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130 Practical Counter-Insurgency Training
By Hillary M. Robinette Lieutenant, U. S. Navy
132 The Lomonosov
By John Warren Giles
134 Defense Communications Agency
By Franklin W. Reese Lieutenant Commander,
U. S. Navy
137 The Navy’s Aperture Card System
By John W. Bernhardt Captain, U. S. Naval Reserve
140 Notebook
The well-read, literary, and polished officer of John Paul Jones’ image ill-fits today’s ever-busy, technically-oriented, and administratively overburdened destroyer officer. Individual commands that have had success in the generation of intellectual enlargement, speaking acumen, and writing development have done so in a conducive atmosphere. Destroyers and similar ships are not known for such an atmosphere.
In the smaller ships of the Fleet the educational enlargement that results from impact with ideas discovered and exchanged in an orderly fashion between officers seldom occurs. To lament the fact that some officers are unable to speak convincingly or write effectively because of grammatical or semantic poverty is to criticize educational forces beyond the purview of this article, and these laments will go unwailed.
In July 1962, the Chief of Naval Operations issued a directive calling for a counter-insurgency education and training program throughout the naval forces. The citadels of naval education and training must have responded with little difficulty, but destroyers have been hard pressed for effective implementation. A successful program provides intellectual involvement and enlargement in the technically and operationally frenetic medium that exists in the forces afloat, particularly in small ships.
The development of an efficient counterinsurgency training program on board a destroyer requires enthusiasm on the part of her officers for current affairs, mental vitality, and the desire to express one’s critical judgment. If the three prerequisites are in evidence, practical and worthwhile counter-insurgency education in these ships is possible.
In one ship ten officers gather every Friday afternoon for one hour. Two of the participants have prepared talks during the week. The first one to speak has prepared an exposition of the theories stated in the study material provided in the Naval War College Extension Course in counter-insurgency. With proper preparation he is able to deliver the salient ideas in about 15 minutes. Then the second officer delivers an oral review of a book which he has selected and read from the bibliography distributed by the Commandant of the Marine Corps in Marine Corps Bulletin 1500 of 10 April 1962. This too, when well prepared, takes about 15 minutes to deliver. Next, a moderator—the “counter-insurgency training officer” (a new collateral duty, perhaps?)—guides and controls a discussion of the theories and practices that were highlighted in the two presentations. When properly and logically conducted, the discussion will last from 30 to 40 minutes.
The War College study material is in the form of a series of essays by eminent political scientists, military officers, and other qualified observers and practitioners of revolution, counter-revolution, and counter-insurgency. The essays are, for the most part, brief and expository in nature, but always stimulating and provocative. They have been arranged and presented in extension-course form, and they were not designed for the shipboard application. But neither has any other counterinsurgency educational material. Once again a problem exists for Fleet units for which no answers have been supplied. The use of extension-course study material provides an orderly approach, when such use is guided by qualified individuals. When the material is used in conjunction with the student’s application to outside but related readings there evolves a systematic and orderly progression into the complexities of counter-insurgency. At the very least the officers come into intellectual contact with and reflect upon problems of great current concern; there is compliance with CNO’s directive, and a refreshing curiosity for and interest in politico-military affairs.
At the end of one year each officer in the training program has read ten selected books on counter-insurgency and allied subjects, and has striven to develop his presentation capability by oral review of the books’ contents. He has also tried to assimilate, judge, and discuss the theoretical foundations of counter-insurgency as organized by the Naval War College extension staff.
The weekly gatherings usually meet with expanding enthusiasm. The officers recognize these sessions as a time apart from the technical and administrative demands of the week. As success with the exercise of critical ability and intellectual enlargement—however meager—becomes apparent, enthusiasm grows greater, and the wheel comes full circle.
From many quarters comes the plea for professional reading efforts and programs. The plea is not so much for reading “in the profession,” but for reading “around it,” to include the growth of political awareness and knowledge of politico-military affairs not ordinarily within an officer’s sphere of daily shipboard activity.
Reading “in the profession” is usually ap-
proached in a restrictive sense. Often applied to seamanship, tactics, navigation, management, leadership, etc., this reading is well cared for in the majority of service schools and training programs. Reading “in the periphery” in politico-military subjects—which for most Fleet officers has little pragmatic value from the “get the job done” viewpoint—is becoming increasingly important to the modern naval officer’s development. In the counterinsurgency training system used above a discursive appraisal of ideas obtained from reading and the subsequent expression of the ideas is of salutary benefit.
By John Warren Giles
THE LOMONOSOV
The Soviet oceanographic ship Mikhail Lomonosov started on her fifteenth exploration expedition in March 1964. She proceeded to the Atlantic from Sevastopol and is continuing her explorations of the tropical zone of the Atlantic for the third stage of the International Expedition for the study of the Atlantic.
The Lomonosov, the world’s largest oceanographic research ship, is a floating research institute for the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. She has 16 laboratories housing various registering equipment and doing the initial processing of the data collected. Some of this research work has not only been begun, but completed on an Atlantic cruise. One scientist studying the biochemical consumption of oxygen in the North Atlantic area, found that there was a connection between the oxygen minimum layer in the Atlantic and the mass of water formed off the western coasts of Africa and carried into the ocean by the northeast trade wind. A detailed investigation was conducted in the Lomonosov's hydrochemical laboratory to determine the biogen- ous elements in the ocean with the aid of a new instrument, a photoelectrocalorimeter. For the past five years the scientists on board the Lomonosov have been making extensive use of autonomous buoy stations, of the one-day and many-day type, to collect information. This has helped to obtain data on subjects requiring attention of long duration.
The laboratories in the ship use self-recording instruments for a continuous registration of data on the processes in the ocean depths. A multiple-wire communications cable is used to transmit the readings from the instruments in the water to the laboratory.
A deep-water, automatic turbulence meter has been produced which operates on the principle of the change of resistance of sensitive platinum elements under the influence of fluctuations in the speed of the current, temperature and electroconductivity of sea water. Inside the instrument container there is a set of electronic units, power supply units, and a registering device. Electric signals are recorded on a 35-mm. film in four different colors for the convenience of deciphering. The turbulence meter was first tested in a laboratory and then installed on the Lomonosov, to be tried out on the ship’s eleventh expedition in 1961. With every cruise the instrument was lowered deeper into the Atlantic. During the fourteenth expedition, in 1963, the turbulence meter made recordings of turbulence processes at depths down to 4,000 meters.
The sea geologists working in the Lomonosov use thick steel pipes to take samples of the ocean bottom for studies of the geological history of the ocean. Echo-sounder readings help to introduce corrections to the existing maps of the ocean bottom relief. During her latest expedition, the geologists on board collected information on the bottom of the Sierra Leone underwater plain. In the bottom samples obtained, they discovered layers of sand and pebbles under the upper layer of deep water silt. These ground samples also contained a substantial quantity of shells of bivalve mollusks and detritus. These findings gave grounds for assumption that in the recent geological past there was either a shoal or a river estuary in the plain. At present, this underwater valley lies at a depth of 3,500 to 5,000 meters on the ocean bottom, and is situated about 1,000 kilometers from the coast of Africa.
During the exploration of the Brazilian Deep, volcanic rock was raised from the ocean bottom, testifying to the eruptions which had taken place there. In the process of investigation of the ocean bottom relief, researchers discovered and recorded several formerly unknown mountain ranges and separate mountains with a subsurface elevation of more than two kilometers, as well as other underwater volcanoes and valleys.
During her thirteenth expedition, made early in 1963, the Lomonosov passed the famous Romanche Deep in the Atlantic. This deep had been explored by several prior expeditions and no new discoveries were expected. However, the ship’s echo-sounders registered a new maximum depth there, exceeding by 264 meters the maximum depth shown on existing maps. The geologists procured from a depth of 7,640 meters a bottom sample more than seven meters long which helped in the analysis of the geological history of the Atlantic.
