re: #107 thedopefishlives

I actually have to walk my statement back a little bit. The Nike Hercules, the same missile as is standing in the town park, was actually still deployed in Europe until 1988. Apparently, we just lacked the technology to deliver precision long-range anti-aircraft weapons until the 1980’s.

The Canadians had a supply of nuclear armed Bomarc CIM-10 SAMs (with W40 nuke warhead) and over 100 Genie nuclear rockets for the CAF-101 Voodoo fighters.

(also 4 Honest John IRBM’s with 16 nuclear warheads assigned to the Canadian Army in Germany and an unknown number (90 - 210) of free fall tactical nuclear bombs that could be fitted to F-104 fighters)

The Bomarc missiles look ike something from a 50’s sci fi rocket movie. Classic huge delta wings with long, slender fuselage. They had a crazy range…over 250 miles (later version was over 400) and were controlled through the SAGE network by NORAD until they closed within about 10 miles and the onboard radar guided for terminal intercept.

The problem was that they were obsolete by the time they were finally all deployed.