Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air Defense, From Guns to Missiles, Ballistic Missile Defense, Star Wars, Patriot, PAC-3, Arrow, Naval Developments, THAAD

Archie to SAM is an update in 2005 to Kenneth Werrell's Archie, Flak, AAA, and SAM. He continues to study ground-based air defense systems in new events, including the Gulf War. In rescuing ground-based air defense systems from long neglect, Werrell delves into such topics as tactics, leadership, change, and innovation.

Dr. Kenneth Werrell's history of ground-based air defense performs an important service both to scholarship and, more importantly, to the defense of our nation's freedom. It is perhaps human nature that we tend over time to lose sight of the lessons of the past, especially when they do not conform to certain cherished preconceptions of ours. That such myopia can be dangerous, if not downright disastrous, Dr. Werrell's study richly illustrates. Without sentimentalism, he chronicles a pattern of lessons learned and too quickly forgotten as the marvel of air power was reminded again and again of its limitations and vulnerability. In Korea and in Vietnam, the American people were stripped of their illusions of national and technical omnipotence. The unhappy outcome of those two conflicts was doubly lamentable because the lessons of World War II were—or should have been—fresh in our minds. In that world war, as Dr. Werrell shows, relatively cheap ground-based air defense did make a difference: at Ploesti, at Antwerp, and at the Rhine bridges.

Contents * Foreword * PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION * PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION * Chapter 1 * ANTIAIRCRAFT DEFENSE THROUGH WORLD WAR II * British Antiaircraft Artillery * The V-1 Campaign * American Antiaircraft Artillery * German Flak * Allied Countermeasures * Fratricide * The US Navy in the Pacific * Japanese Antiaircraft Artillery * The Lessons of World War II * Notes * Chapter 2 * FROM GUNS TO MISSILES, 1945-1965 * Antiaircraft Returns to Combat: * The Korean War * Antiaircraft Missiles * Notes * Chapter 3 * AIRMEN VERSUS GUERRILLAS: VIETNAM * French Operations * America Enters the War * SAMs Join the Fight * American Air Operations through Linebacker I * Linebacker II * Conclusions * Notes * Chapter 4 * OPERATIONS BETWEEN VIETNAM AND THE PERSIAN GULF * Arab-Israeli Wars: 1948, 1956, 1967-1973 * The 1973 War * Combat since 1973: Bekaa Valley * American Air Strikes in the Middle East, 1983-1986 * Indo-Pakistani War * The Falkland Islands/Malvinas War, 1982 * Other Actions in the 1980s * Summary * Notes * Chapter 5 * BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE: THE EARLY YEARS TO 1991 * Army Development * The Kennedy Administration * Ballistic Missile Defense: Rebirth * The Strategic Defense Initiative: Star Wars * The Gulf War: Patriot versus Scud * The Patriot * Patriot in Action * Notes * Chapter 6 * GROUND-BASED AIR DEFENSE SINCE 1990: THE GULF, THE BALKANS, AND AFGHANISTAN * War in the Persian Gulf: * Air Defense since 1991: Iraq, Balkans, and Afghanistan * Notes * Chapter 7 * BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE 1990s * TMD Hardware: PAC-3, MEADS, Arrow, Naval Developments, and THAAD * Navy Systems * A New Threat * George W. Bush and BMD * Notes * Chapter 8 * SUMMARY, TRENDS, AND CONCLUSIONS * Summary * Trends (Speculations) * Conclusions