The biological research done in the ship assists in determining the hydrological processes in the ocean. During one of the expeditions the biologists studied some samples of deep water plankton in the central Atlantic. They discovered that sea fauna, cold water inhabitants by nature, penetrate far into the south. This confirmed conclusions which had been made by the hydrologists concerning the far- ranging deep-water currents of the Atlantic.
With fisheries in mind, the researchers on board the Lomonosov study the biological production of the ocean waters. Some of the biologists who have taken part in the expeditions have compiled maps revealing a picture of the distribution of the plankton biomass in different parts of the ocean, especially in the prospective areas where searches may be made for new fishing grounds.
Physical research plays the leading role in the expeditions of the Lomonosov. The scientists study the composition of the waters, their circulation (surface and depth currents and vertical mixing), turbulence, the thermal regimen of ocean waters, and the laws of thermal
and chemical processes in them. Study is also made of the interdependence of the surface of the ocean and the atmosphere. The ocean-air- ocean heat exchange and the influence of atmospheric circulation on the development of heat waves is carefully observed. A study of the latitudinal changes in the heat balance shows that in the equatorial depression zone there is a sharp fall of the heat balance curve which even goes down as far as the negative value zone.
The data of these explorations have been sent to the world centers compiling geophysical data and are available to scientists from any country. Since 1961 the Lomonosov has been doing research in the tropical zone of the Atlantic. In 1963, she made two cruises to that area and carried out her part of the program of the International Plan of the Exploration of the Atlantic. During these explorations, the ship touched at many Atlantic ports including New York, Liverpool, Dakar, and Rio de Janeiro. In 1959, when the ship was moored in New York City, she was visited by several hundred delegates to the International Oceanographic Congress.
When the ship touched at Dakar in September of 1963, Soviet scientists established contacts with the crew of the U. S. research- ship John Pilsbury and worked in close cooperation with that vessel. At that time the radio station in the Pilsbury was experiencing difficulty, and radio operators on board the Lomonosov retransmitted radio messages to U. S. centers on the results of the U. S. expedition’s studies.
The Lomonosov joined the expedition fleet of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences in September 1957. She was built at the Neptune shipyards in Rostock, East Germany, according to plans worked out in the Academy of Sciences especially for the oceanographic investigations of the Atlantic in keeping with the IGY program.
The ship is 336j feet long and has a full load displacement of 5,960 tons. She is equipped with a 2,450-h.p. Bauer-Wach steam engine with steam provided by two boilers. At her normal 90 r.p.m. the ship attains a speed of 13.5 knots. She has a cruising range of 11,000 miles without touching port. She has eight oceanographic winches for lowering various hydrological, geological, and biological instruments down to 10,000 meters. The deepwater trawl winch has a 4.5-ton thrust, and its drum carries a steel cable with a total length of 7,000 meters which makes it possible to trawl the bottom of the ocean at a depth of about four kilometers.
The ship’s four echo sounders can produce continuous recordings of the bottom relief on the echo-sounder tape from the beginning to the end of the cruise.
The ship designers have endeavored to provide maximum conveniences for the work of the scientists and crew members. As an average there are 65 researchers and laboratory assistants and an equal number of crew members on board. There is an average of five square meters of working space for every man or woman in the vessel.
By Franklin W. Ref.se,
Lieutenant Commander,
U. S. Navy, Assistant Communications Officer,
Amphibious Group Two
DEFENSE COMMUNICATIONS
AGENCY
The past few years have seen the development and growth of many Department of Defense joint agencies, but none has had quite the effect on the Navy’s operational commanders as the Defense Communication Agency.
The stated objective of the agency was to achieve the economies of centralized management over what were then characterized as “the duplicated communications efforts” of the three services. The need to fulfill steadily increasing requirements for communications in addition to the economy factor led to the organization of DCA. In order that the twin goals of military effectiveness in communications and economy of effort would not become interchangeable and that economy would not be achieved at the expense of capability, a fine sense of judgment as to areas of effort and expenditure had to be exercised. The net effect of the first two years of operation by the DCA in the face of rising communications costs and rapidly increasing communications capabilities cannot be measured in terms of dollars saved by reducing the duplication of service communication efforts, or by eliminating services through consolidation of facilities. The management effort was directed at reducing the additional cost which might have been required to provide equivalent communications services under previous concepts of administration. More communications for the dollar would be a more proper description of the objectives actually achieved.
The major contributions of the DCA efforts to date have been along three main lines: First, the use of common message channels has been increased, thereby reducing the number of separately reserved channels required by different services and commands. Second, a system of channel restoration priorities has been established whereby the highest priority channel reservations may pre-empt those of lesser operational importance, in the event of disruption or loss of circuitry during emergencies. The third and most important is the concept of consolidation to provide access to and from any one location through all available or surviving means of communications.
Initially, DCA’s mission and task was to ensure that a Defense Communications System was established, improved, and operated as the single compatible, long-haul, point-to- point communication system of the Department of Defense.
In March 1961, the Defense Communications Agency assumed operational direction of the multi-service Defense Communications System (DCS) composed of the various service-owned, leased, and operated communication networks.
The authority and responsibility of DCA does not extend to the communications peculiar to the tactical operation of military units and forces. Ship-to-shore, broadcast, and intra-unit field communications remain under service management and are controlled by individual commanders, with the exception that tactical circuits which can be provided by DCS are considered part of DCS.
The DCA is manned by civilian and military personnel. Military personnel occupy key policy-making and planning billets to assure the “military” character of the Agency. The DCA consists of a headquarters in Washington and a series of control centers located throughout the world. It is through these control centers that the DCA exercises operational direction over the DCS. Operationally, the control centers are the extension of the DCA through which the current capabilities of the DCS are exploited.
The ultimate goal of DCA is to achieve a single, fully-integrated, compatible communications system. To attain this objective a “Mid-Range Plan” has been prepared, which is updated annually. Basically, the plan provides for a three-phase evolution of DCA components by 1968.
Phase One is the interconnection and integration of existing facilities. This phase, now in progress, entails a review of the world-wide DCS facilities with a view toward consolidation, and integration by interconnection or elimination.
Phase Two will be a transition period leading to the single system. It will encompass the establishment of performance criteria, technical specifications, and operation procedures. Included are the necessary research and development efforts for the development of one automatic switch (or relay) to meet the requirements of a modern, integrated DCS.
The third phase is to be the expansion and progressive modernization of the integrated facilities. Specific programs are aimed at data transmission, space communications, and increased circuit capacity and reliability. Implementation of the three phases will be proceeding in some areas simultaneously, in that new facilities will be established to support new communications concepts.
It is evident that the DCA and DCS have had and will continue to have a profound effect on naval communications. Essentially this is because the Navy no longer provides all of its own communications and, in addition, has a responsibility to provide communications for others where there may or may not be a direct interest. With the advent of DCA the Navy has been provided greater flexibility with access to the total resources available in DCS. No longer is the Navy limited to exclusively Navy resources in communications. There is now improved communications survivability by interconnection and redundancy of circuits.
Finally, DCA has focused attention at high levels on the continuing importance of military communications, and this is important
An important assignment given to the multi-service Defense Communications System is the operation of the U. S. portion of the direct communication link between Washington and Moscow. Here a Navy interpreter, at right, stands by while an Army and an Air Force sergeant operate the link’s teletype machines.
for the DCS in competition for budget dollars.
As in any program of expansion and integration of this type, difficulties have been encountered. The difficulties can be grouped into two major categories: resources and authorities. The resources include the personnel, money, and equipment upon which DCA and DCS have made new demands of the Navy. Problems have arisen not only from the requirement to meet tasks assigned to naval communications but, in addition, from the requirement to respond to a new level of management calling for the performance of new tasks over and above those assigned previously. Generally, the problem involves re-programming of Navy assets previously programmed for other purposes. However, as planning procedure is established, the budget cycle and programming will come together, alleviating the need for re-programming.
