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One Solution for the Teacher Shortage
By Captain W. J. Davis,
U. S. Marine Corps[1]
An AP story recently stated that in order to ease the serious nationwide shortage of secondary school teachers, the Department of Labor desires that former armed forces personnel interested in teaching positions file applications with the Public Employment Service.
Another newspaper article quoted a Navy neuropsychiatrist who charged that “ . . . American young men may be losing their sense of duty and patriotism to new and dangerous ‘gimme’ attitudes . . . that the changing attitudes may be predictive of a future Nation of oldsters who will sit back aggressively and demand that they be supported.”
In addition, the Armed Forces have a very definite morale problem at this time. Popularly known as the “Hump,” it holds numerous promotional worries for young and old career officers alike.
There is a definite tie-in between the foregoing three problems. We, as professional Regular officers, spend a goodly portion of °ur service lives as instructors or teachers. Also, most of us have served for a period lengthy enough to form a basis for good comparison of “incoming attitudes” since World IVar II. And thirdly, all of those in the Regular establishment must mathematically be either within the dreaded “Hump,” or precede it or follow it. Thus, we realize it to be a problem of intensifying magnitude which can apparently be solved only by hurting those behind it with greatly decelerated promotions; or “passing-over” exorbitantly high percentages within it (who were considered proficient enough in the not- too-distant past); or to ease out “permanent” Commanders, Lieutenant Colonels, and Captains and Colonels, who are already past it, on the average of five years prior to the 26 or thirty years they had been originally “guaranteed by law.”
The latter method, while it appears to have been selected as the best of many possible solutions, actually has certain basic flaws. For many years now, we have, in much the same manner as our civilian confreres, taken up the chant that youth must be served, that a man over forty is on the way out, that a man over fifty could not possibly learn a new trade or profession, and so on down that infamous line of reasoning until a man is retired from any gainful occupation, no matter how mentally or physically capable he may be, 65 years from the day he came upon this earth.
While it is quite evident that the billets filled by Navy Ensigns and Marine Second Lieutenants normally do require extremely vigorous young gentlemen, there still remain many, many billets in both services for men over forty. Thus, it would appear that the problem of the “Hump” would not necessarily be best solved by “retiring” some fifty percent of all Commanders and Lieutenant Colonels at the earliest convenience of the government.
The fact must be faced that there are innumerable officers in both the Navy and the Corps who are not all of potential admiral and general caliber, but who have served loyally and proficiently for some seventeen to twenty years. Is it really demonstrating a fair appreciation of this loyalty to “change the law” on these officers? By this, I mean that they became, for example, permanent lieutenant colonels in the Corps with the understanding that no matter what transpired “passover-wise,” as long as they could pass their annual physicals, they and their families had been guaranteed the quasisecurity of completing at least 26 years of active duty.
Yet, it appears that the Congress will be asked to retire these gentlemen, after the compulsory two passovers, some five years early. Some feel this can become an equitable solution by giving the same retirement benefits to these officers that they would normally have accrued at the end of their originally- planned twenty-six-year tours. However, is this truly an equitable solution?
Is there a possible alternative to the proposed solution? And how does it tie in with the teacher shortage among our civilian cohorts? And what can this possibly have to do with the attitudes of those now joining our military ranks, voluntarily or otherwise?
It is recognized that the answer to the “Hump” problem is quite definitely to require no longer the services of certain professional officers. However, it is further held that a true solution would not require the severance of those extremely loyal ones who intensely desire to continue their relatively long periods of service, rather than be prematurely retired, but to seek out a segment of Regular officers who might possibly request retirement, at no greater cost to the Government than the proposed stipend of approximately five “free” years of credit presently, or soon to be, proposed to the Congress.
There is such a group among our Regular officers. For the most part, they lie within a group which has, by percentage of time spent on active duty, seen more than its share of actual combat, since they were junior officers in the Navy and Corps in both
World War II and Korea. Their major problem is not that they do not love the life military; it is just that their families are not quite as happy as they feel they would be if their wage-earners were to return to the life civilian.
The main reason for the great majority of these officers remaining on active duty is a very realistic one: they do not want to give up the goodly percentage of active duty time they have towards their goal of twenty years active duty and retirement at 50 percent of their base pay.
Perhaps the next major reason for the above is the uncertainty as to what field of endeavor they would turn before completion of their 20. Their eternal question amounts to this: just what is a relatively young naval officer who has spent most of his career on line duty aboard DD’s prepared for on the “outside”; or for what does a middle-aged Marine infantry officer (anyone over 29 is considered to fall within the category of “middle-aged” in this particular occupational field) consider himself exceptionally qualified upon his return to civilian life?
The solution is rapidly becoming quite obvious, isn’t it? The answer to both of the foregoing is quite definitely: TEACHING! How many questions have these young officers answered in their service careers? How many classes, formal or otherwise, in peacetime training and in wartime live- firing problems, have they held, planned, lived?
For the most part, they already possess college degrees. Perhaps these are not necessarily within the field of education, but it would not take these highly trained personnel long to readjust and qualify.
Can there be any question as to their loyalty to their country, their service and the other services, their fellow servicemen, plus their over-all patriotism? Let us not forget that the primary reason for these Regulars leaving their original chosen profession is for the sake of their family’s desires, not because they themselves have become disenchanted with military life.
