David Stinson wrote in message ...
Trying to identify a vacuum tube based missle seeker head.
Can anyone ID this? The box said "NIKE AJAX."
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Dave:
The Nike Ajax was a "Command Guidance" anti-aircraft missle system.
The computer (analog computer) was ground based and the computer was
fed information from a Target Tracking Radar (TTR) and a Missle
Tracking Radar (MTR). The computer digested this information and sent
commands to the missle via the MTR beam. The TTR and MTR operated in
the X-band (the 9 to 10 GHz range). The advantage of Command Guidance
is that the computer could determine the optimum trajectory to fly
missle to the target.
What you have is the electronics that received the MTR signals,
decoded the missle commands, and sent them to the control surfaces of
the missle. I went through the Officers Basic course at Ft. Sill back
in 1961. I was trained on the Nike Hercules System as the Ajax was
being phased out at that time. We did spend some time studying the old
Ajax system as there were still a few Ajax sites active until the late
1960s. I saw quite a few Ajax missles being fired at the White Sands
missle range.
Lt. Ed Engelken
5th Msl Bn, 517th Arty
(My old Hercules Missle outfit)