 Near the center of modern day Fort Bliss, Texas, stands a small frontier army post, a recreation of the fort as it was over 100 years ago. During those years, Fort Bliss has been the home of the infantrymen, the horse cavalrymen, the anti-aircraft artillerymen, and today the air defense missile man, the simple army outpost of 100 years ago, and the imposing facilities of modern Fort Bliss would seem to have little in common. Yet through the decades, the army's basic mission in the Fort Bliss area has remained the same, defense of the United States. The army's role in this Southwest area began during the Mexican War, when Colonel Alexander Donovan led troops into the Paso del Norte, or Pass of the North. Not long afterwards, with expanding national boundaries, soldiers surveyed the first wagon road from San Antonio to what is now El Paso. Then came the wagon trains pushing westward. They had to be protected, as did lonely frontier settlements. Protection was also needed by those solitary wanderers of the West, the trappers and prospectors, as well as the isolated cattlemen. The lone stagecoach constantly faced Indian attack. Yes, for the army, the years on the frontier before the Civil War were active ones indeed. When the Civil War began, Fort Bliss was occupied by the Confederacy. Later in the 1870s, no troops were assigned to the border area, and the lawless element terrorized the settlers. In 1878, the troops returned to restore order. In 1914, Brigadier General John J. Pershing assumed command to Fort Bliss. Pancho Villa, the Mexican Revolutionary, posed a threat to border communities. To maintain peace, more troops were needed. So state militia was called to duty, and by 1916, some 60,000 troops were at Fort Bliss. Later that year, with permission of the Mexican government, Pershing led the punitive expedition into Mexico. This expedition marked the first occasion that American troops used aircraft, a development that would mean much to Fort Bliss in the future. Came World War I, and the fort was garrisoned by the 15th cavalry. Men were trained here for the front lines in France. Many outstanding leaders in World War I saw duty at Fort Bliss. In the period between the two great wars, the famed first cavalry was stationed here. In 1940, on the eve of World War II, a new branch of the service was brought to Fort Bliss, the anti-aircraft artillery. Gun crews trained here served throughout the world. In 1945, when captured V-2 missiles were brought to this country, a brand new kind of unit was activated at Fort Bliss. The first anti-aircraft and guided missile battalion organized specifically for missile research and development. As early as 1944, the first American air defense missile had been conceived by Fort Bliss anti-aircraft artillery officers. Nine years later in 1953, an extensive development effort paid off when the Nike Ajax Air Defense Missile was placed in the hands of the troops. The Army Air Defense artillery had entered the missile age. But why missiles? Here's why. With the speed of modern aircraft, conventional artillery, even using radar and computers, must be aimed at intercept points over five miles ahead of the oncoming target, too long a distance to be practical. Besides, evasive action by the target would make a hit next to impossible since the projectile cannot maneuver. Guided missiles were the only answer. In a few years, Fort Bliss assumed its modern role as home of the U.S. Army Air Defense Center. Here, the Air Defense School teaches today's missilemen all the complex skills needed to defend either the 50 states or our field armies against air attack. Advanced individual training for troops assigned to the air defense artillery is also provided. Among auxiliary and tenant organizations are the U.S. Army Combat Development's Command Air Defense Agency, the U.S. Army Air Defense Board, the Army Air Defense Human Research Unit, the Combat Development Command's Institute of Nuclear Studies, the Defense Language Institute, the Allied Student Battalion, the Federal Republic of Germany's Air Defense School, and several artillery groups who support training in the operation of air defense weapons. Now let's take a look at how the Air Defense Center fits into the big picture. First, protection of the North American continent against air attack is the mission of the North American Air Defense Command, a combined Canadian American command controlling land, sea, and air forces from a combat operation center under Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Army's role in this joint operation is carried out by the U.S. Army Air Defense Command. Specifically, the Army's job is to defend the skies over more than 100 key population and industrial centers of the United States. To do this, the Mobile Hawk, primarily a field weapon for defense against low-flying aircraft, can be made available to protect any location in the United States proper when necessary. Permanently on guard stands the reliable Nike Hercules, ready to defend against high-altitude threats. This is how a Nike site would operate should an enemy threaten our country. Upon detection by the North American Air Defense Command's warning system, the enemy's number and location, direction of flight, and speed of travel are flashed to headquarters. Instantly, this information is passed on through division direction centers to Army, Navy, and Air Force Air Defense Commands. Assume that this Nike Hercules site is in the flight path of the enemy aircraft. Alerted to the enemy's approach, the Nike Hercules search radar detects the intruders and determines their location. Target tracking radar is assigned to track the enemy and feed position information into a computer. The particular missile selected to fire is guided toward the target by a missile tracking radar which sends steering orders to the supersonic missile. The computer produces the steering orders by continuously comparing target and missile positions. Search radar continues to scan the sky for enemy targets. Additional missiles are ready to fire immediately. To meet the second big challenge to Army Air Defense Forces, protection of the field army, Army Air Defense