Therefore, the neuropsychiatrist’s well- founded worries might be changed 180 degrees if this type of officer could be persuaded to become a teacher in civil life. Can
you imagine a young naval officer who has probed the enemy’s waters in the confines of a submarine, or a young Marine officer whose platoon or company raised the flag in Seoul a few days after the Inchon operation permitting his students to become lackadaisical about the ideals of the country for which he has so recently fought?
Next, let us find some means of legally persuading these returnees to civil life to become teachers of our youth. It is here that they could put to best use their years of practical schooling experience with the products of the current civil system which, in the long run, should eliminate our third problem, the alleged losing of a sense of duty and patriotism of our youngsters to these “new and dangerous ‘gimme’ attitudes.”
Here is one solution: we could halve the present “retire on 20” law by requesting the Congress to permit the retirement, when it is deemed in the best interests of the service, of those gentlemen:
(1) Who have completed a minimum of ten years of active duty, the last five of which were continuous commissioned service; and
(2) Providing that they either take immediate positions in the educational system of this country, or enter an institution of higher learning in order to prepare themselves for such a vocation (by means of a current GI Bill); and
(3) That they remain in the Active Reserve of their particular branch of the Armed Forces until their services are no longer required by that branch; and further,
(4) That they shall be retired from active duty with a minimum pension of 25 percent of their base pay at the highest rank held, plus an additional two and one-half percent for every year of active duty over the required minimum of ten years.
Controlling the Terrier Guided Missile
By R. M. Nolan[2]
Designing the control computer for Terrier Guided Missiles presented many unique problems. While basic control is similar to that of gunfire control, guiding a missile requires the solution of additional problems not found elsewhere. While security prevents the mention of the problems peculiar to the Terrier missile, some of the other uses of the control computer can be described.
The Terrier missile is installed on the cruisers USS Boston and USS Canberra. Upon launching, a booster rocket accelerates the missile from zero velocity to flight speed and then separates and drops away. When properly launched, the missile can be controlled to intercept its target, even though the target may be in motion throughout the missile’s flight.
Besides solving the particular missile problems, the computer performs other functions not directly connected with missile control, such as gun order computation and aerology wind printer input computations. This versatile computer, the Mark 100, produced for the United States Navy Bureau of Ordnance by Ford Instrument Company, Division of Sperry Rand Corporation, operates in conjunction with search and tracking radar in Terrier guidance and control.
Essentially, the functions of the Mark 100 computer in missile control are positioning the missile launcher and providing certain signals to the missile-controlling search and tracking radar.
For computation of launcher orders, the fire control problem to be solved is similar to an anti-aircraft gunfire control problem in most respects. However, control of the Terrier requires the solution of additional problems peculiar to missile control. The basic problems common to both gunfire and missile control are target acquisition, tracking, prediction, ballistic lead angles, and geometric corrections.
To solve the acquisition problem, designation signals that are initially orientated in the search and detection equipment coordinates are converted to the coordinate system of the tracking radar.
The tracking radar transmits targettracking data to the computer for solution of target position and rates.
For the solution of prediction, target movement is calculated from the computed rate and time of flight of the missile.
The ballistic lead angle problem is solved by offsetting the line of fire of the missile. These offsets are lead angles that compensate for the departure of the missile from straightline flight. Some of the factors considered in the solution are gravity, wind, and launcher motion.
Geometric correction is provided by correcting the line of fire for parallax base lengths between the computer and missile launcher.
Another problem requiring solution for missile guidance is the arrow weather vane effect. This problem is incurred because of the Terrier’s tendency to point into the wind at all times. At the low velocity present at launching time, the wind affecting the missile is, in effect, the apparent wind being felt at the launcher. This wind is a combination of true wind and apparent wind. The apparent wind is a force due to the combination of wind effect due to ship motion, and wind effect due to rotational and translational motions of the missile launcher. The computer solves these factors and determines the proper offsets to the line of fire required
to compensate for the combined effect of true and apparent wind.
The computer operates in three basic modes while accomplishing all of its functions. These modes of operation are: Acquisition Mode, Tracking Mode, and Nontactical Mode.
In the acquisition mode, designation information is received from target designation equipment, ships compass, and stable element. The computer then integrates these values and refers designation signals, corrected for pitch and roll, to the radar coordinate system. After target acquisition, the Mark 100 develops and transmits signals to target designation equipment indicating the position of the tracked target in the coordinate axes of the weapon direction equipment displays.
The computer commences operation in the tracking mode upon reception from the tracking radar of the “On-Target” signal. At this time, the Mark 100 disconnects all target designation input data from the coordinate conversion circuits and reconnects these circuits for use in solving the coordinate conversion problems present in the tracking mode.
Smoothed relative target motion rates are generated from the converted target data and combined with ballistic characteristics of the missile. The computer then determines orders to be delivered to the launcher, missile, and radar. In addition to the above, predicted target position and related tactical data on missile flight and performance are transmitted to display equipment.
In the nontactical mode of operation the computer acquires the target balloon and automatically sets up the tracking mode. The computer then determines wind speed and bearing at given altitudes together with the north-south and east-west components of wind speed. These quantities are transmitted to an aerology wind printer for recording.
