The Battle of Palmdale

At 11:54 am on Thursday, 16 August 1956, the US Navy launched an unmanned target drone from Naval Air Station (NAS) Point Mugu in Southern California. It was supposed to have been just another routine weapons testing flight in which the target drone would be shot down. After take-off, however, the ground controllers realized the target drone’s radio control system had failed. As they watched in horror, the out-of-control drone veered left and curved left. It climbed and headed directly toward Los Angeles. What followed was a major crisis. Law enforcement was called, roads were shut down, people ran in panic for shelter, and thousands looked up into the sky wondering into whose home, business, or church the uncontrolled drone would crash. The US Navy decided that the best option was to shoot it down, but they had no aircraft available to intercept it. Therefore, they called the US Air Force and ask if they could shoot it down. The USAF agreed and immediately launched a pair of interceptors from a nearby airfield – Oxnard AFB. Normally, these planes were kept on alert to counter any potential attack by Soviet nuclear bombers – it was the Cold War after all. What followed was equal parts comedy and tragedy. The USAF caught up with the target drone and engage it. They fired 208 air-to-air rockets and missed every time, watching as the rockets as they rained down on the greater Los Angeles area. The damage done was tremendous, far more than what the drone might have caused had it just been left to run out of gas and crash. Properties and vehicles were destroyed. Wildfires were lit and, despite calling in 500 firefighters, they burned over a thousand acres in a weeklong conflagration that threatened yet more homes and properties. Somehow, as if by a miracle, nobody on the ground was killed or injured, though it was a close-run thing. The USAF’s battle against the errant target drone culminated over the City of Palmdale, north of Los Angeles, where the drone ran out of gas. Gliding down, it sliced through a set of high-tension power lines that plunged the entire region into a blackout. Then it struck the desert floor and disintegrated, leaving a crater more than six feet deep. The events were forever after called “The Battle of Palmdale”. It was not the Air Force’s finest hour... In this wargame, you will learn about the events of that day and have the opportunity to see how you would have handled the situation had you been in command. Would you have shot it down over Los Angeles or would you have been able to minimize destruction on the ground? Ultimately, The Battle of Palmdale teaches important lessons about human nature, the limits of technology, and the fickle finger of fate. It shows that top-line jet interceptors and rockets weren’t magic solutions for handling the Soviet threat. In fact, they couldn't even reliably bring down an unpiloted target drone.