Word: radars
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Ferrets & Dew. Soviet ferret raids have already felt out North America's defenses. U.S. jets on radar alert, scrambling from bases in Alaska and elsewhere, have repeatedly spotted distant Red reconnaissance planes. The Russians' mission: to try out the radar screen, draw out interceptors, chart and time defense reactions...
...Reds know that between Alaska and Greenland they can penetrate virtually unchallenged over Far Northern Canada (which has no system of defense or detection other than a volunteer observer corps of trappers and Eskimos). They know that southward, along the U.S. flanks, coastal radar can scarcely spot low-flying planes until too late...
Gaps in the fence are being filled. On the East Coast a chain of some 25 radar stations, called Texas Towers because they resemble oil-drilling platforms in the Gulf off Texas, are to be anchored on the continental shelf up to 125 miles offshore. On both coasts flights of RC-121Cs, "Pregnant Geese", bulging with six tons of radar equipment, will soon maintain patrols around the clock. Canada is already building the mid-Canada line of small, semiautomatic, electronic-detection stations along the 55th parallel, about 500 miles north of the U.S. border...
Jointly, Canada and the U.S. decided this fall to go ahead with a Distant Early Warning ("Dew") radar line along the continent's Arctic edge, some 1,800 miles north of Chicago, far enough away to give the U.S. three hours' warning. But the mid-Canada line will not be ready for months; the Dew line will not be ready for years...
America's fence in the sky now begins at the Pinetree radar line, straddling the U.S.-Canadian border. Begun in 1950, it is now in operation. Cost: some $250 million (paid one-third by Canada, two-thirds by the U.S.). Pinetree is magnificently planned to track incoming raiders and guide U.S. interceptors in air combat. But radar's 200-mile range provides very short notice of attack. The Air Defense Command will not now guarantee any warning time...