The Mark 100 computer evolved from the Mark 84-85 computer system, conceived by the U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance and designed and built by Ford Instrument Company for a prototype installation aboard the USS Mississippi. While the Mark 84-85 computer performed somewhat similar functions to the Mark 100, this later computer, mstalled on the cruisers USS Boston and USS Canberra, is a much more complex and advanced missile controller. The Mark 100 ls housed in two cabinets, one electronic and one mechanical, and performs many functions automatically which were performed manually by the Mark 84-85 computers.
Report from Germany
By Rear Admiral Siegfried H. Engel,
Former German Navy, Special Correspondent to the U. S. Naval Institute
The Federal German Navy hopes in the autumn of this year to muster its first major warship. Under a lending arrangement, the USS Anthony will sail on October 1 with a Uerman crew on board to Bremerhaven where for the next five years the ship will belong to the second Destroyer Squadron. Anthony, a big destroyer of the Fletcher-class, was built in 1943, has a displacement of more Ihan 2,000 tons and a speed of 35 knots. Another unit which the young fleet owes to the United States, has just been commissioned. She is the U-12, a 370-ton subchaser which now belongs to the naval school for underwater weapons.
Supersonic “Aerial Bobsled’’ Ejection Seat
Convair News Release.—The above pilot is sitting in normal flight attitude in a mockup of a new aerodynamically contoured ejection seat under development by the Industry Crew Escape Systems Committee. This seat is one of two main approaches to supersonic pilot escape being evaluated for “century
series” aircraft by the ICESC. The seat has now been rotated 90 degrees into supine position for launching into airstream. Pilot’s legs are securely positioned against his chest by foot supports and contoured seat pan. Seat is automatically separated from the aircraft and ejected horizontally into the airstream by a small rocket motor. The new seat, miniature models of which have been tested exhaustively in wind tunnels, soon will be subjected to full-scale windblast and ejection tests at Air Force rocket sled tracks at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and Hurricane Mesa, in Southern Utah.
Eighteen Start Antarctic Ordeal
By Ansel E. Talbert
New York Herald. Tribune, April 20, 1957. -—An epic of American heroism is being enacted directly at the geographic South Pole which is on a 9,100-foot-high plateau on the vast and almost lifeless Antarctic Continent.
Eighteen Americans—nine scientists and nine supporting United States Navy personnel—are camping there in the darkness of the South Polar night amidst the toughest natural environment to which humans have ever been subjected. They have just reported by short wave that they are “pushing 90 degrees Fahrenheit below zero”—a mark on the thermometer equal to the lowest ever recorded anywhere on the globe before— with an additional chill factor caused by ten to twelve-mile-an-hour winds.
125 Degrees Below Zero
This is only the beginning, for the sun left them a short three weeks ago. The long Antarctic winter which is now upon them (the seasons are reversed below the Equator) is expected to bring temperatures as low as minus 125 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit by July-
Already the ordinary diesel fuel used for heating and cooking at the South Pole station is so solidified by cold that it must be taken into ready rooms and thawed for hours before it can be run through pipes. All camp supplies have been taken into tunnels and secured for the winter. The South Pole personnel, who are under the joint leadership of a young Navy lieutenant (junior grade) named John Tuck and of Dr. Paul A. Siple, deputy to the late Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, officer-in-charge of all United States Antarctic programs until his death March 11, stay indoors most of the time.
They will go outside briefly, however—at least until the temperatures prove too extreme to bear—to take certain scientific observations relating to weather conditions at high altitudes, to the ionosphere and to the Aurora Australis—the South Pole’s equivalent to the famed Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. Only twice before, in 1892 and 1933, have temperatures as low as minus 90 degrees been recorded, and both of these observations were in the interior of Siberia.
Admiral Byrd was the first person ever to live for any length of time inside the frozen wastes of the Antarctic Continent. In Alone, his account of five months’ isolation in 1934 at Advance Base, far south of Little America he wrote the following description of the effect of low temperatures:
“The inside thermograph tracing showed 82 degrees below zero—so cold that when I opened the hatch [of his shack] I couldn’t breathe on account of the constriction of the breathing passages. The layer of air next to the surface must have been at least 84 degrees below. Anyhow I had to duck into the shack to catch my breath.”
Right now those at the Pole wear breathing masks having steel wool for a filter while on jaunts outside. The steel wool warms somewhat during exhalation and breaks the terrific chill of the sub-zero cold air during inhalation.
The American South Pole inhabitants are confident that their equipment and carefully-planned base—over which this correspondent made three flights late last year while it was being constructed—will see them safely through until October. Then, when the Antarctic spring breaks and landings on skis at the Pole become possible again, they will have contact with the outside world once more. They have a small Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) set with them to aid airplane landings, but it is most unlikely that any plane could get through in temperatures of minus 100 or less in the event of some unexpected disaster.
Fire a Threat, Too
Next to cold, fire probably offers the greatest potential threat. But should the large barracks building, air-dropped in sections by United States Air Force Globe- masters, be destroyed or damaged there are emergency caches of food, fuel and equipment to keep them going.
In addition to the Americans at the South Pole station—which was named the Roald Amundsen-Captain Robert F. Scott International Geophysical Year base at the suggestion of Admiral Byrd a short time before his death—300 more United States citizens are wintering at six other Antarctic Continent bases.
