By 1945, the age of aerial warfare had fully arrived and the U.S. Army sought a weapon that could intercept enemy aircraft. In 1951, after years of research and development, a supersonic missile controlled by ground-based electronic equipment was developed—the Nike, named for the Greek goddess of victory.
The first Nike weapons—shrapnels and explosives-loaded Ajax missiles—could take down an airplane 37 miles off shore. As Cold War tensions and fear of a nuclear attack on the American mainland grew, the Nike program acquired new Hercules missiles. Armed with a nuclear warhead, the Hercules could travel 75 miles, destroy everything within a 20-mile radius of its strike, and eliminate an entire formation of planes.
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