ARMED FORCES: Ground Warfare

In the course of weapons-testing, it was inevitable that the U.S. Army sooner or later would pit its prized Nike (rhymes with Mikey) antiaircraft guided missile against the Air Force’s pet Martin Matador jet bomber missile, an “uninhabited”‘ aircraft. The Nike-Matador aerial duel was held at White Sands Proving Grounds, N.Mex. this fall—and it promptly set off a ground war between Army and Air Force pressagents.

Although results of the Nike-Matador match were officially classified as secret, the Army lost no time in leaking the news that Nike had blasted the jet-powered Matador from the sky. The Air Force was prompt with a reply. Four Nikes, said the airmen, had been fired at a Matador, and every one of them had missed.

Wrhat actually happened at White Sands confirmed both the Army and the Air Force versions—in part. The Nike-Matador test was held in two phases, about a week apart. The first time, the Matador flew a prearranged course at less than 40,000 ft. altitude and at less than its top speed of about 700 m.p.h. In four attempts to bring Matador down, Nike failed. The Army checked its weapon and found that some of Nike’s guidance instruments were out of kilter, a fact that the Army attributed to “personnel error.”

The guidance instruments were reset, and the second phase of the test was held. At least two Matadors were flown. They were destroyed by Nikes that searched them out.

Then began the battle of the press-agents, in which the Army last week got in the last word, for what it was worth. It said that the Air Force itself plans to use Nike to protect some of its strategic bomber bases. However silly the argument may have seemed, there was a reason for it: the Defense Department was in the last stages of carving out its budget for fiscal 1957 and both services were seeking a larger cut of the melon for their own weapons development programs.