These are at McMurdo Sound on the Great Ross Ice Shelf, at Little America on the Bay of Whales, in Marie Byrd Land, in the Weddell Sea area, on the Knox Coast and at Cape Adare. The latter is manned jointly by personnel of the United States and New Zealand.
Russians Have Bases
The Soviet Union, which is believed to have a contingent larger than that of the United States now wintering in Antarctica, was supposed to put down six bases for scientific observations during the coming winter. The main coastal station Mirnyy (Peaceful) is on the Knox Coast at the 105th meridian of east longitude and comprises twenty buildings with laboratories, a power and radio station and other fairly elaborate facilities. It is known to be currently occupied along with three satellite stations. But nobody knows for sure right now the status of two proposed interior Soviet stations—Vostok, scheduled to be established 600 miles from the coast near the South Magnetic Pole, and Sovietskaya at the “Pole of Inaccessibility.”
Naval Construction, Conversion and Repair in Private Yards
Excerpt from the Annual Report of Shipbuilder’s Council of America, April 1, 1957. —Prior to World War II, the relative pattern of employment over the years showed about double the employment in the private shipbuilding and ship repair yards as compared with that in the naval shipyards. During the war, the employment reached unprecedented heights in both groups of yards, although wartime employment in the naval shipyards never reached much more than about 25% of that in the private yards. Employment dropped rapidly in 1945, and by 1950 employment in both groups reached approximately the same level, still higher than prewar. Thereafter, employment increased somewhat in both groups due to the Korean War. Since that war, naval shipyard employment levels have decreased slowly, but still are almost equal to the corresponding private shipyard employment levels.
It is evident that naval shipyard employment ceilings are being maintained arbitrarily at a level to handle the heavier naval work load inherent in a cold war status, while the employment in the private shipyards is predicated largely upon the work load available to commercial shipbuilding and ship repair yards, which for the past several years has been at an unusually low level.
By way of illustration, total production employment in the last quarter of 1956 in the ten continental naval shipyards was about 40 per cent more than the total production employment in all of the 101 private shipbuilding and ship repair yards which report their employment quarterly to the Council.
A much greater contrast is evidenced by comparing the employment in the ten naval shipyards for that quarter with the employment in the ten largest coastal private shipbuilding and ship repair yards—the ratio being about 275 per cent more employment in the naval shipyards.
The Navy has recognized the problems of the private shipyards upon whom it must rely, and whose mobilization potential is vital to the national security. A substantial portion of its shipbuilding program for the past several years has been allocated to private shipyards and has been an important factor in enabling the private yards, but only those yards to which naval shipbuilding or large conversion contracts were awarded, to tide themselves over a badly depressed period in the industry.
As for the ship repair yards, the Navy adopted a policy several years ago, at the instance of the Industry, of allocating a greater proportion of the naval repair work load to private repair yards than heretofore. The results of that policy have been helpful, but not to the extent that had been anticipated or hoped for. Production employment
in the naval shipyards did decrease somewhat from 1953 to 1954 (about 8%) at a lesser rate from 1954 to 1955 (nearly 3%), and from 1955 to 1956 another 3%.
However, in order to provide a reasonably adequate work load in the private repair yards, so as to maintain the necessary mobilization potential, it is self-evident that a much greater portion of the naval repair and conversion work load than heretofore be allocated to private repair yards. The private repair yards must have available to them a reasonable work load of naval work in order to maintain their know-how on specialized naval work, skilled personnel in sufficient volume to form a nucleus for expansion in the event of national emergency, and the maintenance of facilities necessary for mobilization.
The problem of maintaining the private repair yards is an economic one while the maintenance of the naval shipyards is not. They are maintained by government appropriations, regardless of work load, and even with a relatively low level of employment, they still are kept in condition to quickly assume a work load imposed by mobilization. It is conceded that both groups are necessary in the event of mobilization. But both may not still be in existence or qualified unless the private repair yards can obtain a reasonable work load. Adequate naval repair work is a means to that end.
The only practical way to assure such a work load in the private yards is to substantially curtail employment levels in the naval shipyards. Any claim that such action would put men out of work is not sound, as, given the same total approximate work load, a shift of a part of that load to private repair yards necessarily involves building up employment in the private repair yards to approximately the same extent that it is decreased in the naval shipyards. Hence, the total overall employment on naval repair work, whether in private repair yards or in naval shipyards, in the same vicinity will remain approximately constant under such conditions.
It may not be practical to restore the prewar ratio of relative employment in the naval shipyards and private repair yards, but substantial progress in that direction, neverthe-
less, can be made to the end that Government competition with the private ship repairing industry may be reduced to a minimum.
Soviet Base in Albania
Translated from Deutsche Soldaten Zelliing, March, 1957.—Albania is the smallest Soviet base, but because of its geographical position as Moscow’s advance base in the Mediterranean, it has an important place in Soviet strategy. Taking advantage of the natural facilities of the Bay of Valona and the island of Saseno, the Soviets have set up a strong air and naval base. Saseno, a small island of about seven to nine square kilometers, dominates the narrowest point in the Adriatic. It is only sixty kilometers from the Italian coast. The rocky shores of the island rise 300 meters sheer above the sea. As at Gibraltar, the rocks are pierced by tunnels and gun emplacements, with bunkers and supplies sufficient for a garrison of 4000 men for four months.
