A little more than 55 years ago, one of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command's (AMCOM's) predecessors--the U.S. Army Missile Command (MICOM)--was activated at Redstone Arsenal (RSA) as a Class II activity under the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC). It was one of the original major subordinate commands which reported to the newly created Materiel Command.
Because of the installation's technological accomplishments and the availability of necessary resources, the Army created a succession of organizational elements at Redstone in the 14 years between 1948 and 1962 that established, then perpetuated the post's widespread reputation for "excellence in missilery." The three most significant of these missile commands were the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), the U.S. Army Ordnance Missile Command (AOMC), and MICOM.
When it was formally activated on August 1, 1962, the Missile Command was incorporated with about 19 major missile systems, 8 under project management and the rest under commodity (product) managers. Upon its activation, MICOM also gained jurisdiction over three Class II industrial plants: the Charlotte Ordnance Missile Plant in Charlotte, North Carolina; the Michigan Ordnance Missile Plant in Warren, Michigan; and the Tarheel Ordnance Plant in Burlington, North Carolina. At the time, however, MICOM left the operation of these plants under Ordnance District jurisdiction.
Some missions originally assigned to AMCOM's predecessor commands eventually evolved into separate Army organizations. These include the former Ordnance Munitions and Electronic Maintenance School (OMEMS), which originated with the Provisional Redstone Ordnance School established in March 1952; the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), which grew out of the MICOM Missile Intelligence Agency; the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (SMDC/ARSTRAT), which traces its organizational roots to the Redstone Anti-Missile Missile Systems Office established by a MICOM predecessor command in October 1957 to manage the Nike Zeus program; the Program Executive Office (PEO), Missiles and Space, the predecessor projects of which were once part of MICOM; and the U.S. Army Garrison (USAG)-Redstone, which was previously a MICOM/AMCOM organizational element known as the Redstone Arsenal Support Activity (RASA).
From 1950 to 1997 the Army organizations at Redstone Arsenal managed an impressive array of missile and rocket systems such as the NIKE AJAX and HERCULES, HAWK, TOW (tube-launched, optically guided, wire controlled), MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System), PATRIOT, and HELLFIRE which have been featured prominently in national defense news. Two of the most significant were the REDSTONE missile, the Army's "Old Reliable," and the PERSHING II, the Army's precision "Sunday Punch."
First deployed in 1958, the REDSTONE was the forerunner of the JUPITER missile. It was used in January 1958 as the first stage in the Army launch vehicle that orbited EXPLORER I, while a modified REDSTONE carried CDR Alan B. Shepard, Jr. on his historic suborbital flight on May 5, 1961. One of the most reliable, accurate, and formidable weapons ever developed and fielded by the U.S. Army, the PERSHING II missile system fulfilled its assigned mission of protecting the nation and its NATO allies by becoming part of the historic Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by the Soviet Union and the United States in 1988. History was made when the two nations finally agreed for the first time ever to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
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