A gray area is entered in the category of “authorities.” In the past the military concept has been that communications is the voice of command. A commander must have operational control of the communications alloted to him to accomplish his mission. There is no recent experience in central management of the communications facilities to indicate that these concepts have been successfully challenged. They must be successfully defended, however. The problem stems from the existence, contrary to previous experience, of an agency under the authority, control, and direction of the Secretary of Defense, which has operational direction of the communications resources required by unified commanders for command and control of assigned forces. The situation is further complicated by the fact that in terms of reference some of the commander’s tactical communications may be subject to control of an agency outside of his command authority.
The hope and the promise of the Defense Communications Agency is that through central management of the total resources available a way will be found to provide at a reasonable cost the rapid communications that modern military forces require.
The current effort is to make maximum effective use of available resources. Success in
this effort will reduce requirements for additional communications facilities in reserve. A significant fact to ponder, however, is that never have the communications available to a military commander in time of stress been entirely satisfactory. Provision of a “back-up” communications capacity does not appear very high on the list of communications requirements yet to be fulfilled.
This being the case, the military commander will be tempted to hold in reserve within his own tactical organization those essential elements of communications he thinks are required to preserve operational integrity of his command. Some flexibility or local autonomy in use of resources is required to avoid a nonproductive controversy over control of communications resources which might serve a military commander, but which could become essential elements of national communications links to other commanders.
The DCA national communication control center has the information on availability of circuits and message backlog to make decisions which affect the system as a whole. The area control centers and the local communication stations have available other information, such as which of their circuits are saturated with message traffic and which are idle. Through use of advanced message switching devices now under development, the local stations should be able to control the flow of messages through whatever facilities are available, while at the same time assuring continued access to those facilities allocated as being on-call to specific users. The central organization, working to improve local commanders’ facilities, will thus be providing a means through which both the local and world-wide requirements may be met. A balance must be attained to permit enough central control to assure that facilities are available and enough local autonomy to assure that the facilities are put to their full use.
Sound prognostication is always difficult, but all indications are that the DCA will assume an ever-increasing role in the communications community.
The demand that communications technology continue to keep pace with the current international politico-military situation indicates that a sizeable portion of the defense budget will be required just to stay in the running. Something was required and a management agency such as DCA appeared to be the answer. Its establishment and evolution was a result of pressures over the past 10 to 15 years. Its continuing evolution is now accentuated by the communications challenges created by modern, long-range weapons systems and the politico-military environment in which we live.
The fact that the DCA is staffed by military officers of considerable communications experience affords the best opportunity to assure that the DCA does not become a part of the communication problem of the future. The fact that the military services and commands are both the users and the operators of the Defense Communications System should assure that the system remains responsive to the military requirements of its customers.
The DCA was established because there was a requirement of its existence. It continues to exist because it is fulfilling that requirement.
By John W. Bernhardt,
Captain, U. S. Naval Reserve,
Staff, Electronics Industries
THE NAVY’S APERTURE CARD
SYSTEM
The U. S. Navy was the first organization in this country to use the aperture card in conjunction with engineering drawings. Following the Navy’s lead, many of the largest companies in industry, as well as other organizations within the government, have adopted the aperture card for this application and for other applications with a resulting large savings in costs.
In the Navy today, aperture cards are used in many bureaus and on a variety of ships and stations. These include the Bureau of Naval Weapons, at naval air overhaul and repair stations and naval air supply depots; the Bureau of Ships, at naval shipyards and in many ships including Polaris submarines.
The actual cost savings to the Navy are im-
L p|5 12 18 9___________ |__ 2l ll
DRAWING NUMBER
MkJ ioooiI n
1 CODE IOENT NR.j
POWER SUPPLY GUIDANCE MK 115 MOD 1
| 000000000 3 10 71 1111 14 IS 14 17 1)1111111 222222222 333333333 444444444 555555555 666666666 | 0 0 11 IS 2C 21 22 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 44 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 66 6 6 6 | 0 2314 15 1 1 1 22 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 | 0 26 27 1 2 2 3 3 44 5 5 66 | 000 23 23 S3 1 1 1 222 3 3 3 444 555 666 | 00 31 32 | 000 33 34 35 | 00 38 37 | 000 38 39 40 | 00 41 42 | 000 43 44 45 | 4i | 0 4? | 00 41 45 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 66 | 00 53 51 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 66 | 0 52 1 2 3 4 5 | ||
1 2 3 4 5 6 | ASSOCIATED LIST AND BOOK FORM ENGINEERING DOCUMENT CARO (CARD CODE-B1 | |||||||||||||||||
X 2 tt! | DRAWING NUMBER | CODE 1 DENT. NUMBER | NR. | REV | NR. | REV | NR | REV | NR. | REV | u. ►* o ui | .. o |
| it 1* | Q UJ K O < O O (J |
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SHEET | SHEET | SHEET | SHEET | |||||||||||||||
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This aperture card is similar to some 50,000 carried on board each Polaris submarine. The document on the microfilm provides information about a component of the Mark 80 fire control system for Polaris missiles.
possible to estimate due to the complexities and the large numbers of systems in use. Experts within the Navy close to the systems say the savings “run into millions of dollars per year.” Add to this the savings to other government agencies and private industry and the results are tremendous.
An aperture card is a tabulating card with microfilm in it and with the part number or other identification punched into the card for sorting and searching purposes. The principle is simple. Drawings—a single aircraft may require as many as 80,000—are photographed on 35-mm. film. The film is glued into punch cards, much in the fashion of slides made by amateur photographers, and the cards are filed in appropriate cabinet drawers.
All drawings, which vary in size from 8 Jr by 11 inches to 36 by 48 inches, are converted into a single size and shape and can be found in six to 12 seconds. They can then be pulled and inserted into a reader-printer to supply either an enlarged view of the print or an actual copy of it. The cards occupy only ten per cent of the storage space of the original engineering drawings. Thus savings result from lower storage cost, time of personnel, transporting costs, and, in many cases, they accomplish results which were simply impossible before the invention of the aperture card.
The aperture card was invented by Mr. John F. Langan in 1943. He licensed the government to use his patent for one dollar. In 1948 the Office of Naval Research became the first organization to use the cards for engineering drawings. Today the Navy uses millions of the cards each year.
Polaris submarines take all engineering drawings of their ballistic missiles to sea in the form of aperture cards which fit into one compact cabinet in the submarine. When a crew member has to review a drawing of any part of the system, he needs only to pull the proper card from the file and insert it into the viewer- printer for a look or a push-button copy. The whole job takes only seconds and can be done while the submarine is at sea.
Major suppliers are providing the Navy with rolls of microfilm drawings for all equipment delivered. This has resulted in great savings and has made the blueprint in the sense of a working copy virtually obsolete. More than 1,000 companies in industry are using the card for this and other uses.
★
Notebook
U. S. Navy
H 3rd Floating Garage for Navy (From the New York Herald Tribune, 26 April 1964): Despite spirited opposition in a floor debate by members of its Merchant Marine Committee, the House last week passed an appropriation of $18 million for construction of a third roll-on, roll-off cargo ship to be owned and operated by the Navy.
The $18 million was an almost unnoticed part of the $46.78 billion Defense Appropriations adopted by the House and sent to the Senate.
The Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service has been operating the Comet, first specially built roll-on, roll-off freighter, since 1958. Another such vessel is now under construction in Seattle, Wash. The Navy is seeking a fleet of five ships of the Comet class.
Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R., Mich., pointed out that in a contest between the Comet and a conventional lift-on, lift-off cargo ship of the Challenger class, the Challenger sailed across the Atlantic more quickly than the Comet but that the Comet unloaded its cargo of vehicles faster than the Challenger. On the other hand the Comet's unloading operations were conducted under ideal port conditions which are not likely to be available during wartime operations.