Through the split with Tito in 1948, the Soviet Union lost out in both Rijeka and Pula. Shortly thereafter, the fortification of Saseno was begun in the greatest secrecy. German war prisoner engineers, using their experience in the works at Brest and Saint Nazaire, drew the plans for the U-boat bunkers which were set up both on Saseno and the approaches to the Bay of Valona. Torpedo tubes were built into the rocks at sea-level, and launching platforms were set up at higher levels for guided missiles within easy range of the Italian naval base of Taranto. Three subterranean canals through the Isthmus of Karaburun enable submarines to pass directly from the sea into the bay. Saseno is covered by a strong fighter plane group. Sixty planes are ready for action on the three airfields—two northeast of Valona and one on the river Dukati. An additional group of Soviet planes is at anchor at the seaplane base in the Bay of Valona.
Hence, at this point in the narrows of the Adriatic, a center of Russian maritime operations will develop in the event of a conflict. According to the estimates of the British Admiralty, the Soviet fleet will have within three years more than thirty cruisers, 150 destroyers, and 500 submarines! In addition there will be some 2,000 small units (mine sweepers, torpedo and speed boats, frigates, etc.) However, the Soviet Admirals know very well that they can never overtake the lead of the allied fighting fleets. For this reason they place great hopes on a strong U-boat arm, and within this program Saseno will play a significant role as a threat to the Mediterranean sea route.
The 35,000-man Albanian army is not organized in divisions. It serves primarily in the maintenance of internal security and in fortification work for the Soviets. Together with the army of the Hodja regime, the entire land of Montenegro serves the single function of the Soviet base.
Soviet specialists build airfields camouflaged as collective farms, as well as naval bases and other military installations. Soviet troop units, chiefly technical are stationed in the state agricultural establishments. The Albanian peasants were forcibly evacuated.
In this respect the Soviets are following the tradition of their predecessors who were interested in the strategic control of the area.
The government operation of “8 September, 1941,” controlled, by way of example, the avenues of approach to the Durazzo harbor and the autostrade going in the direction of Bitlj toward Yugoslavia. The Romans had already set up a fortified camp here, and later Mussolini had established a combination of airfields and other military bases. Today the artillery and air units of the Red Army are holding the fort.
Another Soviet military base is located on the road toward Durazzo, some 25 kilometers from Tirana, at the Sovkhoz Draper- Elchekane (banner and Sickle). The planes stationed here carry the Albanian emblem, but the officers and crews are Soviet Russians.
In the government Textile Kombinat of Tirana, which has not yet been completely built, Soviet specialists are setting up shops for the production of weapons and munitions, as well as establishments for the repair of heavy weapons. The Soviet Ambassador in Albania, M.D.S. Tschuwashin, explained that the Kombinat in Tirana was not to be considered merely a Soviet contribution to the industrialization of Albania, but primarily as a factor in building up of defense.
According to dependable reports, Soviet ship movements toward Albania are extremely active. These data constitute a Soviet military secret. Frequently vessels destined for Albania are listed officially as headed for Italian ports but make intermediate calls at the Albanian ports of Durazzo and Valona.
Within a half-year period, incomplete observation in Albanian ports indicated an unloading of 65,000 tons of cargo from Soviet vessels. The cargoes consisted mainly of airplane parts, fuel, concrete materials (for construction), automatic weapons, automobile trucks, and artillery. From these transports were landed, among others, 80 members of the Soviet W-81 Division and a considerable number of Soviet pilots.
Albania is for Moscow only a part of the centuries’-old dream of warm water expansion, but it is by no means a negligible part of this Russian dream.
* * * *
Super-Radar Guides Navy’s Missiles Direct to Target
By Ansel E. Talbert
New York Herald Tribune, May 4, 1957.- The Navy revealed that it has a new class of long-range, high altitude “super radars” resembling gigantic searchlights in service with the fleet to direct Terrier antiaircraft guided missiles toward supersonic enemy jet aircraft.
The Terrier is a needle-nosed, pencilshaped missile twenty-seven feet long; following its launching a twelve-foot-long booster rocket drops away after propelling the fifteen-foot forward section containing the warhead—faster than sound.
Provides Early Warning
Rear Admiral F. S. Withington, Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance, disclosed that the new missile-guiding radar systems make possible “flexible methods of scanning the air space many miles beyond the horizon and providing the advantage of early warning.” He said he could not explain the methods in detail because of security. But Admiral Withington did say that individual targets for the Terrier missiles “can be selected from
groups of enemy aircraft flying closely together,” and he added:
“Our new super radar systems are giving exceptionally high performance for tenacious tracking and stable guidance to the target of our supersonic missiles, whether fired singly or in salvoes at individual or multiple- enemy attackers.”
On Navy lists the new “super radars” will appear as the AN/SPQ-5. It was disclosed yesterday that the system was developed by Sperry Gyroscope Company of Great Neck L. I., and is being produced currently at a new $2,000,000 manufacturing facility called the Sperry Piedmont Co. of Charlottsville, Virginia.
President Eisenhower, on March 18, witnessed a spectacular demonstration in the Caribbean of the shooting down of a target plane by a Terrier missile launched from the missile ship Canberra, a converted cruiser, on which the President was traveling. No details about the guidance system for the missile were given out then, nor were the massive, turret-like “super radar searchlights” identified.
