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Carrier-Based ASW Aircraft
Commander Robert J. Harlow, U. S. Navy (Commanding Officer, Air Antisubmarine Squadron 35)—Carrier-based antisubmarine aircraft (VS) have evolved from the attack/fighter aircraft team (TBM-F4F) of World War II, through the TBM-2S and -3W Avengers and AF Guardian twins in the postwar period to arrive in full bloom as a “little ’ Patrol plane (VP) with the hunter and killer capabilities being combined in the S-2(S2F) Tracker. The trend with the next generation carrier-based ASW aircraft (designated VSX) appears to expand and emulate, insofar as Possible, a “VP package” to fit on an ASW carrier deck. This trend could prove fatal, not only to the VSX, but to the carrier as well, because of such factors as prohibitive costs, unrealistic demands on both technology and flight crews, and aircraft size and weight limitations. The VS concept can be killed by simply allowing the aircraft specifications to grow to patrol plane proportions; the VSX will not fit or P-3 Orions would be practicing carrier landings.
We must break away from the mental strait jacket that VS is “little VP.” A solution to this Problem is the VA/S concept.
The VA/S concept has one airframe for both attack (VA) and antisubmarine (VS) requirements. Preparation for either mission means a “black box” change. The crew in either role consists of a pilot and a flight officer. For the VS mission the airframe is a weapons platform and information relay station to an ASW center in every carrier. The ASW center performs the evaluation of the raw information, replacing the airborne ASW crew. Finite location for attack would require the aircraft to be equipped with the best sensor available for small area tactics. The VA version of the airframe would be available for the all-
Comment and Discussion
weather attack mission, which is the most compatible with VS training.
Since submarines can detect surface forces several hundred miles away the long-range search must start at that distance. It would also appear reasonable that barriers over a thousand miles in length must be monitored rapidly and continuously. The VA/S aircraft acts as “middleman” and communications relay during the search phase which, by a wide margin, normally consumes the highest percentage of time. Thus, the tedious and exacting job of data evaluation is performed in the proper environment of an air-conditioned space aboard ship, and by watch standees who can concentrate on the problem without the external pressures associated with a crew in flight.
Communications is a key to the problem. Signals can be bounced off a satellite to achieve the range required. In fact, a Pacific ASW command post, for example, could be fed all raw data and sensor information from all sources—land- and carrier-based aircraft, destroyers, etc.—for evaluation as a backup to the shipboard ASW centers and the patrol plane crews by use of a satellite communications link.
The time frame here is 1972, but even a casual look at today’s naval aircraft inventory gives us a clue. The A-6 Intruder is the aircraft: the A-6 has a favorable load factor, reasonable weight, excellent deck cycle time, outstanding range, adequate speed, slow carrier approach, wing store stations, and allweather capability in its present configuration. * Both ASW carriers and the A-6 must be modified for the VA/S concept, but not to any great extent or cost in comparison to the cost of the VSX effort.
* See pages 120-123 in this issue.
Control of the seas is the Navy’s primary mission; the greatest potential threat to the success of that mission is the submarine. The U. S. Navy must have carrier-based ASW for task force defense. And, due to political considerations, it is the only means by which the Navy can project ASW in depth over the major portion of the earth.
The VA/S concept:
• Provides a dual-mission aircraft.
• Places the complex equipment where it can achieve optimum results—aboard the aircraft carriers.
• Puts VA/S on all carriers for a maximum carrier-based ASW capability.
• Provides ASW carriers with an allweather strike capability.
• Reduces voice transmissions to a minimum as raw data is received and evaluated aboard the carrier.
• Reduces the requirement for flying personnel (with two men per VA/S compared with four for the existing VS and probably more for the VSX), with the attendant savings in training and flight pay.
• Reduces maintenance requirements by placing the most complex equipment aboard ship rather than in 20 aircraft per carrier.
• Increases the search area because of speed and altitude capabilities of the A-6.
• Reduces development, production, and spare parts costs by employing an aircraft which is now flying with the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps.
