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Show WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGER - August 11, 1972 To fire eight rounds Army officials have announced that eight Pershing missiles will be launched from Utah to New Mexico in the fall series of firings starting in September. The series will be completed in late October. The missiles will be fired from the Utah Launch Complex of White Sands Missile Range at Green River. They will impact on the 4,000-square-mile range southern New Mexico. Four of the annual service practice rounds will be fired by units of the Federal Republic of Germany (West German) Air Force. Firing three rounds will be batteries from the Europe-based Seventh U.S. Army. The last round in the series will be fired by a battery of the 3rd Battalion, 9th Field Artillery, from Ft. Sill, Okla. WSMR officials said the operational Pershing 1-A model ground support equipment will be used throughout the series. The two-stage ballistic missiles will be of the type designated Artillery-Ordnance rounds. An advance party from Ft. Sill, made up of members of the 3rd Battalion, is scheduled to arrive at Green River in late August. The battalion's main body will travel in convoys to the Utah site early in September. Some 400 strong, the 3rd Battalion operates the camp at Green River and provides both technical and administrative support for the firing units. Other participants include U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command elements of WSMR, a field crew from the Pershing Project Manager's Office of the U.S. Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., and a team of umpires from the U.S. Army Field Artillery Missile Systems Evaluation Group of Ft. Sill. Representatives of the Martin Marietta Corp. of Orlando, Fla., prime contractor for Pershing systems, will be on hand. Pershings are produced by Martin Marietta under contracts let by the Missile Command. They have been operational in the continental U.S. since 1963 and were deployed with U.S. Army and North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense forces in Europe in 1964. Technical test director for the series will be James F. Conner of Huntsville, Ala., representing the Pershing Project Manager's Office. With the program for 10 years, Conner has never missed a Pershing series. Since the off-range firing program began in August 1963, a total of 184 Pershing rounds have been fired to impact on White Sands Missile Range. Earlier, 56 rounds were fired at Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy) to impact in the Atlantic Ocean. Twenty rounds were fired in the spring series this year, conducted in April, May and June from the Utah Launch Complex at Green River. Most powerful of the Army's operational missiles, Pershing is 35 feet long, 40 inches in diameter and weighs 10,000 pounds at launch. It has a range up to 400 miles and is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. The Pershing uses solid propellant and travels at supersonic speed. It has an inertial guidance system and operates in any weather conditions. |