a charge blows the warhead skin away, then a second charge blows the submunitions out into their dispersal pattern. According to documents the pattern achieved was around 260 feet, about 80m.

The fuzes had a dual arming sequence, first upon setback from the missile firing, second from the dispersal charge firing. Second charge also initiated a delay train, firing the submunition 0.35 seconds later. No self destruct, I guess the incoming nukes would make that a little unnecessary.

One report of live testing identifies missile velocity at the time of dispersal at 2270 feet per second (nearly 700 mps), with the test achieving 36 fragment hits on the target vehicle. Final rating in the report was a strong success for the missile, warhead and submunition. Sadly there is little data on the history of this system, I don't know why the program appears to have died sometime after.

Here is another shot of the submunition from a different angle, with a close-up of the connector.

 

[Weasel]

Hi US Subs,
Thank you for showing this item, what a fascinating story behind it and a great submunition to add to the collection. I have seen a few bits of info on the Nike Hercules air defence system in the past inclueding the nuclear warhead option as i guess a last ditch weapon to launch against bombers or missles.
It is always amazing to see remnants of various projects that at one time ate up huge amounts of money and reaserch and then disapear without a trace.
Best regards Weasel.

 

[Speedy]

Hi
Thank you, very interesting information!

But I have some comments about it:

According to documents the pattern achieved was around 260 feet, about 80m.

That means Zeus was far more precise weapon, as the sources say. A books or articles from the 1960s say that Zeus' accuracy was about hundreds of meters or some kilometers; standard warhead was megaton-class nuke that could destroy incoming ICBM warhead from the distance 1-3 km.

The fuzes had a dual arming sequence, first upon setback from the missile firing, second from the dispersal charge firing. Second charge also initiated a delay train, firing the submunition 0.35 seconds later. No self destruct, I guess the incoming nukes would make that a little unnecessary.

Maybe it's work in a little different way. Maybe the bomblets exploded in the predicted time after releasing, creating a "cloud" of heavy metal fragments on the way of incoming ICBM. The warhead of ICBM fly very fast, about 6000-7000 mps. With this velocity, any collision, even with small fragment, could damage a thermal shield of warhead. Then in the moment of reentry in atmosphere warhead could be completely destroyed by heating and aerodynamic forces.

One report of live testing identifies missile velocity at the time of dispersal at 2270 feet per second (nearly 700 mps), with the test achieving 36 fragment hits on the target vehicle.

This figures looks little strange. Zeus fly much faster; burn-out velocity wasn'n probably officially announced (only as "over 4 Ma" that means over 1200 mps) but probably was 2500-3500 mps, or maybe more. So 690 mps for a test is rather slow...

 

[US-Subs]

Don't know, I'm just reading from the report. I suppose it could be slowed for effectrive release of submunitions, but that is just a guess. This weekend I'll go back to the report if I get a chance.

Keep in mind that at the height of the Cold War very little factual data was let out on such systems, by either side. Most articles or intel was built on "best guess" and "qualified analysis".

 

[V40]

I found this video of a Nke Hercules


http://www.archive.org/details/nikeherc01

 

[Speedy]

Hi
(sorry for my English)
Thanks V40, the movie from 1960 is cool

So for which Nike was this warhead from our topic? Zeus or Hercules?

Nike Hercules was mobile, tactical system (although on the movie only stationary site is shown), deployed not only in continental USA but in many USArmy units all over the world. Beside his primary anti-aircraft function Hercules has also well-developed surface-to-surface capability, for precision attacks on ground targets. For such missions a cluster warhead would be very useful option.

 

[US-Subs]

The documentation only identifies it as tested with the Zeus. I haven't yet found any information on a submunition warhead for the Hercules.

The Hercules and the Honest John rocket were kept on well past their expiration dates. Long after the US dropped them we continued to keep them deployed in Europe and the Far East. It was normally a "joint custody" situation, common in Europe during that time. The host nation stored and maintained the missiles, the US held the warheads. I supported Nike Herc and Honest John systems in Europe as late as the end of 1983.

 

[weberoed]

The Nike herc and the HJ were still being used in 79/80 as both were in Korea, and yes there were nuc warheads for each but not kept with them, the warheads were kept at a very secure US location in country. Many US allies had both weapons sytems, not sure when they finally went out. But I do know S Korea still uses the Nike Ajax as a target missle.

The ZeusA was a ugraded version of the Herc, then came the ZeusB. Everything I have says the deployed Zeus had a nuc warhead. But as US subs said, this was all during the cold war, so every idea inthe minds of mad engineers was onthe table.

As for the Herc being mobile, this was not an easy system to pack up and move, could it be moved sure but it would have taken close to a week just to pack it all up and get on the road, as there was no transport capability for a Nike unit.

 

[richardwb1]

While I was at the White Sands Missile Range museum, I got to see the collections in back and knew this looked familiar. These were made by Rheem and a short discussion of them is in the AMCP manual on warheads. I have attached some of that as well. An illustration of one is one page 120 and a discussion of the warhead is a few pages back. There isn't much there in the manual but another interesting piece of information. The manual is AMCP 706-290 Warheads-general and can be found for download. I wasn't able to upload the whole thing in this section.

 

[bacarnal]

Nice info and pix, Rich!!