Admiral Withington said yesterday that two AN/SPG-5 systems aboard the Canberra “combine many automatic functions.”
Do You Know the Rules?
By Lieutenant, (jg) Perry F. Creighton, U. S. Navy[3]
Do you know the rules? If so, do you obey them?
Out of man’s fight against the sea have come many lessons of experience, and some of them have been bitter. They are not easily forgotten. Respect for the wild splendor of the sea, the life within it, the elements which surround it, and the vessels which sail upon it, is inevitable.
From this respect has grown a need for rules of survival; most of the laws of the sea, some unwritten, have been based on this need.
Collision at sea, even today, takes a heavy toll of life and property. The need for prevention is not a new one. It was recognized years
ago, as evidenced by the regulations for preventing collisions adopted in 1890. It is recognized today, as evidenced by the new international rules. Why, then, must we look forward to disaster from this source?
Rules to prevent collisions of ships at sea, when known, when understood, and when obeyed by all parties concerned, will prevent collisions, will save lives, and will protect shipping.
It is not enough to know part of the rules. It is the responsibility of every officer who stands a deck watch, and every master who commands a ship, to know all of the rules, when and where to apply them, and the possible consequences of failure to observe. They must be obeyed—not partially, but completely—and with the wisdom contained in Part C—Steering and Sailing Rules (International Rules), paragraph 1, which states, “In obeying and construing these Rules, any action taken should be positive, in ample time, and with due regard to the observance of good seamanship.”
Rules to prevent collisions of vessels are Printed in small pamphlets marked with the seal of the United States Coast Guard, the government agency charged with the responsibility for their enforcement.
They are entitled as follows:
CG-169 “Rules to Prevent Collisions of Vessels and Pilot Rules for Certain Inland Waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and of the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico.”
CG-172 “Pilot Rules for the Great Lakes and Their Connecting and Tributary Waters and the St. Marys River.”
CG-184 “Pilot Rules for the Western Rivers and the Red River of the North.”
The advent of electronic equipment, plus lhe possible development of underwater operations in the future, has imposed and wdl continue to impose, additional responsibilities. Some changes to the rules may be- L'ome necessary. In the meantime, however, 'Ve have good, practical rules which will as- Slst the seafaring man in his business of laking a vessel from port to port, in safety, ar>d with due regard for the other fellow.
Regardless of geography, the following questions must be asked: Do you know the Rules? If so, do you obey them?
Air-Traffic System Modernization
By Richard Witkin
New York Times, May 5, 1957.—A far- ranging program to modernize the air-traffic system and keep it modern was made public last week by a team of experts working under White House auspices.
Essentially, the plan would subject a major portion of air traffic to strict policing from the ground, in good weather or bad. It calls for “positive control” of all high-altitude traffic, and all traffic at designated lower altitudes along crowded routes.
The recommendations will be put before President Eisenhower in the next two weeks or so by his aviation adviser, Edward P. Curtis. Mr. Curtis appointed the ten-man team of experts last spring.
The proposed system would be used jointly by military, airline and private planes. The last category covers a wide spectrum, from large corporation planes to small pleasure craft.
The private pilot lacking bad-weather qualifications could take advantage of the control system in good weather provided he had basic equipment, such as two-way radio, on board. Even without such equipment, the private pilot would not be relegated to the outlands. He would be able to fly congested routes at unreserved altitudes so long as Visual Flight Rules (VFR) were in effect.
VFR flying is permitted only when weather is good enough for pilots to stay clear of clouds and visually keep safe separation from other planes. The only additional fetters on uncontrolled planes would be a speed limit, probably about 200 miles an hour, and perhaps a cockpit buzzer that would sound if the plane strayed into controlled air space.
Present System Inadequate
The present traffic-control system, with controllers scribbling flight plans on cardboard strips and air-ground radio channels too few and too cluttered, is so old-fashioned it could not begin to handle the increased loads. It cannot even handle today’s traffic. Bad weather, requiring controlled flying.
causes wholesale airline cancellations.
The White House team recommended a detail overhaul program. It is a long-range program taking into account the predicted growth of aviation between now and 1975. The new system is intended to increase the capacity of the airways tenfold in that period and slash the collision danger to one- tenth its present level.
In the New York area, it is anticipated that the new system would be able to handle a maximum of 842 controlled landings and takeoffs an hour. The current peak figure is 140. Total movements in the area—controlled and uncontrolled takeoffs and landings—are expected to increase from a peak of 350 to 1,200.
The new system would involve great reliance on automation—on devices for calculating arrival times, for displaying traffic movements, for visual communication between air and ground. But critical decisions on traffic movements would remain tightly in human hands operating radio-equipped control stations on the ground.
The team estimated that an indefinite annual budget of $35,000,000 to §40,000,000 would be required to carry on research and developments on new devices and procedures. However, it was hoped that enough could be done with existing technology so that the nation could start converting fairly rapidly to the new traffic system.
The head of the Civil Aeronautics Board, James T. Pyle, said *n March that it would be 1962 before all high-altitude traffic could be put under “positive control.”
The term means planes must fly routes authorized by the CAA. It means pilots must make periodic position reports so that, if a conflict develops, controllers can alter routes or order planes to circle.