weapons will be deployed as represented on this painting. Of course, distances will be greater. Automatic artillery weapons will be placed well to the front of the battle area. They will defend air corridors where radar cannot reach due to such terrain features as narrow valleys. Farther back, hawk units will wait for unfriendly aircraft. Still farther back, the Nike Hercules will be ready to attack any intruder getting past the forward defenses. Though our largely automatic air defense system is truly a technical marvel, highly trained men are vital to its maintenance and operation. Training these men is the job of the Center's U.S. Army Air Defense School. The students, most of whom are volunteers, are carefully selected by means of aptitude and intelligence tests. The jobs these men are being trained for require a high degree of technical competence. The school conducts over 60 courses at once, ranging from a few days to more than a full year. The specialties taught are many. For instance, electronics has applied to complex radar, missile guidance, and computer systems are a major field of study. Military tactics and leadership are also of paramount interest. Graduates of the school join the ranks as line and staff air defense officers, electronic warfare specialists, hawk and Nike Hercules missile technicians, automatic weapons specialists, and fire distribution system operators and maintenance technicians. It is obvious that the control and coordination of widely separated air defense weapons demand reliable communication systems. To teach maintenance and operation of such systems is a major mission of the Air Defense School. Here, students watch a diorama demonstrating operations of the ANG-5 or BIRTI fire distribution system. An acronym for battery integration and radar display equipment coordinates operations of missile fire units by conducting a continuous high speed exchange of tactical information among all fire units and higher air defense commands. This information includes position and identity of all aircraft within the defense area, the status of each fire unit, and commands, such as assignment of specific targets to specific fire units. To see how BIRTI maintains effective control of a tactical situation, let's assume that an intruding aircraft has been detected by the radar net of the North American Air Defense Command NORAD. Information on the hostile aircraft's position and identity is flashed to BIRTI. This information along with that supplied by local surveillance radar is displayed on BIRTI consoles in the form of symbols. The console operator monitors the progress of the enemy aircraft and corrects or updates the data as necessary. All target information displayed on the BIRTI console is also displayed at each fire unit. Thus, each fire unit commander has an accurate picture of the overall air situation. The BIRTI console operator decides which fire unit is best situated to engage a hostile aircraft and assigns the target to that fire unit. At this time, the battery commander of the fire unit starts tracking the target by radar in preparation for firing a missile. Now that the enemy aircraft has been destroyed, the fire unit transmits a message to BIRTI indicating that it is ready to engage additional targets. Also, the kill information is relayed by BIRTI to hire a command and the tracking information on the destroyed aircraft is cleared from the system. Now let's visit a class engaged in study of actual hardware. Gentlemen, this is the general purpose console for the missile mentor fire distribution system. This console automatically exchanges data with all other elements within the area to be defended. Information displayed gives the Army Air Defense Commander an instant picture of the air battle. As the battle takes place by watching the console, he can immediately determine such things as the number of enemy aircraft present or when a kill has been made. Which firing unit should fire its missiles and the time of firing? So began a class of future fire distribution system maintenance men. But a fire distribution system includes many items besides the consoles. For instance, classes are held on radar data processing equipment, memory storing units, several types of surveillance radar, computing equipment, and automatic data transmission systems. Another major part of the Air Defense School is the low altitude Air Defense Department. Here, a new class get their first lesson in maintenance of the twin 40 millimeter self-propelled gun. This lightly armored automatic artillery weapon was designed for air defense at the division level. But because of its rapid rate of fire, it has proved itself a valuable support weapon against ground targets. You men are about to receive training in the operation of a weapon made famous as the Quad 50 in World War Two. As you can see, four caliber 50 machine guns are supported by a power driven mount. Now, everybody take your stations and we will run through a dry run to familiarize you with this weapon. This is the red eye. It is a man transportable, shoulder fired, air defense missile. It will be used to protect frontline troops against such targets as jets, helicopters, and reconnaissance. This is the Vulcan, an automatic 20 millimeter gun with an extremely high rate of fire. It can be used against both aerial and ground targets. This linkless feed system stores 1200 rounds in ready to fire condition. Against aircraft, 3,000 rounds are fired per minute. Against ground targets, the Vulcan is set for 1,000 rounds per minute. When deployed in the field, the Vulcan will be used in conjunction with the Chaparral system. The Chaparral system uses an infrared guidance system to defend the forward battle area against low flying aircraft. The system is fully mobile, has a top speed of 40 miles per hour, and can cruise for about 300 miles. The Air Defense School devotes a large part of its effort to training officers and men in the operation and maintenance of the Hawk missile system. The Hawk, designed for defense against sneak attack by low flying aircraft, works like this. Two acquisition radars, one for higher altitude and one for extreme low level search, detect