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When the Cold War ended, the perceived threat to our national security disappeared. Development in undersea warfare lost its sharply focused direction, and a serious mistake in concept was then made in the subsequent downsizing and reorganization of the Navy’s research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) activities. The mistake denies awareness for the future development of a technology, tactic, or event inimical to our un
The Navy should expand—not consolidate—its undersea research-and-develop- ment base, and tighten the bond between the labs and the subs.
dersea warfare capability—the ability to avoid a hostile “undersea surprise.”
The perceived threat remains near zero for a long time when the future scene is murky.1 The world scene is likely to be a messy, dynamic mixture of political entities, ethnic cultures, and changing economics (like the 1930s). At some unpredictable time, the threat can be a political and cultural idea that coalesces a core in this mixture—a sociopolitical swirl ris ing into an iron fist. Then, the warfare surprise appears—just as the abrupt “iron hurricane' of Nazi Germany and the U-boat did. The latest reorganization of RDT&E activities is antithetical to that which followed after World War II, and has led to a serious mistake.
In 1946, the U.S. Navy was in a very steep drawdown, with 30 or more laboratories
scattered nationwide.2 In addition, 14 or more contract laboratories were located at universities and naval facilities and di rected and co ordinated by the Subsurface War
fare Division of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), Office of Scientific Research and Development.’ This brought forth committees, meetings, consolidation plans, and closure lists—a scene duplicated in 1990-1991. The situations of 1946 and 1990 are alike: reduction and control of costs were the prime rules in each. Guiding policies, however, were strikingly different. In 1946, the question was how to consolidate but still assure continuing research and development. In 1990, it was how to consolidate into a neat, decisive, management structure with purified missions and to align weapon acquisition into a least-cost process. Purified missions were intended to eliminate supposed duplications, but these often were multiple options—essential to the success of research and \ development.
In 1946, a set of rocket test huts in the Mojave Desert (Inyokern) and the NDRC weapon facilities at the California Institute of Technology formed the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS). A premier laboratory for research (including fluid mechanics, chemistry, optics, and thermodynamics) was built into the station’s organization. NOTS became the West Coast weapons laboratory, vis-a-vis the Newport torpedo station on the East Coast. Its establishment was essential to avoid future critical mistakes in weapon development, such as the 1942 disaster of the Mark XIV torpedo and firing mechanism, experienced by submarines in the Pacific.4 Memory of this disaster was—and is—the poignant rationale for maintaining separate and independent laboratories, an idea apparently forgotten in planning today.
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In San Diego, the Naval Electronics Laboratory (NEL) was formed by consolidating a small U.S. Navy laboratory with the NDRC laboratory of the University of California. In New London, the NDRC laboratory of
versity (with personnel transferred from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) became the Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory (NUSL). A research department was established and maintained in each laboratory. The laboratories reported to the Bureau of Ships, where leadership— instead of management—supported the concepts of research and the necessity for multiple, independent laboratories to assure wide horizons and cross-check among themselves. The necessity for and significance of cross-checking appeared during World War II and later was demonstrated periodically between NEL and NUSL by competitive collaboration, not duplication. Finding a critical deficiency in the BSY-1 Combat System while conducting submarine operations under sea ice demonstrated this necessity in 1993.
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The proclivity to consolidate and reorganize the RDT&E activities began in the 1960s. The long Cold War was far advanced, and laboratories were joined or rearranged into groups and designated centers—each promoted as a center for a specific technical excellence. For example, in 1967, NEL became the Naval Electronics Laboratory Center (NELC). A part of NEL was joined with a part of NOTS to form the Naval Undersea Center, which in 1977 was rejoined with NELC to form the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC). Management, management training, and managers were in vogue. Corporate management style carried over into funding procedures and was called Navy Industrial Funding. The lexicon at the centers included terms such as “product line,” “customer,” “smart buyer,” and “product reliability.” The funding procedure became the commercial practice of advertising, selling, and buying technical products and service. The Assistant Secretary of Navy (R&D) became the Assistant Secretary for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN|RD&A]).
Each successive change in organization was said to improve management, centralize control, and consolidate activities to eliminate duplication of effort. Each center had the responsibility to be a smart buyer or to provide the advice that makes the Navy’s acquisition process a smart buyer of equipment, service, or development. The unique attributes of a center that contributed were:
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► Being an element within Navy, the center should have no profit motive, only the motive to advise the optimum acquisition to meet Navy’s needs.
