Missiles!

This is cooolbert:

Thanks to some static displays at the Russell Military Museum,  Russell, IL., USA we have some food for thought.

That U.S. Army during the Cold War decade of the 1950's having a budget HALF of which was spent of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon delivery systems, receiving in return a meager return for the money spent?

Missiles of which were designed in large measure to deliver a nuclear warhead in support of the ground forces in actual combat with advancing Soviet troops the quality, accuracy and reliability of those missiles very questionable.

1. Lacrosse.

"The MGM-18 Lacrosse was a short-ranged tactical ballistic weapon intended for close support of ground troops. Its first flight test was in 1954 and was deployed by the United States Army beginning in 1959, despite being still in the development stage. The program's many technical hurdles proved too difficult to overcome and the missile was withdrawn from field service by 1964."

Lacrosse even when entering service and deployed deemed too susceptible to potential enemy counter-measures, jamming of corrective guidance for the missile as received while in flight a major concern.

"Problems included reliability concerns and difficulties with guidance, particularly susceptibility to ECM jamming of the command guidance signals."

2. Corporal.

"The MGM-5 Corporal missile was the first guided weapon authorized by the United States to carry a nuclear warhead. A surface-to-surface guided missile, the Corporal could deliver either a nuclear fission or high-explosive warhead up to a range of 75 nautical miles (139 km)."

"For what was the front line of nuclear defense, the Corporal missile was notoriously unreliable and inaccurate . . . its tactical responsiveness questionable. For guidance, it employed commands sent through a reworked World War II-era radar system. Until 1955, its in-flight accuracy was less than 50 percent, with only modest improvements thereafter. The first year of British test firings in 1959 yielded a success rate of only 46 percent, a dismal record which raised questions among military planners of its operational effectiveness in Germany."

Modified versions of the Corporal were more accurate and reliable?

I guess it can be suggested that if these missiles carrying a nuclear warhead, accuracy is not so paramount in importance? Your own troops perhaps when forewarned able to take cover and shelter themselves against the heat, blast, and radiation of a nuclear detonation.

coolbert.