To handle the extra traffic volume that would come under its jurisdiction with high- altitude all-weather control, the CAA needs many more radar sets, more communications, more controllers. These are being provided under a program currently scheduled to be completed in 1962.
The White House team, however, would like to see the program accelerated so that all-weather control could be instituted above 18,000 feet in the next year or two. Control
is not mandatory anywhere today except in bad or instrument weather:
Flexible Routes
In the high-altitude zone, routes between major points would be flexible. Ground controllers would guide planes on weaving courses, taking best advantage of wind conditions and involving least exposure to thunderstorms.
Below this zone, airways along congested routes would be rigidly marked. For example, between Washington and New York, the busiest route in the country, traffic would flow along six parallel airways at eight reserved altitudes. Each airway would be ten miles wide. A scope in the cockpit showing a map of the area with a grid superimposed would enable the pilot to navigate with great precision. Ground radar would provide a double check.
Generally, three airways would be for northbound traffic, three southbound. Planes also would be segregated according to speed —high, medium and low.
Forty miles from destination, each airway would split into three descent lanes, each three miles wide. Twenty-five miles out, lanes from three airways—or nine lanes in all—would feed traffic into an initial buffer zone thirty miles wide.
Here, ground radar operators would maneuver planes to space them out in relation to each other and in relation to traffic funneling into New York from north, east and west. From this buffer zone, planes would be guided down rigidly-delineated descent paths to a second buffer zone, over or off to the side of each of the city’s major airports.
Easier for Pilot
The system not only would make possible a greatly increased flow of traffic. It also would make life much easier for the pilot.
Today, a pilot must constantly change radio frequencies as he navigates from one radio-marked point to another. The grid map used in the new system would operate on a single radio frequency.
Today, a pilot never knows from one flight to the next what his final flight path into the city will be. To follow ground instructions, he
must refer to fantastically complicated charts ~^often in bumpy weather with compromise lighting that cannot be too bright lest it interfere with his view of the world outside.
In the new system, a pilot would follow a flight path that was pretty firmly fixed along any particular route. Complex charts would be passe. •
Fastest Submarine
British Information Services, April 22, *957.—Britain’s fastest submarine, Explorer, ls “a strong contender” for the title of fastest submarine in the world. The Explorer has exceeded 25 knots under water.
The Explorer, Britain’s first high-test Peroxide submarine, is entirely unarmed. Her Purpose is to act as a fast target to train the Hoyal Navy’s new frigates and other surface Cfaft, as well as the Royal Air Force, in the latest tactics against high-speed underwater raiders. It is unlikely that an operational class will be built, particularly for offensive purposes.
I he Explorer has a displacement of only .9 tons and an overall length of 225 feet j'mhes. Submerged at high speed, she is highly maneuverable. Only the readings on •be instruments and a tremor on the depth Sauge suggest high speed to the crew.
. She differs chiefly from other submarines 111 that she is completely self-contained. The engines which drive her at speed when submerged are powered by turbines driven by ”e combustion of oxygen from high-test Peroxide and diesel fuel. The submarine is herefore entirely independent of the outside atmosphere for the supply of oxygen.
She has two shafts normally powered by
conventional submarine motors. These can be switched over to the turbines which derive their power from diesel fuel burned in steam and oxygen which is formed by the decomposition of highly volatile high-test peroxide.
Each turbine installation operates on a “direct cycle,” so-called because heat transfer takes place between hot gas and water which passes a mixture of steam and carbon dioxide to the turbine.
A triple pump supplies the peroxide, special oil fuel and feed water to a control valve. This allows the peroxide to be fed to a catalyst chamber where violent break-up of the peroxide occurs. A steam-oxygen mixture then passes to the combustion chamber.
The direct manufacture of oxygen is the most significant happening aboard the Explorer. This development cannot be found in any other submarine in the world.
The second and third movement of the control valve passes water and then fuel to the combustion chamber, the water serving the purpose of cooling the chamber and reducing the gas outlet temperature to that required by the turbine inlet. This combustion chamber supplies the steam-oxygen mixture to the turbine through a change-over valve, which, to obviate the danger of a build-up of neat oxygen in the condenser, discharges waste products overboard.
The condenser is designed so that the steam is condensed and the carbon dioxide also separated from it. The former is returned to a feed tank, while the gas is discharged overboard by a special compressor. No tell-tale bubbles rise to the surface because the gas dissolves instantly when it comes in contact with the sea water.
Though high-test peroxide is dangerous to handle, and creates high temperatures, there have been no difficulties in the Explorer. Special hoses are kept aboard for use if any high-test peroxide escapes.
The Explorer differs in appearance from the more conventional submarine in that she has a small squat bridge well forward which gives her a hump-backed appearance. She is well streamlined, and her superstructure fittings are retractable.
Her normal complement has been given as seven officers and 42 men, although she goes to sea with a good deal less. They share three tiny compartments. Because conditions are more cramped than in an operational submarine, the crew usually live aboard the tender, HMS Miner VIII, which is normally in attendance. When at sea, the Explorer obtains her high-test peroxide from the Royal Navy’s auxiliary tanker, Spabeck.