If we exercise our imagination, does or should VS have to be a “little” VP? Should the ASW carrier have an inherent strike capability? There are a host of questions raised and answers must be given.
"Divided We Fell”
(See pages 36-51, October 1966 Proceedings)
Commander Eugene E. Wilson, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—Lest Rear Admiral Tolley’s masterly work leave the impression that the armed forces were solely responsible for Western military disunity during this interlude, it would appear in order for someone of comparable erudition to shift a share of the burden to partisan political ineptitude. For, according to Professor C. P. Snow, author of Science and Government (1961), Western political decisions of the past half-century have proven “almost one-hundred per-cent wrong.”
This alone might account for the fact that the rapid acceleration of research and technology has exceeded the capability of governments to control new products. Indeed, it is not too much to extend Professor Snow’s dictum to include the entire century since the promulgation of the Communist Manifesto.
As yet no scholar or political philosopher has come up with a plan to bring about a merger between Science and The Humanities. The nearest approach lies in the writings of aeronautical engineers such as Orville Wright, Charles Lindbergh, and Igor Sikorsky.
"Vietnams and Munichs”
(See pages 62-71, October 1966 Proceedings)
Captain E. B. Perry, U. S. Navy (Retired)—The title of this article decoyed me into a careful and soul-searching reading. Having just learned that U. S. military expenditures in the controversial Vietnamese War are now about 250 per cent of those recently predicted, approaching two billion dollars a month with further increases in the offing, and that U. S. “defense” spending is nearing 75 billion dollars annually—and again with further increases coming up—I was hopeful that I could find some solace for the many hundreds of dollars which I shall be required to contribute both directly and through the attendant inflation coupled with a short supply of consumer goods.
We are fighting a great, costly, wasteful, and controversial undeclared war in Vietnam. If to question why we are in Vietnam, what we expect to accomplish there, and how long we shall be saddled with the increasing costs and involvements labels one as being a “Municher,” then Munich becomes a hallowed word. It is not the concept of a Democracy that the electorate shall unconditionally accept the dictations of the elected; quite the contrary, that smacks of Communism.
Mr. Lowe’s discussion of the virtue of our involvement in the Vietnamese War was quite unconvincing.
The Rambler
(See Cover and page 3, October 1966 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander G. Winthrop Hodges, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—The sailing vessel Rambler on the cover of the Proceedings is not a brig. A brig is a two- masted sailing vessel, square-rigged on both masts, carrying headsails and main staysails, and a small fore-and-aft, gaff-headed spanker on the mainmast. A hermaphrodite brig was square-rigged on the foremast and entirely fore-and-aft-rigged on the mainmast. Occasionally a small square topsail was carried on the mainmast, and the rig was called a brigantine. The term brigantine was usually considered to be a slang expression among the better informed sailing masters of the period.
I have never before seen a painting of a vessel both completely square-rigged and
completely fore-and-aft-rigged on the foremast, and fore-and-aft-rigged on the main. I consider this picture apocryphal. The ship could not be sailed full and by with that cloud of canvas on the foremast. The center of effort would be much too far forward to balance the center of lateral resistance. She would fall off and carry a murderous lee helm. Moreover, the fore course and square fore topsail would blanket the foresail and the gaff-headed fore topsail, causing the latter two sails to be in a continuous state of luffing. Before the wind, the latter two, if carried, would nullify the square sails on the very point of sailing for which they were designed. In addition, there appear to be two furled main staysails abaft the brailed up fore course and square fore topsail. Is the painting signed? Could it be that the Mariners Museum has acquired a nautical flight of fancy by some unknown artist? This rig might be called a “topsail schooner,” but certainly never a brig.
