Nike Hercules, it was an urban-scale air defense system widely deployed on the coasts against potential Soviet bombers. While there had been plans to upgrade Ni

Nike Hercules, it was an urban-scale air defense system widely deployed on the coasts against potential Soviet bombers. While there had been plans to upgrade Nike to Nike Zeus and later Nike X, which were nuclear and anti-ballistic missile systems, these were cancelled for various reasons and the Nike system went out of service in the '80s. The launch complex vaults, in which the missiles were stored, have mostly since been filled in for safety reasons (those that haven't are almost always flooded). Fortunately there's one in Marin County preserved as a museum by a historic society. Fortunately, being an air-defense system, Nike never had a combat engagement. Nike X, while it never came close to achieving its goals, did serve as the birthplace of modern phased-array radar and several advancements in real-time, networked data processing. Overall the Nike system is one of the America's most visible military artifacts of the Cold War. At the apex there were nearly 300, mostly coastal but also inland around certain priority targets like SAC bases and ICBM fields.