The principal objection raised by various speakers against the appropriation was that for $18 million of government funds three Challenger ships would be constructed under the subsidy program. In addition, Rep. Thor C. Tollefson, R., Wash., pointed out that the total operating cost of the roll-on, roll-off ship would be paid by the government while private lines would pay a substantial portion of operating costs of Challenger class ships.
Rep. John J. Rooney, D., of N. Y., pointed out that construction of Challenger class ships for the same $18 million would spread the risk of loss. “If we were to lose one of them to the enemy, we would still have two and their cargoes left,” he said.
“Whereas with the $18 million ship provided in the pending bill, if we lost that one, that would be the end of our vital military cargo.”
Operators of the privately-operated merchant fleet are not interested in building roll-on, roll-off vessels because of the loss of cargo space on such ships. They also are opposed to Navy operation of cargo ships which are in direct competition with private ships for transporting military cargoes.
s Sub-Rescue Plan Submitted (Mark S. Watson in the Baltimore Sun, 29 April 1964): A Navy group assigned last year to study means for radical betterment of existing submarine-rescue facilities today [28 April] recommended a 5-year program, costing $333,000,000 which would lessen the chance of total disaster to subs, and probably achieve much more.
The deep submergence systems review group, headed by Rear Adm. E. C. Stephan, was named a year ago, shortly after the loss of the United States nuclear submarine Thresher with all 129 men on board in 8,400 feet of water.
There was—and today still would be—no possibility of rescue for, even had Thresher's hull remained intact, today’s rescue equipment would be ineffective at that depth.
What now is recommended is the design and building of a wholly new sort of rescue vessel, capable not only of reaching that depth (which the frail bathyscaph type can do) but of the rapid maneuvering and complex operations essential to useful work.
What the Navy’s experts recommend is a very small sub of 10 or 20 tons, with 8-foot diameter and a length of 15 to 20 feet, which could be moved by airplane to the point needed.
In contrast, the Thresher displaced 3,750 tons, had 31 foot beam and 278 feet length.
New construction material would provide maximum strength at minimum weight, particularly for the third type of new sub—the one which is designed for very great depths.
Thus while the new rescue sub (Type 1) for depths as great as 6,000 feet (very much
I deeper than any true submarine can go today)
would be made of a new Krupp-armor type steel, the search sub (Type 2) and the heavy- object recovery subs (Type 3) designed to j reach 20,000 feet, would presumably have to
employ titanium alloy or plastic.
The significant thing is that the making of a small, sturdy sub with ability to withstand the 6,000-foot pressures is in what technologists speak of as “today’s state of the art,” which means that actual design, based on the requirements data now assembled, can be started just as soon as the Navy professional group’s proposal is supported by the Navy Secretary, Paul H. Nitze, and approved by the Defense Secretary, Robert S. McNamara.
The hope is that this approval will include an allotment of funds for starting work in the coming fiscal year, looking toward authorization of three prototype subs of the kinds just
mentioned.
The prototypes would be completed in three years, and, if testing proved satisfactory, the operating types would follow shortly. Untested, a prototype might be put to limited use, and a “crash” program would hasten readiness date but with accompanying risks.
While the creation of new and greatly improved facilities for underseas rescue was the study group’s first responsibility, springing from national grief over loss of the Thresher (the only such disaster to the Navy’s atomic Propelled subs), Admiral Stephan and his associates went much further in their study.
it 0 Newport News Low Bidder on Carrier
(The Baltimore Sun, 29 April 1964): The Newport News (Va.) Shipbuilding and Dry- dock Company was the apparent low bidder * to build the new aircraft carrier which Con
gress authorized two years ago, the Navy dis- i closed today [28 April],
The company bid $188,500,000 to build the conventionally powered, 78,000-ton aircraft carrier.
The Navy had invited three companies to t>id on the new carrier.
General Dynamics Corporation, which now owns a building yard at Quincy, Mass., bid $224,872,550.
The New York Shipbuilding Corporation, of Camden, N. J., the third company invited, did not submit a bid, the Navy said.
Invitations for bids were sent out last November. Congress had approved construction of this carrier in the fiscal 1963 budget which was approved in 1962, but there was a series of delays.
One was for a study to determine whether the carrier should be nuclear-powered.
Ship Notes
s United States: The following ships have been placed in commission—Reeves (DLG-24) on 16 May 1964; John Adams (SSBN-620) on 12 May 1964; Pollack (SSN-603) on 26 May 1964.
The following ships have been launched —Nathanael Greene (SSBN-636) on 12 May 1964; Gato (SSN-615) on 14 May 1964; Silas Bent (AGS-26) on 16 May 1964; USC&GSS Oceanographer on 18 April 1964.
The following ships have been laid down—- Grayling (SSN-646) on 12 May 1964; hydrofoil research ship AGEH-1 on 8 May 1964.
The following 36 ships have been scheduled for inactivation during fiscal year 1965— Lake Champlain (CVS-39), Compton (DD-705), Soley (DD-707), Barton (DD-722), John R. Pierce (DD-753), Beatty (DD-756), Trathen (DD-530), Watts (DD-567), Colahan (DD-658), Huse (DE-145), Brough (DE-148), Peterson (DE-152), Woodson (DE-359), Parle (DE-708), Roberts (DE-749), Malay (DE-791), Walton (DE-361), A. Cockrell (DE-366), Brister (DER- 327), Savage (DER-386), Lansing (DER-388), Wilhoite (DER-397), Newell (DER-322), Tunny (SSG-282), Barbero (SSG-317), Rasher (AGSS-269), Raton (AGSS-270), Capitane (AGSS-336), Redfish (AGSS-395), Grouper (AGSS-214), Noble (APA-218), Cheboygan City (LST-533), Orleans Parish (MCS-6, ex- LST-1069), Lamar (PCE-899), Antares (AKS- 33), and Grasp (ARS-24).
Other U. S. Services
0 A-11 Forced Evolution (Aviation Week & Space Technology, 4 May, 1964): Five years after its origin, the Lockheed A-l 1 super spy aircraft has been given an official designation as an interceptor—the YF-12A. In disclosing its existence, President Lyndon B. Johnson called it by the company’s internal designation—A-ll. First Defense Dept, pictures released showed it with a deceptive “FX-934” hastily slapped on two different versions of this aircraft. This designation does not fit any official military nomenclature system.
On the same day that President Johnson said the A-ll would be tested to determine its suitability as an advanced interceptor, the first A-ll made its appearance at the USAF Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, on a flight from Indian Springs AFB, Nev.—the secret operational base of the early A-l Is. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara enlarged the web of deception by claiming the aircraft was developed as an interceptor; Air Force Systems Command and Air Defense Command were then given the job of trying to tailor the A-ll to fit McNamara’s description and finally the Pentagon strategists remembered to give it an official interceptor designation. The aircraft will be used to officially wrest the world speed record from the Russians this summer with a 2,000-mph. level flight over a calibrated course in the Mohave Desert.
0 Army Places Order for Red-Eye Missile (The New York Times, 11 April, 1964): The Army ordered today [10 April] initial Production of its long-heralded Red-eye antiaircraft missile weapon which a single soldier can shoulder and fire.
The weapon is similar to the famed bazooka antitank rocket that has been employed by the Army and Marine Corps since World War If. It weighs less than 30 pounds and can be fired like a rifle.
However, unlike the bazooka, which fires an unguided rocket, the Red-eye launches a true guided missile, equipped with a heatseeking device that literally searches out the target.
Under present plans, two men in each company of troops at the front would be trained to use the weapon against attacking airplanes.
The announcement named the General Dynamics Corporation’s division at Pomona, Calif., as the recipient of a $13,222,358 contract for production and engineering services of the Red-eye.
The weapon is approximately 4 feet long, with a three-inch diameter. The warhead is conventional. The propulsion system, a two- stage missile, is powered with solid fuel.
The Red-eye cannot be reloaded in the field. Thus each time a missile is launched the launching apparatus, made of fiberglass and aimed like a rifle, would be dropped as scrap.
