Sentinel & Safeguard ABM Systems

The Safeguard Program was a United States Army anti-ballistic missile system developed in the late 1960s. Safeguard was designed to protect U.S. ICBM missile sites from counterforce attack, thus preserving the option of an unimpeded retaliatory strike. Safeguard used much of the same technology of the earlier Sentinel Program, which had been designed to protect U.S. cities. Sentinel was developed but never deployed. Safeguard was planned for several sites within the United States, but only one was completed. Until the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system was deployed, the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard complex in Nekoma, North Dakota, with the separate long-range detection radar located further north near the town of Cavalier, North Dakota, was the only operational anti-ballistic missile system ever deployed by the United States. It defended Minuteman ICBM missile silo near the Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota. In May 1969, the US Army Institute of Heraldry approved this shoulder sleeve insignia for Safeguard. It had reinforced underground launchers for thirty Spartan and sixteen Sprint nuclear tipped missiles (an additional fifty or so Sprint missiles were deployed at four remote launch sites). The complex was deactivated in 1976 after being operational for less than four months, due to concerns over continuing an anti-missile-missile arms race, cost, effectiveness, and a changing political climate.