Editor’s note: Mr. Hodges is quite right; the Rambler is not a brig. She is apparently a cross between a topsail schooner and a hermaphrodite brig. We lean toward the latter, since her gaff foresail and fore topsail seem perhaps subordinate to her square foresail and fore topsail. The unknown artist has evidently taken some license in portraying the vessel. For example, a contradictory element noted by another Naval Institute member, Mr. Francis M. Holbrook, is that “the sail [gaff foresail] is taking the wind from starboard and is full- rounded as if there were no main stay there.” Nonetheless, the Rambler bringing up to take a boat alongside makes a handsome picture; long live artistic license and woe to naval editors who misname the rigs of sailing vessels!
"Beachmasters—
The Amphibious Combat Traffic Cops”
(See pages 140-143, September 1966 Proceedings)
Captain Walter C. Capron, U. S. Coast Guard (Retired)—To an old amphibious man, the later developments of the beach party described by Lieutenant Orahood were quite interesting.
I was with Commander, Transports, Atlantic Fleet (the forerunner of the Amphibious Force, Atlantic) in May 1941. With the exception of about three months in 1942 when I was with the Army’s Engineer Amphibian Command, I served with the Navy’s amphibious forces until May 1943.
During the summer of 1941, practice landings by the 1st Marine Division and the Army’s 1st Division were conducted at Onslow Beach, New River, North Carolina. These two divisions were embarked in Navy transports, most of which were later designated as attack transports (APA). During these exercises, the troops were supported by individual beach parties furnished from the crew of each transport. This continued to be the practice for the next year and a half. The beach parties became relatively efficient by constant practice with troops.
When preparations started for TORCH, the Northwest African landings, many new transports were needed and conversion of existing or building merchant ships was speeded up. Time being extremely short, Commander, Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet, then Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, decided to train the beach parties and the boat crews for the new APAs separately from the balance of the ships’ crews. Training facilities were established at Norfolk and Little Creek, Virginia. I was designated Ofhcer-in- Charge, Beach Party Training School. The standard beach party at that time consisted
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of a beachmaster, a salvage boat officer, a medical officer, and 56 enlisted men. Thirty- six beach parties were trained and individual beach parties were furnished to the new transports, including those sailing from Great Britain.
In the meantime, the first landings had taken place at Guadalcanal in the Pacific. During the course of this operation, many transports had to sail leaving beach parties and boat crews behind.
During the North African landings the new beach parties quickly showed the results of their specialized training. However, they were not an unqualified success. Some of the transport captains broke up the trained beach parties, retaining some of the more experienced men on board and replacing them with more or less untrained men. Upon completion of the landing phases of the campaign, the greater part of the naval forces returned to the Hampton Roads area.
Studies of the North African landings and those in the Solomon Islands pointed up the difficulties of the existing system: training and procedures of individual beach parties were often completely different; if a transport sailed after unloading, the beach party must either be left behind for indefinite periods, or be withdrawn with mission unaccomplished; and attack cargo ships (AKA), while needing services of beach parties, could not furnish any from ship’s complement.
Thus, very early in 1943 the decision was made to establish naval beach battalions, which would be independent commissioned units, charged with furnishing trained beach parties to AKAs and APAs in landing operations. Shortly thereafter, the 1st Naval Beach Battalion was activated and commissioned, and I was named commanding officer and for a time also remained Officer-in-Charge, Joint Beach and Shore Party School. The battalion was based at Camp Bradford, Virginia, but did most of its training at Fort Pierce, Florida. It was largely composed of veterans of the North African landings. Subsequently, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Naval Beach Battalions were formed at Camp Bradford. The 2nd and 4th trained in North Africa, the 3rd, in the United States.
All four battalions participated in the landings in Sicily. Later the 1st Naval Beach
Battalion supported a British division at Anzio, Italy.
I hope this rambling account may be of interest to some of today’s beachinasters, and possibly arouse memories in some of World War II’s amphibious veterans.
"Surface Ship Overhauls”
(See pages 26-33, February 1966, pages 132-133, April 1966,
and pages 117-112, September 1966 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Roy L. Hendricks, U. S. Navy '—As a recent engineer officer of a fleet oiler during a regular overhaul and through an AO (JUMBO) conversion, I feel Lieutenant Madouse’s article has many negatives and too few positives regarding the responsibility of the ship’s company during an overhaul.
