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Show WHITE SAHDS MISSILE RANGES - 21 Sep 73 Pershing series begins Tuesday The fall series of Pershing missile firings from Green River, Utah, to White Sands Missile Range will begin next week with two rounds scheduled early Tuesday morning (Sept. 25), Army officials have announced. Firing the first two Pershing-1A model Artillery-Ordnance rounds will be batteries of the 3rd Battalion, 9th Field Ar tillery Missile Group, the Pershing support unit from Ft. Sill, Okla. Twelve rounds are scheduled in the series, which will run through the first week of Decembgr. Firing later will be units of the Federal Republic of Germany Air Force and the Seventh U.S. Army based in Europe. Support will be provided by Army agencies from White Sands Missile Range and Redstone Arsenal, Ala., as well as the Ft. Sill troops. Under the annual service practice program, the firing units will be graded by umpires of the Army's Field Artillery Missile Systems Evaluation Group from Ft. Sill. Technical test direction will be provided by a field crew from the Pershing Project Manager's Office of the U.S. Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal. White Sands organizations will provide flight safety, data collection, range control, communications, ground safety and flight engineering support. These participants will represent National Range Operations Directorate, Army Missile Test and Evaluation Directorate, the Strategic Communications Command agency and the Security Office. The fall series will be the third one this year in the Pershing program. A 12-round series was conducted at Cape Kennedy, Fla., last spring. An eight round series was conducted at McGregor Range, southeast of WSMR, in June and July of this year. Upon completion of the fall series, 32 Pershings will have been this year. The series also will wind up the 13th year of Pershing firings and bring the total number of rounds fired up to 280. Firings began at Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 1960. Since then 268 Pershings have been fired - 68 at the Florida base and 200 onto White Sands Missile Range. The first firings onto the White Sands range were conducted in August 1963 from Hueco Range, south of WSMR. The following month Pershings were fired from Blanding, Utah, and in the fall of that year from Ft. Wingate, N.M. Later firings were conducted from Gilson Butte, near Hanksville, Utah, as well as Hueco, McGregor and Blanding. Pershings were fired from Green River in 1971 and 1972. Most powerful of the Army's operational missile systems, the Pershing is a two-stage system and has a range of up to 400 miles. It has been operational since 1963 and has been deployed in Europe since 1964. The inertially guided Per shing employs solid propellants and travels at supersonic speed. It is highly mobile and is capable of operating in any weather conditions. Weighing 10,000 pounds at launch, the Pershing is 35 feet long and 40 inches in diameter. Prime contractor for Pershing missiles is the Martin Marietta Aerospace Corp., Orlando, Fla. |