| OCR Text |
Show German Troops Begin Firing Near Blanding Ret- tvKITE SANDS MISSILE u U. N. M.. March 26 -WoSp units of the Federal Qlly Republic of Germany Air ' will kick off the spring 9 scries of Pershing off-- off-- 'rane firings with two laun-'hin laun-'hin scheduled this week, icoln The two - stage artillery ballistic missiles, operational operation-al in Europe with U. S. and ''u-ATO defense forces, will OL launched from Black Mesa .near Blanding, Utah. ., They 'will be programmed to impact on White Sands Mis-"ssile Mis-"ssile Rane- The firings represent an- nual practice for the opera-tj opera-tj tional troop units. Important data for improving the system sys-tem or the launch preparation prepara-tion and firing methods also may be obtained in the mul-. mul-. ti-purpose tests. (C .. The two West German un-j un-j its arrived at Black Mesa ' 'early this week. Two weeks 'after their firing, two more 'rounds scheduled in the j spring series will be fired by units of the Seventh U. S. ' Army, on hand from their .stations in- Europe. " During the week of April ,27, the third pair of rounds ...will be fired by two mere units of the Federal Repub- lie of Germany Air Force. The final two rounds in the rpring series will be fired during the week of May 11 ' by two units of the Seventh 1 U. S. Army. The firings this spring will ip, be the first from the Black Mesa site since he fall of '67'. All Pershings fired from Utah to WSMR during 1968 were launched at Gilson Butte, near Hanksville. Members of the U. S. Army's 2nd Battalion, 44tli Artillery, from Ft. Sill,' Okla. are on hand to support the firing units. Approximately 3C0 strong, the 2nd Battalion moved to the Black Mesa site early in March to set up the "tent city" bivouac area, establish vehicle and equipment equip-ment pools, operate mess halls and make other preparations. pre-parations. The 2nd Battalion also provides pro-vides technical and administrative adminis-trative support. This battalion battal-ion was the Army's first Pershing unit, activated in 1963 when the Pershing be came operational. Operations at Black Mesa are carried out under simulated sim-ulated tactical conditions. Exact dates and times for firings are not released to the firing units until a few hours beforehand. Several other organizations organiza-tions support the off -range firing programs. These include in-clude most major elements of WSMR, the Field Artillery Artil-lery Missile Systems Evaluation Eval-uation Group of Ft. Sill, the Pershing Project Manager's Office of the U. S. Army Missile Command at Red stone Arsenal, Ala., and representatives rep-resentatives of the prime contractor for Pershing systems, sys-tems, the Martin Marietta Corp. of Orlanda, Fla. Operations are coordinated through the Utah Launch Complex at Green River, an element of WSMR's National Nation-al Range Operations. |