0 New Hand-Gun Tested by Army (Hanson W. Baldwin in The New York Times, 15 March 1964): A strange weapon pronounced “spew,” capable of firing small dart-like projectiles called “ffechettes” and 40-mm. grenades, is now under test at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
The Army hopes—though few officers are sanguine about it—that the tests will lead to development and production of a weapon that will solve what experts describe as the “Army small-arms muddle.”
The tests will be highlighted during the spring when Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, Chief of Staff of the Army, and Gen. Wallace M. Greene, commandant of the Marine Corps, fire the new gun.
The weapon designated SPIW (Special Purpose Individual Weapon) is a multipurpose hand-held weapon. One development version has two barrels arranged like an “over-and-under” shotgun.
One barrel is a grenade-launcher for use against area targets or in indirect fire. The other barrel fires the “flechettes” (French for “small arrows”), tiny finned darts about an inch long, with the diameter of a large pencil lead.
The flechettes are encased in plastic sabots and embedded in powder-filled cartridges that are loaded in the breach of the gun. The sabots are manufactured to fit the caliber of the gun; when the cartridge explodes, the burning powder pushes the sabot, with the smaller flechette inside it, through the muzzle at high velocity.
When the flechette leaves the muzzle the sabot flies off, and the finned projectile arrows through the air at great speed.
Variations of this technique have tested from one to as many as 32 needle-like projectiles, encased in a single sabot and fired by a single cartridge. The result, after the sabot falls off, is a kind of spray; some call it somewhat diversely, a “Buck Rogers death ray.” The SPIW has been under development in various forms for more than six years.
Its present form—four versions from three Private manufacturers and one from the Springfield Armory are being tested at Aberdeen—is the result of attempts to develop a weapon for the soldier that could provide high-angle curved fire (the grenade-launcher), aimed line-of-sight fire (the flechette), high automatic rates of fire and, above all, a greater probability of battlefield hits.
At the same time, an attempt to lighten the soldier’s weapon was incorporated in the design.
Various models, varying from .30 caliber down to the present types, understood to be •22 to .25-caliber, have been experimentally tested.
The Army has also tested duplex and triplex cartridges—ammunition that fires two or three conventional bullets simultaneously— hoping that the natural dispersion would result in greater hit probability. Both rifled bores and smooth-bore shotguns have been tested.
All sorts of problems in the development of SPIW have been encountered, and the experts say these are far from solved.
At first no tracer element could be included ln the tiny needle-like projectiles; it was al- tnost impossible to see where the aimed fire was hitting.
This has now been partly solved; the weap- °ns under test fire tracer ammunition that can followed, under good conditions, about 1)000 yards, though the ammunition is hard to see in bright sunlight.
Many other criticisms of the SPIW concept have been made. Apparently even the experts °f Ordnance magazine, a privately published "ulitary magazine dealing primarily with weapons and technological developments, are skeptical.
A recent bulletin published by the editors of rdnance stated that “apparently the developers arrived at SPIW by ignoring our Kentucky rifle heritage in favor of rocketry.”
“They reduced weight, increased velocity, added fins and sabot, then reduced weight further,” the bulletin said.
Critics say the dart concept makes for a highly erratic weapon, with considerable inaccuracy. Even bushes or leaves might deflect the light needles in flight, it is said.
The flechettes have a tendency to tumble on impact, or to penetrate the flesh sideways, or end over end, thus inflicting tremendous wounds, most of them lethal.
A recent article in The Army Times, unofficial Army newspaper, reported the comment of an officer who was asked about the medical task of healing a man wounded with flechettes.
“Don’t kid yourself,” The Army Times reported the answer, “it is not a job for a surgeon but for graves registration.”
Thus, the flechette could have considerable psychological effect on the battlefield. But its critics see an adverse side.
The huge, tearing wounds the flechette might cause have been likened by some to those caused by the soft-nosed, expanding “dum-dum” bullet, which was outlawed by most of the major nations at The Hague International Peace Conference of 1899-1900. However, neither the United States nor Britain signed the declarations prohibiting the use of expanding bullets.
The SPIW is designed as a light weapon; with 750 rounds of ammunition it would weigh no more than the present M-14 rifle with 160 rounds of 7.62-mm. ammunition.
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Some Army officers view the SPIW as equipment for special troops only, with possibly one issued to each squad.
However, Congressional testimony by high officers has indicated the Army hopes it will provide a new approach to small arms. It hopes that sometime after 1965 SPIW may be able to replace the three different calibers of rifles now used by the Army.
However, the SPIW’s chances are complicated—not only by the criticism of it but also by the current development of a competing weapon. This is part of the so-called Stoner Weapons System.
This system, under experimental development and limited production by the Cadillac Gauge Company, is advertised as comprising six separate arms, all built from 16 basic assemblies.
The system—a fixed machine gun, a light belt-fed machine gun, a light magazine-fed machine gun, a medium machine gun, an assault rifle and a carbine—is rifled for the .223-caliber high-velocity cartridge. This is the caliber of the newest rifle in the Army’s present armory, the M-16, formerly the AR-15.
The Marine Corps is starting a test of the Stoner System as soon as an order from Cadillac is filled. The weapons system is named for its designer, Eugene M. Stoner, who also designed the AR-15 rifle.
The newest tests add to the complexity of the Army small-arms problem. Today, despite years of emphasis upon standardization, the
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Army utilizes three different rifles, each of a different caliber.
The M-l (Garand)—semi-automatic, .30- caliber, the standard rifle of World War II—■ is still in service in most of the National Guard and Reserve units and as a back-up for regular units.
Its successor, the M-l4, of 7.62-millimeter North Atlantic Treaty Organization standard caliber, capable of full automatic fire became the so-called standard rifle of the Army six and a half years ago.
Problems of design and production delayed delivery of weapons to the troops, and last month, after the lighter M-16 had shown usefulness in South Vietnam, further orders for the M-l4 were canceled or withheld.
The Army ordered 85,000 of the M-16 .223- caliber for Special Forces and airborne units.
When all deliveries of the M-l4 are completed, the Army will have 1,120,600 of the NATO standard rifles—not enough to meet the field and reserve needs of the 16 active divisions maintained by the Army and their reserve and support forces. These needs will be supplied for some years to come by the M-l.
All of these rifles—particularly the M-l 4 and the M-16—have been severely criticized by small-arms experts. Some critics have said the M-l 4 and M-16 do not represent enough improvement to justify the replacement of the M-l.
To complete the Army’s small-arms picture there have been many other delays and difficulties in other weapons.
The M-60 machine gun, which uses the same ammunition as the M-l4, has had field difficulties with its cover; after considerable use the rivets become loosened and the gun becomes inoperative. A simple tool remedies this, but the tools have been lacking, and many guns have been inoperative awaiting repair.
The M-73 vehicular mounted gun was supposed to have been ready for issue many months ago; it has not been issued yet. There have been other delays or failures in other light-caliber weapons.
Some critics believe the long delays, the inadequate designs and the incompatible- ammunition problem have put the United States Army well behind the Russians in small-arms development.
Foreign
@ Greek Cruiser Retires (The Navy, April 1964): At last an old lady who has served under two flags is to go into retirement. The cruiser Elli has had a life of over 29 years afloat, having been laid down in 1932, launched in 1935, and completed in 1936. One of the two ‘D’ type vessels of the Condottieri class, she was built as the Italian Eugenio di Savoia by Ansaldo, Genoa, with that very long, lithe, low-lying and uncluttered look for so long associated with Italian designers.
After the Second World War this ship was assigned to Greece under the Italian Peace Treaty. She was actually turned over to Greece in July 1950, and was refitted by Cantieri Navali di Taranto before being delivered to the Royal Hellenic Navy in July 1951.
Considering her long life she has altered little over the years. Originally she was somewhat lighter and in conformity with the times and the design then prevailing she carried three aircraft with one catapult and was also armed with six 21-inch torpedo tubes and eight 37-mm. anti-aircraft guns and eight 13-mm. A.A. pieces in addition to her main and secondary batteries, and she was equipped for minelaying.
