The Army’s Redstone missile was rushed into the field not long after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Designed by Wernher von Braun and his team of German rocket scientists at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, the missile was a larger, more advanced version of the Nazi V-2. The Redstone often carried a 4-megaton warhead but couldn’t fly more than 175 miles. The combination of a short range and a powerful thermonuclear weapon was unfortunate. Launched from NATO bases in West Germany, Redstone missiles would destroy a fair amount of West Germany.
