The 485th Tactical Missile Wing Florennes Air Base Belgium

Gryphon
The 485 th Tactical Missile Wing
Florennes Air Base
Belgium

“My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation
that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
- Ronald Reagan, 11 Aug 1984
* * * *
“Four minutes and counting.”
“Ok . . .”
“They pressed the button, Jim.”
“They pressed the button, Billy? What button?”
“The big red one.”
“Oh, you mean THE button.”
“Goodbye, Jim.”
“Goodbye! Oh, yes, this ain't au revoir, it's goodbye!”
- Roger Waters, Radio K.A.O.S

Chapter 1
The arms race between the former Soviet Union and the United States had
escalated to a point by the mid 1970s that neither side thought it could keep up
with the other. The U.S. and the USSR had built their nuclear weapons
inventories to such enormous levels that, in a first strike and subsequent
retaliation, each side would inflict such massive devastation on the other that
neither could possibly survive. In a political cartoon of the times, some generals
are sitting around a conference table, and one is saying, “Did I have a nightmare
last night! I dreamed they had a billion missiles and we had only a million.”
Satellite mounted cameras and heat sensing arrays would detect any launch
immediately, and enough warning would be given to either side to facilitate the
immediate launch of a retaliatory strike. The modus operandi was Mutually
Assured Destruction, or MAD. The launch of a single missile would bring about the
launch of hundreds of missiles from the other side, and the escalation would be
instant, exponential, and devastating in the extreme.
The way to overcome such an obstacle was thought to be an updating and
modernization of their armaments. This book will focus on European Theater
weapons, short-range and intermediate range nuclear missiles.
By building more accurate missiles, you can downsize the warhead, because a
direct hit will do more damage to the target than an indirect hit. With such
accuracy and a smaller warhead, an attack will do less peripheral damage and
cause less unnecessary loss of civilian life. And the weapon's cost will be less,
thereby loosening up funds to make even more warheads and delivery systems.
Our primary European Theater weapon was the Pershing 1A missile, a two-stage
rocket with a range of 100 to 400 nautical miles, a single warhead of 60-400
kilotons, with a probable circular error of 1,200 feet. The Russians had an old
missile, the SS-5, first deployed in 1961. It had a range of 2,000 nautical miles, a
1 megaton warhead, and a probable circular error of 6000 feet.
The Russians decided to upgrade their missile fleet, replacing the SS-5 with the
SS-20, which had a range of 2000-2400 nautical miles, a probable circular error
of 1500 feet, and 3 warheads of 1 kiloton each. In turn, the Americans would
upgrade to the Pershing II, with a range of 1000-2000 nautical miles where the

1A had 100-400 mile range; a circular error probability of 120 feet, and a single
1-10 kiloton warhead. While the potential collateral damage of the Soviet missile
was massive in the SS-5, it was upgraded to moderate in the SS-20, and the
Pershing went from moderate-extensive to very limited.
To counteract the three warheads of the SS-20, the Americans developed the
Ground Launched Cruise Missile, carried on a transporter, four at a time. The
warhead was the W84 two-stage radiation implosion bomb with a variable yield
ranging from 0.2 kiloton to 150 kilotons. The GLCM was the BGM-109G Gryphon,
and was capable of low level flight, basically hugging the ground and staying
under radar, with a range of 1,600 miles, while flying at sub-sonic speeds of up to
550 mph on a pre-determined course. It was virtually undetectable, having a
F107-WR-400 turbofan engine and a solid fuel booster, leaving a miniscule launch
signature.
U.S. Strategy was to first launch the GLCM, then follow up with the Pershing II,
which could reach its target in under 15 minutes. The missile had a radar
guidance system in its nose, called the Correlatron. This system stored radar
images obtained through surveillance aircraft and satellites, then compared them
to real-time images, fed them into an electronic multiplier cell, which adjusted the
fins on the back of the rocket and guided it in. The system was so well designed
that it could be programmed to overshoot its target, thereby fooling the target's
defenses, then correct its path and come back in. The missile was so fast and so
accurate there was no defense against it. If this baby was launched at you, you
were dead. Toast. Actually, a puff of ions floating away in the nuclear blast.
By 1983, the U.S. had finalized its plan to deploy the system. In 1984, the first
troops arrived at Florennes Air Base, Belgium, to get the base ready for the
GLCMs. Over the next five years, the Gryphons would sit in their bunkers,
awaiting the order to load up and disperse into the Ardennes forest, from where
they would fly in defense of the United States and her allies. It would be an epic
battle, in which millions of human beings would die. The only things that stood in
the way were diplomacy, strong and unyielding leadership from the White House,
the full might and power of NATO military forces led by the Americans, and the
threat imposed by the missiles themselves. We were there to ensure the mission
could be carried out, with full knowledge that it would likely end in our own
deaths. We were willing to do the job, and we did it to perfection.
This is our story.