the intruder, a jet-drawn aircraft. In the battery control's central van, the tactical control officer watches the radar display of targets speed and direction. At the proper time, he finds the target to a Hawk fire unit. The illuminator radar, facing in the direction from which the threat is approaching, searches a small area of sky. Now its beam finds the target, locks on, and automatically tracks. Next, a specific launcher is selected, slave to the radar, and the firing button pushed. The missile is guided by signals directly from the illuminator radar and homes on signals reflected from the target. The Hawk missile has proved so reliable and accurate that it has been adopted as a primary air defense weapon by the Marine Corps and several NATO nations whose maintenance and operational personnel are trained at Fort Bliss. But successful as the Hawk has proved to be, improvements are being made to enable the system to meet battlefield requirements with even more effectiveness. Another major part of the air defense school is the high altitude missile department. Here an officer's class is instructed on operation of the Nike Hercules guided missile system. Nike Hercules is a long range weapon capable of destroying an entire formation of hostile aircraft. It is reliable and extremely accurate, having hit targets traveling at supersonic speeds at distances greater than 75 miles and at altitudes up to 150,000 feet. As you can now see, we have our target presented on our scopes. Now it is the job of our operators to go and place this target into a track condition. He will do this by... Some of these officer students may attend the school's guided missile systems officer course to study science and engineering fields relating to missilery and space technology. The purpose is to train staff officers capable of analyzing past, present and future scientific developments as they relate to concepts of modern warfare. Officers with such training are essential to effective development and use of highly complex missile systems. The Nike Hercules was originally designed for installation at permanent sites, but to provide a high altitude defense for our Army in the field, the system was made mobile. For a brief look to the future, the Spartan missile is being developed to defend our strategic retaliatory forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missile sites against enemy warheads. This is Sprint, Spartan's smaller partner. Sprint and Spartan are the two missiles of the Army's safeguard ballistic missile defense system. To assure that enough highly trained technicians will be ready to man the complex system, the safeguard simple training facility has been set up at the air defense school. Another air defense system currently under development is the SAM-D, designed for both battlefield and continental deployment against low, medium and high altitude aircraft and short range missiles. The SAM-D missile is expected to replace eventually the Nike Hercules and a portion of the Hawke systems both at home and overseas. To be fully trained, the military missile man must actually fire his weapon. For this purpose, the Air Defense Center operates McGregor Range, the largest air defense missile training range in the free world. Here the Army Training Center gives advanced individual training in firing the various air defense weapons against a variety of targets. For instance, the Twin Forties are put through their paces. Here the Quad 50s go into action. As an instructor looks on, Red Eye, one man defense system goes against an aerial target. The Army's over-reliable gaffling gun has been reincarnated so to speak by a modern weapon, the Vulcan. A companion weapon to the Vulcan seeks a flying target. The fast-moving drone is greatly slowed by the camera. Since 1960, the range has supported annual practice, as well as advanced training firings of air defense missiles by U.S. and NATO units from throughout the free world. The Hawke search radars look for the target, but there's no target in the sky. Instead, the equipment in this radar signal simulator station supplies the target electronically. The signals generated here cause the radar displays by Hawke firing unit personnel to appear exactly as they would in actual aircraft either hostile or friendly were in the area. The simulator is not nearly as costly as actual targets would be and provides training that would be difficult to give otherwise. Now signals simulating approaching hostile aircraft are beamed to Battery Control Central. Inside, Battery Control personnel selected target and assign it to a specific launcher. The Hawke radars operate just as if actual aircraft were approaching. Hawke swoops toward its imaginary prey. Battery Control Central personnel watch for the simulated intercepts. As usual, the faithful Hawke scores what would be a direct hit. Here personnel from a missile site defending a faraway city prepare for their annual practice firing of the Nike Hercules. As with the Hawke, a radar signal simulation station provides targets electronically. The search radars receive the simulated signals and react as they would to a real threat. In the director station, the radar displays show an enemy to be approaching. Based on the predicted kill point provided by the computer, a missile is selected for firing. As with the Hawke, the score is kept electronically and operators are effectively trained at minimum cost. Thus the highlights of the Fort Bliss story, a story that ends with the traditional ceremony held in honor of the graduating air defense artillery man. These men are now ready to follow in the footsteps of the 200,000 graduates that have gone before. Whether they are called to serve in the frozen wastes of the Arctic, the barren stretches of the desert, or the devastating heat of the jungle, these men will maintain the perpetual vigilance demanded by our unsettled times, for they know that they will be able to carry out their mission. They will be led by our unsettled times, for they know that not only our national survival but the survival of human freedom itself may largely depend upon the skillful use of our arsenal of air defense weapons.