6th Fleet Vessels Get Supplies by Wire Under New Program
Navy Times, March 30, 1957.—Ships of the 6th Fleet now get supplies by wire in a new speedy and simple provisioning process developed at the Naval Supply Center here.
Called Operation pop (Provisions Ordering Procedure), the new scheme uses Navy messages instead of requisitions by ships ordering provisions from refrigeration ships or reefers. In use for six months, its purpose is to speed up requisitioning, simplifying replenishing, and cut paper work, both for the customer ship and reefer.
Operation pop was developed by the supply center with Commander, Service Force, Atlantic.
The Aldebaran was the Navy’s first reefer to put Operation pop in practice.
A Fleet Issues Provisions load list was compiled by ComServLant and sent to all 6th Fleet vessels. The list shows items by number, nomenclature, unit of issue, case net weight, case tube and standard quantity tables (cases).
Under the standard quantity tables are listed various numbers of cases. The tables are set for the quantity of each item that certain size ships normally require.
For instance, a ship with a crew of 125 men will normally need all provisions in
quantity table B. A ship with a crew of 3000 would require F table quantities.
However, a ship is not restricted to ordering from a single quantity table, but can order from various tables.
Under the new system, a customer ship orders provisions by simply sending a message to the reefer. This pop message gives the requisition number, quantity table, date of last replenishment and number of men aboard. The last two items are required to determine if the quantity tables have been set up correctly.
Low quantity items on the load lists, such as spices and flavorings, are marked with asterisks. If a ship does not need these items the words “No Asterisk Items” are added to the pop message.
When a pop message reaches the Aldebaran, storekeepers pull pre-punched cards, prepared by the supply center, for each item requisitioned. These cards are set up by item number, description and quantity table as well as hatch location.
The cards are then fed through IBM machines which come up with the amount of items needed from each hatch. After issue, the cards are sent to the supply center here and each ship is billed.
India Is Developing a Port for the South; 5-Year Program is Planned for Cochin
New York Times, April 21, 1957.—India will spend 40,()()(),()()() rupees ($8,000,000) during the next five years to develop the fine natural harbor of Cochin into a major port to serve southern India.
On an artificial 800-acre island, in the middle of a sheltered lagoon fringed with cocoanut palms thousands of workers now are busy building new wharves, railroad lines, warehouses and customs sheds. When completed in 1961, Cochin will be able to handle an average of thirty ships a day, or double its present average.
The importance of Cochin, on the Malabar coast, as a major port was recognized centuries ago, but it was not developed until the late nineteen twenties.
Occasionally ships used to call at Cochin, but because of a hard sandbar blocking the entrance to the lagoon they had to anchor
in the open sea and the cargoes were carried ashore in small boats.
In 1928, with the help of a dredger, the lagoon and the shallow entrance to the sea were deepened. A 400-foot-wide channel, thirty-eight feet deep, was dug out of the sea bottom, extending four miles into the Arabian Sea. In the lagoon, two channels, each thirty-eight feet deep and 400 feet wide, were dug, and ships began to enter the port for the first time.
Out of the dredged sand, shell and mud rose W illingdon Island, named after a former British viceroy, Lord Willingdon. Most of the wharves and shipping berths now are situated on this island.
Apart from port installations, several buildings have sprung up on the island. The island is connected with Madras by rail and another link is being built between the island and Quilon, where it will join the railroad network serving the southern tip of India. When completed, the port will serve the whole of southwest India.
An airport has been built on the island, where India’s first naval air wing is based. Nearly half of Willingdon Island has been converted into India’s biggest naval training establishment. The island now is being enlarged to accommodate more naval units.
I here has been a phenomenal rise in the amount of cargo handled at Cochin in recent years. In 1926 the port handled 375,000 tons compared with 1,800,000 tons in 1956.
Navy Develops New TV Screen
New York Times, April 28, 1957.—A new television screen, described as “revolutionary, has come from the Naval Research Laboratory.
“ I he new screen will permit viewing in bright daylight with little loss of contrast,” the Navy said.
Furthermore, the screen “will provide a new simplified approach to color television, and is expected to lead to the development of three-dimensional viewing.”
The basis for the screen, developed by I)r. Charles Feldman of the Naval Laboratory, is a process for depositing a phosphorescent substance on the face of a television tube in the form of thin, transparent films. This deposit is in place of the powders now used.
I he phosphor films are more permanent than the powdered screens, can be made much brighter and present a much sharper image because they do not burn out so easily, the Navy said.
The advantages of transparent screens have been recognized for years, but previous efforts resulted in limited colors and dim pictures, the Navy said.
But Dr. Feldman’s process, it said, has been successful in a full range of colors that generate bright, sharp pictures.
Several television companies “have indicated that development in their laboratories would start immediately,” the Navy said.
The screen resulted from a program of the Office of Naval Research to simplify aircraft instruments, to simplify the operation of jet- fighter airplanes to reduce pilot training time, and to enable fliers to get maximum performance from their craft.
[1] Captain Davis is currently serving with the Third battalion, Ninth Regiment of the Third Marine Division.
[2] Mr. Nolan is an engineering writer for the Ford Instrument Company. He served in the U. S. Air Force during World War II. During the Korean war he served as a member of the U. S. military mission to the Imperial Iranian Air Force.
[3] Lieutenant Creighton is currently the navigator of the USS Vulcan (AR-S).