Reeves Instrument Corporation (RICO) was a

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

manufacturer of computer and radar systems for the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The corporation was the

Project Cyclone Project Cyclone was a 20-year initiative of the US Office of Naval Research that lasted from 1946 to the mid-1960s. It was one of a series of projects whose purpose was to develop a computer laboratory with a company in the private sector that woul ...

laboratory operator for simulation of guided missiles, and RICO developed several

Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile compon ...

combination (radar/computer/communications) systems ("Q" systems).

History

Reeves was originally "Hudson American…just a little bit before the end of

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

" and in 1946 Reeves Sound Laboratory, a division of Reeves-Ely Laboratories (R.E.L.), was researching "advance gunfire control systems and computers; radar and tracking systems;

guided missile A missile is an airborne ranged weapon capable of Propulsion, self-propelled flight aided usually by a propellant, jet engine or rocket motor. Historically, 'missile' referred to any projectile that is thrown, shot or propelled towards a targ ...

controls; aircraft control instruments… (Research initiated 1942.)" RICO was awarded the Department of the Navy contract No. N60ori-128 on June 10, 1946, for "development of a guided missile simulator and the operation of a simulation laboratory orresearch and development on guided missile simulation" and "development and construction of a rapid and precise automatic analog computer suitable for detailed simulation of guided missiles". The contract's Task Order III on June 12, 1947, required Reeves provide "a simulation laboratory, the Project Cyclone Laboratory, which was to be operated by the Reeves Analysis and Computer Group." Reeves built the lab's original Reeves Electronic Analog Computers in 1947, and a new computing lab of REACs was contracted under Task Order III in 1949. "The guided missile simulator of Task Order II was completed in early 1949 ith asatisfactory demonstration in February 1949 of the guided missile simulator solving a three-dimensional guided missile problem". Early in the

, Reeves developed and tested the N/MSQ-2ABomb Scoring Central, a variant of the MSQ-2 Close Support Control Set developed by

Rome Air Development Center Rome Laboratory (Rome Air Development Center until 1991) is a U.S. Air Force research laboratory for " command, control, and communications" research and development and is responsible for planning and executing the USAF science and technology pr ...

. Bomb Scoring Centrals by RICO were used for Radar Bomb Scoring (RBS), as well as

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

ground-directed bombing (GDB) controlled by TADPOLE sites. "Reeves Instrument Corporation asa wholly owned subsidiary of … Claude Neon, Inc." on April 15, 1955, when the former merged into Dynamics Corporation of America; and on January 20, 1956, the other Reeves division of Neon—Reeves-Ely Laboratories, Inc.--also merged into Dynamics. In 1958, RICO moved production to its

Roosevelt Field Roosevelt Field is a former airport, located in the East Garden City section of Uniondale, on Long Island, New York, United States. Originally called the Hempstead Plains Aerodrome, or sometimes Hempstead Plains field or the Garden City Aero ...

plant on East Gate Blvd in

Garden City, New York Garden City is a village located in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 23,272 at the time of the 2020 census. The Incorporated Village of Garden City is primarily located within the Town of Hempstead ...

. In the early 1960s, the Reeves AN/MSQ-35 Bomb Scoring Central was produced for

RBS and in 1965, the Reeves AN/MSQ-77 Bomb Directing Central was built for

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

GDB. Reeves also produced a 1967 transportable variant of the vacuum tube AN/MSQ-77, and one of the AN/TSQ-81 variants was destroyed after the

Battle of Lima Site 85 The Battle of Lima Site 85, also called Battle of Phou Pha Thi, was fought as part of a military campaign waged during the Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Pathet Lao, against airm ...

in Laos. By the end of the war the vacuum-tube Reeves AN/TSQ-96 Bomb Directing Central with a solid state Univac 1219B ballistic computer was being used for GDB.

References

{{Reflist , refs= {{cite court , litigants=Dynamics Corporation of America v. United States , vol=tbd , reporter=U.S. , opinion=tbd , date=October 15, 1971 , url=http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/449/449.F2d.402.178-68.html , quote=''…the gain from this real estate sale should be attributed to Reeves Instrument Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the plaintiff … Claude Neon, Inc. … Effective April 15, 1955, '' eon' merged into Dynamics Corporation… Effective January 20, 1956, Reeves-Ely Laboratories, Inc…also merged into Dynamics. Prior to the latter merger, Reeves-Ely had been a controlled subsidiary of Neon'' Avionics companies Analog computers Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies Former defense companies of the United States Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer companies based in New York (state) American companies established in 1944 Manufacturing companies established in 1944 Technology companies established in 1944 Computer companies disestablished in 1995 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1995 Technology companies disestablished in 1995 1944 establishments in New York (state) 1995 disestablishments in New York (state) Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City