Latterly she had a displacement of 8,856 tons standard and 10,835 tons full load, with an overall length of 610j feet, a beam of 57f feet and a mean draught of 16\ feet. She was armed with eight six-inch guns in four twin turrets, two forward and two aft, six 3.9-inch anti-aircraft guns, and 14 40-mm. A.A. guns. Her propulsion plant comprised six Yarrow boilers supplying steam to a two-shaft arrangement of Belluzzo geared turbines developing
110,0 s.h.p. equal to a speed of 36.5 knots.
s More Destroyers for U.A.R. (The Navy, April 1964): Two more Soviet-built Skoryi class destroyers are now believed to be in service with the United Arab Republic Navy. The new ships are apparently named the Suez and Damietta, after the two towns at the southern and northern ends of the Suez Canal respectively. It does not appear that these ships are of any modified design, nor do they carry any guided weapons.
With the two Skoryi type already in service and the recently modified British-built ‘Z’ class vessels the U.A.R. has an effective strength of six destroyers.
Maritime General
S3 Suffolk to Teach Sea Technology (The New York Times, 3 May 1964): The Suffolk County College, representing a county with most of New York State’s salt-water shoreline, will offer a two-year program in marine technology starting next fall.
Dr. Albert M. Ammerman, president of the school, said today [2 May] that the curriculum would be designed to provide much- needed technicians in marine and allied industries.
He cited Long Island’s ailing fish and shellfish industries, plagued by starfish invasions and pollution problems, as a prime example needing research and development programs. The island’s fisheries currently yield 150 million pounds of fish and shellfish a year with a gross income of about $10 million.
Dr. Ammerman said that existing marine educational programs are at universities where either four-year or graduate programs are offered, or at institutes where “blue water” or deep-fishing techniques are taught.
The program at Suffolk will provide the marine scientist with assistants who will be able to understand and apply the theoretical and experimental work of the scientist, according to Dr. Ammerman.
A graduate of the two-year course will receive an Associate in Applied Science degree. A class of 35 students will be accepted at the start of the program.
Walter L. Smith, associate professor of biology at the college, was primarily responsible for the establishment of the program.
“The problems confronting Long Island’s marine industry involve cultivation, plant sanitation, and the problems associated with insuring a continuous supply of marine raw materials such as fish, shellfish and seaweed,” Mr. Smith explained.
David Wallace, director of the New York State Conservation Department’s marine district, said that the increasing need for technicians was being felt not only by industries, but also by states and communities where economic growth depends wholly or in part on fisheries.
Students will take, in addition to general education courses, modern biology, technical mathematics, commercial fishing techniques, plant layout, technical chemistry, microbiology, navigation, elements of marine ecology and elements of applied marine electronics.
Plans for the new program were started after Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced last year the start of a 10- year program to vitalize the American fishing industry. The program, known as Trident, emphasizes a three-pronged attack on industry problems that involve research, development and services.
The Trident program will involve construction of new laboratories and facilities and the replacement of obsolete equipment and vessels, according to Mr. Udall.
Dr. Ammerman said that his school’s program was designed to supply technicians to implement Trident’s goals.
Dr. Smith said that a nation-wide survey conducted by the school last year indicated that graduates of the program could be placed immediately with Government agencies and marine-related industries.
0 Savannah Held 'Obsolete’ Ship (Baltimore Sun, 29 April 1964): London—Quintin Hogg, Science Minister, said tonight [28 April] the United States nuclear-powered merchant ship Savannah was an obsolete vessel with an obsolete reactor.
As a result of its unhappy experience with the Savannah the United States was showing a remarkable lack of enthusiasm for further developments of this kind, he said.
Although conceding that the Savannah had great beauty, Hogg predicted Americans would not be able to develop it.
The Science Minister told the House of
Commons that whatever advantage a nuclear ship might have in the future it was unlikely to oust conventional machinery, except in a very large and very fast vessel.
There has been a shift against the economics of nuclear merchant propulsion in the last 12 months, he said.
Hogg also criticized the Russian nuclear- powered ice-breaker Lenin as a ship which did not pretend to be economical and had no economic development.
The West Germans were putting a reactor into their nuclear ship which was behind the type the British are testing, he said.
The Japanese have selected a smaller vessel than British experts thought appropriate and have not selected the kind of reactor they want, he said.
0 Atomic Icebreaker (The Shipbuilder and Marine Engine-Builder, April 1964): The Russian atomic icebreaker Lenin has burned only 36 kilograms of uranium, having sailed 92,000 kilometres in three navigation seasons. A recent inspection showed the reactor to be in top condition and that the ship would be able to cope with a fourth season without the nuclear fuel being replaced.
0 Longest Tankers in World Ordered
(Edward A. Morrow in The New York Times, 15 March 1964): Union Oil Company of California will own the two longest tankers in the world because of an unusual contract that calls for transforming “supertankers” into the “mammoth” class.
The tankers will serve the Persian Gulf route to the company’s Los Angeles refinery.
The company announced yesterday that the Lake Palourde and Toney Canyon, each listed at 67,000 deadweight tons, would be converted to 117,000-ton vessels. Their crude- oil carrying capacity will be increased from
470,0 barrels to 850,000 barrels.
The vessels will be enlarged by adding 165 feet to their present lengths of 810 feet, 21 feet to their 44-foot-7-inch draughts. The vessels will lose only one knot of their present capability of 17 knots, it was said.
The longest merchant vessel in the world is the French Line’s France, which has a length of 1,035 feet. The next largest, the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, are 1,031 and
1,019 feet long, respectively.
The longest and biggest tanker is the 954- foot Nissho Maru, which is rated at 130,250 deadweight tons. Deadweight is a measurement for the carrying capacity of a vessel.
The “jumboizing” of T-2 tankers of 16,500 tons by the insertion of new midbodies, between the old bows and sterns, has become commonplace in recent years. According to shipyard spokesmen the Union Oil contract represents a departure.
s Japan at Shipbuilding Peak (The New
York Times, 22 April 1964): Merchant-vessel tonnage under construction in Japan during the first quarter of the year reached the highest level in that country’s history, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping reported yesterday.
The British ship-classification society said that on April 1 a total of 2,201,327 tons of new ships was taking shape in Japan. The previous high was 1,635,507 tons.
Work levels at Japanese yards during the first three months of this year increased by 631,676 tons, and accounted for more than half of the quarterly increase in merchant-ship construction throughout the world. That world figure was 1,084,609 tons.
As a result of the 13 per cent increase in shipbuilding activity a total of 1,441 vessels aggregating 9,486,540 tons was under construction throughout the world. This compared with 1,342 ships totaling 8,401,931 tons at the beginning of the year.
Lloyd’s noted that shipbuilding throughout the world continued active, but added that the relatively substantial increase during the
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quarter was due in part to the “exceptionally high figure for completions” of ships during the last quarter of 1963.
The United States, along with 13 of the 15 major shipbuilding nations, scored increases during the quarter and remained in ninth place in international standings with 48 ships totaling 356,001 gross tons.
Britain continued to occupy second place, and her yards were working on 180 ships with an aggregate gross tonnage of 1,606,107. She was followed by Sweden with 837,414 tons; West Germany with 798,959 tons and Italy with 678,959 tons.
The only countries showing decreases during the quarter were Italy, down 6,684 tons and Denmark, down 83,286 tons.
Lloyd’s said that a world total of 4,229,620 tons was being built for “export”—that is, for registration in countries other than the country of origin. Of this export volume 37.1 per cent is being built in Japan, 15 per cent in Sweden, 12.2 per cent in West Germany, 6.1 per cent in France and 5.4 per cent in Italy.
A breakdown of the 1,441 ships of 100 gross tons and over being built throughout the world showed that 228, totaling five million tons, were oil tankers.
