The Short, Happy Life of the Glick-Em

Twenty years ago, the Air Force activated its first Ground Launched Cruise Missile wing in Europe. The Short, Happy Life of the Glick-Em By Peter Grier The Ground Launched Cruise Missile, with its combined transport and launch vehicle shown here, had a short operational life but proved to be an effective counter to Soviet SS-20 intermediate-range missiles. N JULY 1, 1982, USAF’s 501st of the nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. of the Western alliance’s determina- Tactical Missile Wing was These anti-nuclear zealots even briefly tion to be able to fight and win a activated at RAF Greenham penetrated a perimeter fence pro- nuclear war, if necessary. In short Common in Great Britain. That tecting the base against intruders. they were, by definition, bad. Ostep—taken 20 years ago this month— A makeshift “peace camp” had been “They don’t add to our security, marked the start of what would prove established outside the main gate. but [they] increase our insecurity,” to be a major political upheaval in Resident activists vowed to live there asserted Bruce Kent, who was at the Europe. Noisy protesters came early indefinitely in an attempt to force time the head of Britain’s Campaign for the arrival of the wing’s first NATO to abandon its planned deploy- for Nuclear Disarmament. batch of Ground Launched Cruise ment of several hundred BGM-109G Missiles. However, US troops brought GLCM (pronounced “glick-em”) Now They’re Gone them in late at night, as the protest- weapons and the US Army’s nuclear- Today, all of the GLCMs are gone, ers slept. tipped Pershing II ballistic missiles. withdrawn from Greenham Common Flash forward 18 months, to Dec. The burgeoning Western anti- and every other NATO base in Europe 12, 1983. Greenham Common on that nuclear movement did not regard and dismantled. The huge M.A.N. day was besieged by thousands of these new weapons as a much-needed (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg–Nuern- women anti-nuclear activists. They counter to the Soviet Union’s SS-20 berg) diesel tractors no longer haul were chanting, singing, and blowing intermediate-range missiles. For the the GLCM canisters around the sur- trumpets in protest of the presence protesters, they were a terrifying sign rounding Salisbury Plain on mid- 70 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002 night deployment exercises, as they once did. The protests are no more. However, the demonstrations had nothing to do with the removal of the weapons. Contrary to the protesters’ beliefs, the GLCMs (and their strategic cousins, the Pershing IIs) did not destabilize the West. In fact, NATO’s deployment of the weapons USAF photo by SSgt. James Pearson in the face of popular unrest had a destabilizing effect in the other di- rection. The West’s ability to stand firm and carry out the deployments in the face of nerve-wracking Soviet threats convinced the Kremlin that NATO could not be intimidated. It was this realization that led to the opening of the more serious In- termediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks and an INF treaty that eventually removed an entire class of Anti-nuclear protesters feared GLCMs would destablize the West. By 1981 they nuclear arms from the superpower established a permanent “peace camp” outside the main gate of Greenham arsenals—a major step in the weak- Common. ening and ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. makers were unable to duplicate the to stop and then reduce its SS-20 The GLCM existed for less than a sophisticated guidance systems of US deployments. decade. Because the weapon system GLCMs. For the Western alliance, the mat- had such a short operational life, The GLCM deployment of the ter went far beyond the need to have some Air Force members had the 1980s had roots in political events of equivalent forces. NATO’s worry unusual experience of being on hand the 1970s. By the middle of that de- was that, in nuclear parlance of the at both the beginning and the end. cade, it had become clear to NATO time, the Soviet buildup would The happy circumstances of its de- planners that the Soviet Union in- “decouple” the defense of Europe mise also gave many GLCM person- tended to undertake a concerted ef- from the US strategic nuclear arse- nel the feeling that they had helped fort to modernize its Intermediate- nal. In other words, Moscow might shape world events for the better. range Nuclear Force targeted on believe it could threaten Western “We thought GLCM held a very NATO Europe. Europe’s high-value targets—ports, important place in history,” said re- rear-echelon areas, and the like— tired Col. Doug Livingston, former The SS-20 Threat with SS-20 nuclear attack and not commander of the 868th Tactical Until that time, the most threaten- provoke US retaliation because it Missile Training Group. “It was one ing weapons aimed