He failed to expand the varied requirements of higher authority for proper preparation for entering an overhaul. He did not mention that the reason shipyard personnel appear to be professionals is because in many cases they know more about the ship than does the ship’s force. He did not say that a Well-prepared ship’s force, which knows the material condition, has researched all available records, and has presented to the overhaul facility, via the type commander, a complete and accurate repair request, may reasonably expect a complete work order. So long as we repair ships there will be the line of jurisdiction between the responsibility of the repair force and that of the crew.
The operating experts are the quality assurance people because they are motivated by the fact that they operate the equipment. Good ship-to-shop relations are a valuable feature for a small ship; the crew cannot rewind a motor, but can take it out and replace it. I find it very difficult to imagine a type commander representative monitoring a ship’s overhaul; that is the commanding officer’s responsibility.
I think that Lieutenant Madouse wrote his article after a single unpleasant experience. I believe all Navy men agree that an overhaul is a most trying experience. The point should be made and remade that the commanding officer is the one person to whom the responsibility and authority are charged.
Maintenance officers of fleet and type commander staffs, who administer the availabilities and funds, and many naval shipyard and - industrial manager personnel have for years kept ships underway not because of, but in spite of, the ship’s company.
"What Price Sea Power?”
(See pages 56-61, July 1966 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander C. R. Oberg, U. S. Navy (Technical Assistant, Naval Maintenance Support Office, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania)—There is in being a method that will solve many of the problems Captain Rapp discusses. The Standard Navy Maintenance Material Management System, commonly called the “3-M System,” is a concept of maintenance management currently being implemented in the Fleet and Naval Shore Establishment activities. The System recognizes and offers remedial action for the increasing maintenance costs due to the increasing complexity of equipment being introduced into the Fleet and decreased availability of skilled maintenance personnel. To paraphrase Captain Rapp, 3-M offers the data and a system for predicting the “first year’s procurement of aeronautical spares— major components, such as engines—and repair parts—individual items needed to repair major components—as well as the first year’s procurement of a new weapons system prior to any actual experience being obtained.” It is a revolutionary approach to budget justification and much more definitive than the sampling technique. But 3-M has even broader applications.
The objective of the 3-M System, simply stated, is to improve material readiness of the Fleet through improved management of maintenance material resources. All segments of the Navy are included. It is directed by the Chief of Naval Operations and is being implemented by the Chief of Naval Material. The discipline is applicable to all shipboard departments. Thus, a user-producer relationship exists. Policies to achieve the goals of the 3-M System are established by a steering group composed of flag-rank members representing the Chief of Naval Operations, Chief of Naval Material, and all participating systems commands. The efforts of the participating commands are co-ordinated and monitored weekly by means of a Staff Working Group
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under a 3-M System Director.
The 3-M System was introduced into the Navy in 1963 by the Chief of Naval Operations in Instruction 4700.16. This instruction implements a uniform system for collecting, processing, analyzing and distributing of feedback information to enable line commanders and support technical commands better to carry out their management functions. The former system is referred to as the Planned Maintenance System (PMS), and the latter system as the Maintenance Data Collection System (MDCS).
Essentially, the Planned Maintenance System is a tool which provides the department heads aboard ship the ability to manage, schedule, and control the maintenance of their equipment. A scheduling technique has been developed which balances the workload, yet gives the department head the flexibility to determine when the required maintenance task can best be performed, based on his operational commitments and the availability of required manpower. All shipboard personnel have a vital role to perform in execution of the Planned Maintenance System. Work study efforts have reduced and consolidated preventive maintenance requirements to the minimum actually necessary to maintain the equipment.
The second part of the 3-M System is the Maintenance Data Collection System. This is a standard system used to report maintenance actions accomplished or deferred. While the Planned Maintenance System encompasses preventive maintenance which can be scheduled, the Maintenance Data Collection System is concerned with all maintenance, scheduled and unscheduled. In this system a maintenance action will be recorded and reported only once and used to serve many purposes. The data is sent to a central data processing center. There the data elements are structured into report formats to suit the varying requirements of the individual commands ashore and afloat.
