"Author James Mills presents an amazing, detailed history review of the German surface-to-air guided missile technology development." —Military Review World War II saw the appearance of numerous revolutionary armaments on both sides of the conflict that would radically change the nature of warfare, from jet aircraft to the ballistic missile and the atomic bomb. The greatest conflagration in history also saw the conception of the first surface-to-air guided missile systems, technology pioneered by German scientists and engineers through an extensive development program which ran from 1942 to 1945. Although the program did not achieve its main objective – to introduce a functional weapon system into the Luftwaffe air defense network – German research and development in most aspects of the technology was ahead of comparable research in the United Kingdom and the United States. The history of the transfer of German SAM technology to the Allies after 1945 has previously been overshadowed by the well-published transfers of the V-1 and V-2 guided missiles. This book presents the first complete history of Germany’s wartime development of surface-to-air missile (SAM) technology, how the Allies acquired this secret research towards the end of World War II in Europe and in the early postwar period, and how they then exploited this knowledge.

This AFCHO monograph covers USAF participation in the national guided missile program that slowly evolved between the closing months of World War II and the beginning of the Korean War. The first generation of missile projects laid the groundwork for a later and much more successful range of weapons. Navaho and Rascal proved the technologies that were later used for the AGM-28 Hound Dog and AGM-69 SRAM missiles. These same technologies later gave birth to the current generation of cruise missiles. These can be seen as a successful implementation of the design concepts first developed in the late 1940s. Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, pilotless aircraft are a widely used and deadly part of the American airborne arsenal. Technology has caught up with the visions of those who had conceived the first generation of guided missiles in the 1940s.

From the book's Foreword: In the early 1970s, the U.S. Army Center of Military History contracted with BDM Corporation for a history of U.S. efforts to counter Soviet air and missile threats during the Cold War. The resulting two-volume History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense covers the years 1945-1972 when the strategic arms competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its height. The study was first published for limited distribution in 1975 and recently declassified with minimal redaction. These volumes address the passive and active defense strategies, technologies, and techniques adopted by both U.S. and Soviet defense planners. Much of their actions centered around three common questions: How might we be attacked? How shall we defend our country? What can technology do to solve the basic problems of defending against this new intercontinental threat?