at Western Eu- was not threatening US strategic of the key elements that helped win rope were the single-warhead SS-4 weapons or US soil. the Cold War.” and SS-5 theater missiles, based at Deployment of NATO INF forces Throughout the tumultuous years vulnerable fixed sites. In 1977, how- was an attempt to make the West’s of US–Soviet INF negotiations, the ever, Soviet forces began to field the nuclear deterrent more credible, by Army’s Pershing II tended to get the new SS-20, a missile fitted with three providing commanders nuclear op- most media attention. It was big, pow- accurate, independently retargetable tions short of all-out retaliatory war. erful, accurate, and fast-flying. It warheads. Worse, its launcher was Western Europe’s leaders, in par- would have been the weapon of choice highly mobile, allowing their dispersal ticular, were eager to show that the to strike time-sensitive Soviet targets at times of tension. Each launcher continent was still shielded by the in the event of all-out war. was equipped with refire missiles. US strategic nuclear umbrella de- In some ways, however, the GLCM This signified an increase in Soviet spite the existence of the SS-20 threat. was the system most feared by the firepower on a tremendous scale. Harold Brown, the Secretary of Soviets. For one thing, they were to By 1979, Soviet forces had fielded Defense, told Congress in a 1980 be more numerous than the Pershings. SS-20s in significant numbers. In message: “We do not plan to match Plans called for deployment of 464 that year, NATO political leaders the Soviet program system by sys- cruise missiles in Belgium, Britain, agreed on a historic “dual track” ap- tem or warhead by warhead, which Italy, Netherlands, and West Ger- proach to solving the problem. One might be construed as an attempt to many. By contrast, NATO forces track was political: The West would create a European nuclear balance were to receive only 108 Pershing attempt to engage the Soviets in se- separate from the overall strategic IIs, and they would be based only in rious talks aimed at curbing the INF relationship. ... Instead, we seek to West Germany. forces of both sides. The other track strengthen the linkage of US strate- The GLCMs also represented an was military: NATO would deploy gic forces to the defense of Europe.” area of NATO technological superi- in Europe hundreds of GLCMs and NATO planners chose to deploy a ority. At the time, Soviet weapons- Pershing IIs unless Moscow agreed pair of weapons to counter the So- AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002 71 viet SS-20 because the GLCM and ways smooth. Engineers found that contractor. McDonnell Douglas made the Pershing II had distinctive, they needed to do much more than the guidance system, and Williams complementary characteristics. simply slap a Tomahawk on a trailer International/Teledyne provided the The new Pershing was a follow- and hand the driver a portable radio. small F107 turbofan power plant on to the existing, shorter range Development of the Transporter GLCMs were stored in protective Pershing IA. As a ballistic missile, it Erector Launcher and associated in- aluminum canisters with their wings, offered a high assurance of penetrat- frastructure such as the launch con- control fins, and engine inlets re- ing any Soviet defenses. Its speed trol center was a task that proved to tracted. In a crisis, the canisters would enabled it to threaten time-sensitive be far more complicated than first be loaded onto Transporter Erector targets. It was designed to take ad- imagined. Crashes of test vehicles Launchers—giant 78,000-pound trac- vantage of the existing Pershing IA also caused the Joint Cruise Missiles tor trailers. The TELs and their sup- infrastructure in Europe. Project Office to decertify the mis- port vehicles would be deployed to The smaller GLCMs were pro- sile on two occasions. secret, presurveyed launch sites in jected to have lower life-cycle costs. The finished production missile remote areas of the host country. Their longer range—1,550 miles— was almost 21 feet long, with its Coordinates for the launch location, allowed them to be based farther stubby wings stretching out to about along with weather information, were from the front lines. This increased nine feet. Top speed was just under then to be entered in the missile’s their survivability and—not inciden- Mach 1. The Convair Division of flight computer. Two launch officers tally—allowed more allied nations General Dynamics was the prime would have taken 20 minutes to en- to accept deployments on their terri- tory. As Brown put it: “The deployment of a mixed ballistic/cruise missile force hedges against the failure of one type of system, provides the flexibility to select the best weapon for a given mission, and greatly com- plicates enemy planning.” USAF photo by TSgt.

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