>• Being in close working relationship with the ultimate customer (operating fleet), the center should have an appreciation for the critical operating, or in-service, conditions the acquisition must meet.
With the Cold War ended, the Secretary of the Navy reorganized the acquisition process through approval of the Consolidation Plan on 12 April 1991.5 The Navy created four commands and designated them Warfare Centers (Air, Surface, Undersea Warfare, and Command-Control-Ocean Surveillance), with each reporting to an appropriate Systems Command. The RDT&E activities are grouped under the four commands. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is an additional, but separate. group that reports to the Chief of Naval Research.
Like a corporate takeover, the new Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) took over the Naval Underwater Systems Center in Newport, Rhode Island, and then transferred to Newport:
► The programs of former NUSL, New London, Connecticut
► The Submarine Combat Systems In-Service Engineering, Norfolk, Virginia
► The lightweight torpedo simulation, mobile sonar simulators, autonomous underwater systems, and Arctic submarine warfare from NOSC, San Diego, California
► Torpedo and sonar countermeasures from the Naval Systems Center, Panama City, Florida
The takeover also included command of the Naval Undersea Warfare Engineering Station, Keyport, Washington, thus consolidating all undersea programs at Newport.
With this consolidation, the research and development organization has come full circle from the 1930s: one research laboratory (NRL) and one RDT&E activity for undersea warfare. This most recent consolidation was made without regard for lessons learned at great cost in the 1940s. Ironically, the head undersea warfare R&D center is again in Newport—with haunting memories of the Mark XIV torpedo disaster still lurking in the shadows. In order to foresee and prepare for any warfare surprise, the research and development organization should rotate back to emphasis on research and exploratory development—using 1946, not the 1930s, as the model.
Instead of further consolidation by transfer to Newport, the underwater R&D laboratory at New London should be revitalized with studies in physics of the sea and by participation in submarine operations. In addition, the Navy should rebuild undersea core research in San Diego. In the 1970s merger of laboratories into R&D centers, the Navy emphasized the maintenance of laboratory research and participation in research of specific disciplines. This participation—in conjunction with engineering-development activities and fleet operations—is necessary to give the breadth and depth of experience essential to the center’s competence.6
Laboratories are an essential part of undersea research and development centers. They signify dedication to experimentation with an open horizon, with emphasis on research in disciplines associated with submarine warfare (e.g., oceanography, physics of materials and sound, magnetic/electronic fields in the sea). The cross discipline is undersea-warfare surveillance. Researchers should perform experiments using submarines, and submariners should be present in the laboratory. This cross-pollination aids in the discovery process and increases the value of the service to the fleet.
The key position in the laboratory is that of the chief scientist, not an acquisition manager. The chief scientist must motivate laboratory personnel to participate in all types of activities, including submarine operations, combat exercises, and experimental studies. The experiments should include geophysical, acoustic, electromagnetic, hydrodynamic, and biological studies in all oceans, peripheral seas, coastal zones, and marginal sea-ice zones. The activity provides a submarine presence in the outreach areas and an awareness for any possible undersea conflict or surveillance, as well as for any peculiarities or surprises in such a conflict. We need to return to research and development having one foot in the ocean, one foot in the submarine, and hands in the laboratory.
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Proceedings / May 1994
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Commentary
Young scientists and engineers enter warfare research and development in a core laboratory and within a discipline. The influx of youth is essential to maintaining the vitality of the laboratory—the warfare center—and is more likely to challenge the thinking or theory in vogue, to ask questions, and to explore new directions in the search for a solution. Scientists tend to ignore warfare except in times of a perceived crisis, and, therefore, the discipline’s studies in the core laboratory must be vigorous and have stature in the professional fields to bring in and hold skillful scientists. In addition, wider horizons and quality research can be attained by using these scientists to nurture relationships or interchange with universities and industrial laboratories. In the mixture of discipline research, cross-discipline study, and submarine experiments, the new tactic, weapon, vehicle, idea, or vision may appear first as a shadow in a foreign submarine effort, oceanographic study, or experiment. The researcher in the cross-discipline is more likely to perceive that shadow—and assess its inherent significance in the larger warfare picture.
