Nike Missile Site WA-50 IFC, Hagerman New Mexico
Longitude: -104.54389
This location was part of the Walker AFB Defense Area
Site ID: WA-50
This site controlled the missiles at the Launch Area located here.
Site Role: IFC
A typical Nike air defense site consisted of two separate parcels of land. One area was known as the Integrated Fire Control (IFC) Area. This site contained the Nike system's ground-based radar and computer systems designed to detect and track hostile aircraft, and to guide the missiles to their targets.
The second parcel of land was known as the Launcher Area. At the launcher area, Nike missiles were stored horizontally within heavily constructed underground missile magazines. A large, missile elevator brought the Nikes to the surface of the site where they would be pushed across twin steel rails to one of four satellite launchers.
Elaboration on how Nike worked here.
Current site status: unknown
Note the IFC and launch areas are extremely close together, nearly co-located, consistent with the above-ground (AG) Hercules layout used at Walker, which did not require the same separation as underground Ajax sites.
Both WA-10 and WA-50 were activated on April 20, 1960 and inactivated on June 25, 1960, active for only about two months. The sites were above-ground Hercules installations with twelve launchers across three sections. There is no evidence of underground magazines, leading to speculation that the missiles were intended to carry W-31 nuclear warheads, providing firepower without the need for reloads.
The former IFC of WA-50 is now the Roswell Correctional Center, while the launcher area is located about a mile south of that and is largely abandoned. The WA-50 site is not nearly as well preserved as WA-10, the guard shack has succumbed to the elements and vandalism, though the warhead assembly building (equipped with an overhead hoist) and crew bunkers built into berms remain remarkably intact. Red footprints painted on concrete in front of the warhead building for soldier formations are still faintly visible.
Two months after activation in April 1960, the Headquarters unit deactivated, the missiles never came to either Walker site.
List of all Nike Installations in New Mexico