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Show White Sands Missile Ranger October 5, 1 Annual Pershing Missile firings set U.S. Army officials have announced an eight-round series of Pershing missile firings to be conducted at McGregor Range, Ft. Bliss, Tex., from mid-October through early December. The missiles will be programmed to impact on White Sands Missile Range. The series will begin during the week of Oct. 14 and run through the week of Dec. 2. Two rounds will be fired in October by the 3rd Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Missile Group, from Ft. Sill, Okla., the support unit for all Pershing firings. Two other rounds will be fired in October by units from the Seventh U.S. Army, based in Europe. The remaining four rounds, two in November and t^o in December, will be fired by units of the Federal Republic of Germany Air Force. Under, the annual service practice program, the firing units will be graded on their performance. The first four rounds in the series also will serve as a product improvement test program. Under direction of WSMR's Army Missile Test and Evaluation Directorate, this program will be conducted to test and evaluate new components in the ground support equipment for the 1A model Pershing system. Among key items to be set up for the series at McGregor Range, northeast of El Paso and just off U.S. Highway 54, will be the MISS (Mobile Instrumentation Support System) van and the PIC (Pershing Instrumentation Control) van. Participants in the Pershing off-range firing program include the U.S. Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., and the Field Artillery Missile Systems Evaluation Group of Ft. Sill, in addition to the support unit from Ft. Sill and the major White Sands Missile Range organizations. Also represented at McGregor Range during the firing operations will be the Martin Marietta Aerospace Corp. of Orlando, Fla., prime contractor for Pershing missile systems. The series will end the 14th year of Pershing firings and will bring the total number of these missiles fired to approximately 300. Pershing firings began in 1960 in Florida and in 1963 at White Sands Missile Range. The Pershing has been operational since 1963 and is deployed with U.S. and NATO defense forces in Europe. The two-stage Pershing has a range of up to 400 miles. The inertially guided system employs solid propellants and travels at supersonic speed. |