Tankers, it was noted, account for 52.6 per cent of the world total of merchant shipping under construction. Tanker construction during the first quarter of 1964 increased by one million tons over the Dec. 31 figures.
The Lloyd’s figures cover all countries except Communist China, the Soviet Union and East Germany.
s Hydrofoil Service Spans Channel (The
New York Times, 3 May 1964): A new highspeed hydrofoil service that may revolutionize sea transport was in operation today [2 May] between the Channel Islands and coast.
Unlike the Hovercraft, which operates on a “cushion” of air, the hydrofoil has the hull and superstructure of a conventional boat. It eliminates water resistance by rising from the sea on its foils within half a minute of getting under way.
The foils, acting like giant water skis, are attached to legs beneath the craft’s hull and lift it from the surface when it reaches a speed of 16 miles an hour.
The hydrofoil quickly reaches a cruising speed of about 35 miles an hour, skimming from wave to wave top in a flurry of spray.
Its top speed is 45 miles an hour. When operating in waves higher than about nine feet, speed is reduced as a precaution against passenger discomfort.
The Guernsey-based Condori, a 140-passenger hydrofoil, which is operating principally between Guernsey, Jersey and St.-Malo, will also call at Cherbourg, Granville, and Deauville on occasion.
The Condori, the first British-owned ferry of its kind, will make two trips each way daily between Jersey and St.-Malo and one 35- mile journey each day between Jersey and Guernsey.
In practice runs earlier this week, the Italian-built vessel, which is 91 § feet long, received a thorough test in waves running from eight to 10 feet high. It displaces 60 tons.
The only unpleasant effect was a sharp “roller coaster” pitching as the craft dropped into the troughs of especially high waves.
Research and Development
0 Deeper Into the Atlantic (New York Herald Tribune, 10 May 1964): The French bathyscape Archimede has plunged more than three miles into the Puerto Rico Trench and remained submerged for seven hours, Columbia University’s Lamont Geological Observatory announced yesterday.
The Archimede made the 17,700-foot dive, the deepest penetration into the Atlantic Ocean in its deepest region, on Monday. A three-man French crew took the stubby, 210- ton craft down at 11 a.m. and surfaced at 6 P-m., about 35 miles north of San Juan, along the south wall of the Puerto Rico Trench.
The dive was part of Operation Deepscan, a Franco-American scientific investigation of the trench. The study covered virtually all phases of oceanography and some limited marine biology research.
French Navy Lt. Huet De Froberville piloted the Archimede—a 70-foot long and 261- foot high craft that has a 13-foot beam— while Lt. Marc Menez, of the French naval arsenal at Toulon, acted as technician. Dr. Henri Delauze, chief of the French Bathyscaphe Laboratory, was scientist on the bathyscaphe’s descent.
The dive, the first since the Archimede had undergone extensive alterations, was called “very successful.”
Dr. Maurice Ewing, director of the Lamont Observatory and co-ordinator of Operation Deepscan, reported “the men in the craft said it performed perfectly.” Dr. Ewing was aboard the French escort ship Marcel Le Bihan during the dive.
“The Archimede ‘sat’ on the bottom, part of the way down the south wall of the trench, and traveled about one and one-half miles,” Dr. Ewing said.
Dr. Ewing said the Archimede crew reported they were greatly pleased with the warmth, transparency and smoothness of the water, and said the trench is an ideal place for diving. They took many photographs, he added. The trench is 450 miles long and has a maximum depth of 27,510 feet.
0 Navy to Test Man’s Ability Underwater (Department of Defense News Release, 6 April 1964): Four Navy divers will live and work 192 feet under the sea for a three-week period this summer in a project called SEA- LAB I to test man’s ability to work for extended periods of time underwater. The team will include one Navy doctor and three enlisted men.
The test will take place near the Navy oceanographic research tower ARGUS ISLAND, 30 miles southwest of Bermuda. The site was chosen because the ocean bottom there is flat and affords excellent visibility. The weather off Bermuda is at its best during June and July when this test is scheduled.
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The success of LORAC can be attributed to several factors. The accuracy achieved is greater than the specified requirement. The equipment is unitized and ruggedized to provide a high degree of portability. The units are of such size and weight as to be transportable by a small helicopter. Thus, with this equipment it is possible to set up shore-based transmitting stations at heretofore inaccessible points.
Because of its compactness and rapid installation time a network can be moved easily from one location to another and can be maintained with a minimum of trained personnel. The extensive coverage of a LORAC network reduces the total number of equipment moves required in surveying large areas.
In a recent LORAC-controlled survey more than 30,000 miles of soundings were completed in less than 2,400 hours of operation.
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SEALAB I is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research in collaboration with the Bureau of Ships and the Naval Medical Research Laboratory, New London, Connecticut.
The divers’ 40-foot long laboratory and quarters will receive electrical power, emergency gas, communications, and fresh water from the large covered lighter YFNB-12 on the surface. Except for these services, the SEALAB’s crew will maintain an autonomous existence under a pressure of 86 pounds per square inch, breathing a helium, oxygen and nitrogen mixture.
The SEALAB is a modification of a large steel experimental Navy minesweeping float nine feet in diameter and approximately 40 feet long, with the laboratory and living space occupying 30 feet. The remaining 10 feet will house the electrical power transformer, supplies and equipment for voice communication with the surface.
The living/laboratory space will contain an atmosphere consisting of helium, oxygen, and nitrogen mixture at the same pressure as the water outside, thus providing for access between the chamber and the water outside.
The communication/stowage area will have a compressed air atmosphere equal to the outside water pressure. The SEALAB will be equipped with electric lights, bunks, lavatory facilities, work bench, heaters, dehumidifiers, emergency water tanks, a fresh water shower, and cooking facilities. Semi-closed system, underwater breathing apparatus, and conventional SCUBA apparatus will both be used by the SEALAB divers. They will use a two-man underwater vehicle for transportation.
Personnel on the large covered lighter, the project’s surface support ship, will continuously monitor SEALAB operations via closed circuit television.
Communications will be maintained with the underseas laboratory around the clock. In addition, the YFNB-12 has a submersible decompression chamber which can be used to evacuate the SEALAB’s crew if the necessity should arise. Provisions have also been made for the autonomous survival of the capsule inhabitants in the event of loss of support from the surface.
In 1962 the French undersea explorer, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, established an underwater manned station on the continental shelf off Marseilles, France. A year later two men from Cousteau’s research group occupied a helium-atmosphere station 90 feet under the sea for a week in the Red Sea.
In the United States, personnel of the United States Naval Medical Research Laboratory, under the direction of Captain George F. Bond, Medical Corps, USN, have been conducting a research program entitled “GENESIS I.” Since May 20, 1960, a long series of laboratory experiments with animals, which observed all the principles of laboratory animal care, and pressure chamber tests with humans proved that man can safely perform useful functions for long periods of time under pressures up to 100 pounds per square inch. SEALAB is designed to provide further evidence of this concept.
0 U. S. Aide Favors New Cargo Plane
(Edward Hudson in The New York Times, 21 April, 1964): A top Defense Department official indicated yesterday that he favored an Air Force proposal to build a huge new troop and cargo transport plane.
The official, Dr. Harold Brown, director of defense research and engineering, hinted that Pentagon leaders were currently debating how much advance technology to include in the design.
“The question,” he said, “is how long should you delay and how many kinds of advanced technology should you try to get in the plane for higher performance.”
Dr. Brown, in an interview, said it was his opinion that the inclusion of such advanced features as boundary layer control and hydrogen fuel would prove to be a problem that could jeopardize the entire project.
Boundary layer control refers to aerodynamic techniques to smooth the flow of air over a plane to reduce friction drag and increase range.
The reference to hydrogen fuel presumably means that liquid hydrogen, now used in advanced rockets, is under study as a substitute for kerosene-gasoline fuels.
The plane bears the designation CX-HLS, for cargo experimental heavy logistics support. It would be much larger in size and carrying capacity than existing jet transports.