Commentary
While laboratories are essential to undersea research and development centers, scientists should participate in a variety of activities, including submarine operations, combat exercises, and experimental studies.
We have been in an acquisition mode for 30 years. The creation of the four warfare centers further expanded the acquisition procedure and organization that had already expanded throughout the systems commands and R&D centers. This organization created a bureaucracy, which now constitutes the excess baggage. Cost savings can be made readily through consolidation and elimination of unnecessary fat.
The administration of research is irrelevant to both the Navy Industrial Funding and the Defense Business Operating Fund. The conventions for managing this funding lose definition and are not applicable. For example, the fleet operator and the researcher work at sea as a close collaborating team. The operator is unaware that a problem exists until it is discovered by the team, and even then, a final solution may come as an option from another independent laboratory.
Who is the customer? What is the product or milestone? Research is endowed, not bought, and it often requires special facilities, in which investment can never be recovered. While a failure in acquisition is bad business, a failure in research is not always a drawback, because knowledge is usually gained. The Systems Commands and Chief of Naval Research need to find
a way to handle these concepts in today’s acquisition management. The Bureau of Ships did, even when the Navy was downsizing to a far greater extent than it is today.
In lieu of further consolidation and purified rigidity of an ac- ; quisition organization, the Navy should return to exploratory research and development with core research laboratories in 1 close linkage to operating submarines. Multiple independent laboratories are necessary to give breadth and to cross-check for errors in searching for the next surprise under the sea or sea i ice. The Bureau of Ships and its mandate for research are gone, i On whom does the mantle of decision and will to recreate the laboratories now fall? Where in acquisition management can leadership be found to downsize acquisition structures drastically and to upgrade exploratory search? lit
Today, the submarine is a dominant weapon of the sea. It | can display disproportionate power; disrupt our ability to use | the oceans; and attack our shores without regard to brilliant surveillance, smart bombs, or computer "hyperwar” technologies.
The submarine “stands to gain more from advancing technologies than almost any other force, component, or system.”7 On joining the Navy laboratory as a young scientist in 1958, I was given an order that seems highly prophetic in retrospect: I "Go see the submarines, find out their problem, and fix it. Remember, they may not know they have a problem."
“It is the professional military that must stay alert for enemies where none is obvious and must evaluate threats for their real potential, not their apparent importance.”8 Warfare research laboratories are more essential than ever and need to work || closely with the submariners to stay abreast of the unfolding undersea threat. That threat is not diminishing; it is expanding.
1 For discussion of the history and effects of perceived threat and changes in naval strength and engineering (1865-2000), see Michael E. Vlahos, “Past into Future,” American Society of Naval Engineers Journal, July 1992, vol. 104 no. 4, p. 37; “And the Politics of Change,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1993, p. 47.
' “Special Issue on Research in the Navy,” Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 15 no. 3, March 1944, p. 203.
' “Survey of Sub-Surface Warfare, World War II,” Summary' Technical Report,
Div. 6, NDRC, vol. I, Washington, D.C., 1946.
4 Clay Blair, Jr., Silent Victory: U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott, 1975, pp. 273-79, 437-39.
5 SecNav Memo, 12 April 1991, with enclosures, “RDT&E and Fleet Support Activities Consolidation.”
6 Kenneth A. Boyd, Jr., “A Discussion of the Responsibilities and Functions of I
the Navy Research and Development Centers,” American Society of Naval Engi- I
neers Journal, December 1978, vol. 90 no. 6, p. 63.
7 RAdm W. J. Holland, Jr., “ASW is Still Job One,” Proceedings, August 1992, p. 30.
K Ibid.
R. A. McLennan was Deputy Director of the Arctic Submarine Laboratory until retirement 19 September 1993.
No Hornblower, He
At the U.S. Naval Academy, freshmen “plebes” are required to memorize specific responses to the inquiries of upperclassmen. The worst was a long series of old nautical commands required to turn around or “bring about” a full-rigged sailing ship. Very few plebes ever remembered the list of orders, so they suffered the harassment that attended with failure.
One evening, 1 cringed when I heard an upperclassman demand of the plebe seated next to me at dinner, “Mister! Bring a full-rigged ship about.” The seemingly doomed plebe struggled to his feet, but he saved the day when, in a commanding tone, he yelled his improvised response: “full- rigged ship—a-bout, face!”
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Robert S. Adams
Proceedings / May 1994