U.S. Army Honest John Nuclear Missile Battery of 1960

Honest John was a nuclear-capable unguided rocket. In Infantry and Armored Divisions ans EAD Honest John Battalions it was mounted on the M139, the heavy-duty version of the 5-ton 6x6. The M289 launcher with a very long 12.9 meter long launch rail is depicted here although the M386 launcher with the shorter rail would’ve been coming in around this time. Each battery had the organic means to assemble the delivered rockets and load them, either with a 5-ton wrecker or with the M405 missile handling trailer (although that took longer). The time between fire missions was about 30 minutes, with most time spent on loading.

During the Pentomic era, each Infantry and Armored Division had an Honest John Battery under its general support Rocket/Howitzer Battalion serving 2 Honest John launchers. Airborne Divisions had a battery directly under its battalion-sized DIVARTY, although if not augmented these had 4 M33 launcher trailers instead. Truck mounted Firing Platoons had a single section. Later in the 60s the Platoon Commander would also be called the Section Commander, while the original Section Chief was retermed Chief of Section.

By the ROAD reorg in the 1960s the Infantry Division Honest John allotment increased to a 2-battery battalion with 4 launchers. However this was ripped out of our cold dead hands with the H-series TO&Es of the 1970s, leaving divisions with just 12 8” howitzers in general support.

Honest John was replaced by Lance in the 1970s, which was served by FA Battalions providing corps-level support.