The Air Force has proposed the CX-HLS to move bulky Army division equipment overseas in national emergencies in the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies.
Air Force sources said the design proposal had been submitted to Dr. Brown’s office for a decision.
Concepts for the plane, which would fly at subsonic speeds, have varied at different times.
A year ago, the Air Force was discussing a design that would fly 5,500 miles nonstop and carry up to 150,000 pounds. Last fall, trade reports said the Air Force favored an advanced design that would fly 10,000 to
12,0 miles and carry up to 180,000 pounds cargo.
The interior would be a minimum of 16 feet wide and 13j feet high.
In comparison, the nation’s most advanced military jet cargo transport, the Lockheed C-141A Starlifter, can fly more than 6,000 miles and carry more than 70,000 pounds. Its interior dimensions are 10 feet wide and 9 feet high.
Dr. Brown said he was “in favor of developing an aircraft that can be developed in a finite time and will meet foreseeable requirements.”
He said that waiting for advanced technologies would “risk a complete failure on the airplane.”
The official said that although his “prejudices” were in favor of the airplane, the project would have to meet the same “cost effectiveness” criteria applied to all other defense projects to evaluate their acceptability.
0 Straight-Up Supersonic Plane (David Hoffman in New York Herald Tribune, 26 April 1964): The first supersonic fighter plane ever built by Germans stopped in mid-air yesterday.
It pirouetted above the crowd as if dangling from an invisible cable, then raced across Hannover Langenhagen Airport at near-sonic speed.
Easily, the vertical-rising VJ-101 is the star of the 1964 German air show. But its future as a weapon of war has been dealt a critical, if not quite a mortal, blow by West German generals who fear—more than any-
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thing else—a surprise assault from the East, a sort of Soviet blitzkrieg.
The West’s radar curtain hopefully will alert the United States 15 minutes before Soviet ICBMs strike American targets. But German defense planners must assume zero warning time. They reason, therefore, that a high-speed interceptor would offer slight protection against an unannounced attack from above. Not even the VJ-101 could get aloft in time to intercept missiles or jet bombers launched against Germany.
Thus far, Bonn has invested $75 million to build two VJ-101 test planes. By U. S. standards, this is not much money. But in this nation of intensely practical people, many feel the money has been wasted if the VJ-101 is not to be built in quantity.
Bolkow, Heinkel and Messerschmitt—the three firms that produced the sleek, needlenosed planes—do not see it this way at all. Their emissaries in the United States and in Europe are working hard to interest other companies in the VJ-lOl’s unique design, to produce the craft abroad under license.
Lots of nibbles but no firm orders have been reported.
What the German Air Force wants now is a vertical-rising strike fighter, one that can rise from concealed sites and destroy pinpoint targets just ahead of the German soldier. It is a role pioneered by the Nazi Stukas of World War II. But it is also a role the VJ-101 cannot adequately fulfill.
The consortium behind the VJ-101 has proposed a follow-on version that specializes in attacking an enemy moving on the ground. But everything about this project is secret. All that is known is that the plane is being designed around a new General Electric engine that the company refers to as the GE-1.
Six Rolls Royce engines now enable the VJ- 101 to fly straight up. Two are embedded in its body just behind the cockpit and supply only lift. Four are paired in pods that swivel around each wing tip. These are the engines that sometime in July, according to the flight test schedule, will enable George Bright, the 40-year-old ex-Navy test pilot from Lancaster, Calif., to drive the VJ-101 at supersonic speeds.
If so, the test pilot will become the first man to fly a VTOL airplane faster than the speed of sound in level flight.
Only two other fighter-type aircraft in the world sport VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) performance. Britain’s P-1127 strike fighter flies like a yo-yo on the thrust from a single engine, which is fine so long as that engine keeps producing thrust.
France’s Balzac fighter, now being rebuilt after a bad accident, uses one set of engines for vertical flight and another for horizontal flight. Bolkow, Heinkel and Messerschmitt feel that this approach adds useless weight, that engines displace fuel and armament from the plane’s fuselage.
Space
0 Space Aides Tell of Soviet Failure
(John W. Finney in The New York Times, 30 April 1964): The Soviet Union failed again within the last week in a space launching apparently aimed at the moon, space agency officials disclosed today [29 April],
The failure, one in a long string of unsuccessful lunar and planetary space launchings by the Soviet Union since 1959, occurred within minutes after the rocket had left its launching pad near the Aral Sea.
The failure was detected by radars maintained by the Air Force in Turkey for monitoring Soviet missile and space activities.
A large new tracking radar recently went into operation at Diyarbekir, Turkey, as part of this once-secret system.
Officially, the Government would not confirm the detected failure, which has not been announced by the Soviet Union. The Defense Department said any comment would have to come from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the space agency’s public information office said it had not received any reports from the Defense Department of any recent Soviet failures.
_ The position being taken by the two agencies was in compliance with a policy laid down early in the Kennedy Administration requiring secrecy about the surveillance of Soviet launchings.
The reason for the secrecy has become somewhat obscure, since the Administration has publicized the existence and capabilities of the Spacetrack System, and it is no longer any secret that the United States can detect Soviet missiles shortly after they leave the launching pad and monitor Soviet payloads in orbit.
Within the Government there is some agitation to relax the secrecy and announce Soviet failures. One of the proponents of the relaxation is the space agency, which is finding itself politically embarrassed by the secrecy.
The agency is currently under Congressional investigation for the repeated failures of its Ranger spacecraft, which are supposed to photograph the moon as a preliminary to a manned expedition.
Before a House Space subcommittee today, officials of the agency and of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, manager of the Ranger project, defended the pre-launching tests of the Ranger spacecraft.
They denied suggestions that schedule pressures had resulted in inadequate testing, but acknowledged that with the next launching, scheduled for the end of June, the space agency would monitor the preflight checkout more closely than it had in the past.
The Soviet Union was unsuccessful in late February and mid-March in sending payloads to Venus. Those failures were attributed to difficulties in a final stage rocket, which is supposed to take the payload out of its “parking orbit” around the earth and send it on an interplanetary trajectory.
The malfunctioning upper-stage rocket has plagued the Soviet space program for the last five years.
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Repeatedly the Soviet Union has succeeded in getting a lunar or planetary payload into an earth orbit only to be unable to give it the added rocket impulse that would send it on its space journey.
Progress
New Bow Shapes—The dock landing ship USS Plymouth Rock (LSD-29) has recently been employed as a test ship for an unusual bow-mounted sonar. The equipment, for possible ASW application, is shown at right in the raised position. Below, the Swedish car ferry Aniara displays her visor-like bow "door” while unloading cars at a British port. This method saves time, the use of cranes, and dockside space.
Flying Camera—An experimental, controlled reconnaissance drone developed by the Ryan Aeronautical Company has attracted the interest of the Marine Corps. Known as the "Flex Bee,” the device can fly up to several thousand feet at speeds of 75 m.p.h. to take photographs of enemy positions. The drone has a plasticized fabric wing and a 9 j-h.p. pusher engine.
Armored Reconnaissance—The Army’s new Sheridan armored vehicle is designed for battlefield reconnaissance. It is air transportable and will fire the Shillelagh missile. The missile, now under development, is fired from the barrel on the turret and is for use against enemy tanks or field fortifications.
Surface Test—The first firing of a Polaris missile from a surfaced submarine took place on 20 April. The firing, by the USS Henry Clay (SSBN-62 5), came 30 minutes after the submarine fired another A-2 Polaris while cruising underwater. Debris around the missile is from the launch adapter used in the test firing.
Short-Range Firepower—The Swedish destroyer Sodermanland fires a British- developed Seacat missile. At right is the four-round launcher for the anti-aircraft missile. The Seacat is also being fitted in ships of the British, Australian, New Zealand, and Netherlands Navies. The Federal German Navy is evaluating the sveapon for its warships.