The Central Data Processing Facility is located at the Maintenance Support Office at Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The MDC system uses a functional Equipment Identification Code (EIC) which identifies components or the parts replaced within the system it serves. The Equipment Identification Code manuals are assembled to suit each ship’s equipment configuration by the Maintenance Support Office. Records show a continual expending of efforts to correct problems rather than to prevent them. Prior reporting systems, such as equipment failure report, were reporting 40 to 50 maintenance actions per month. Ships are now reporting as high as 500 to 600 actions per month (preventive and corrective maintenance). Thus, there is no difficulty in getting the Fleet to report the bulk of its maintenance actions. The vast amount of data soon will strangle managers without reaping any benefits unless the Navy adopts an acceptable attitude toward products of the computer. The Maintenance Data Collection System, properly used, will enable the managers to act rather than to react to problems.
Extension of the Maintenance Data Collection System to the shipyards was scheduled to begin late in 1966. This phase will require the shipyards to accept work requests and reports in a standard form and send reports to the Maintenance Support Office in a compatible manner, permitting augmentation of the data into the basic files at the Central Data Processing facility.
"Proposed: A
Counterinsurgency Task Force”
(See pages 36-45, June 1966 Proceedings)
Henry Eugene Robards, Jr.—The interesting and provocative article by Commander Nelson and Lieutenant Mosher ran onto foul ground in Brazilian waters. The answer to their question “what other naval group beside a South American COIN task force could make an official visit to Manaus, 600 miles up the Amazon River?” is, of course, almost any navy, or even several navies at one time. The main river channel at Manaus (actually on the Rio Negro, 12 miles above its confluence with the Amazon) is several miles wide and over 90 feet deep. Ships drawing up to 24 feet can tie up at the city’s docks. I assisted several years ago in the loading in Venezuela of a 90,000- barrel crude oil cargo on a 10,000-ton tanker bound for Manaus. Ocean-going ships can penetrate several hundred miles upstream beyond Manaus.
A much better (and more critical) location for the authors’ hypothetical COIN task force to show the flag in South American waters would be in the upper reaches of the Parana River and its navigible tributaries. This mighty river system flows over 2,000 miles through central South America, washing the banks of five countries and dominating communications and transport in the most developed and productive regions of South America. Like the Mississippi, the Parana has a lot of water, but not much in any one spot. Its low banks, bordering swamps, shifting channels, and sand bars are reminiscent of the great North American river. Here South America’s bloodiest and most important war (after independence) took place from 1865 to 1872. Brazil’s well organized and equipped ocean-going Navy was hard pressed to overcome the hastily improvised ironclads, converted river steamers, barges, and armed rafts which made up the Paraguayan river fleet. Victory by the Brazilians at Riachuelo permitted the armies of the Triple Alliance to isolate and defeat, one by one, the superior Paraguayan land forces.
In more modern times, the upper reaches of the Parana tributaries were the scene of much near-guerrilla type warfare during the Chaco War of 1932-1935. One cannot dismiss completely the possibilities of future occurrences. Paraguay recently protested against Brazilian Army posts along the Parana frontier, and Brazilian flags were burned in demonstrations in Asuncion. Political unrest in Argentina and Uruguay (the original cause of the 1865-1872 Paraguayan War) is once again apparent.
Brazil and Argentina, the two Parana River nations with sizeable navies, have limited themselves almost entirely to blue- water warships and have shown little interest in small craft capable of patrolling or fighting in these restricted inland waters (the well- trained Brazilian minesweeping squadrons might be an exception). One result is that smuggling is rampant in the Parana basin, and law enforcement agencies are nearly helpless to keep this vast area under surveillance because of the lack of trained personnel and suitable craft. The United States must bear a considerable share of the blame for this neglect; the naval portion of U. S. military assistance programs to Latin America appears to be almost entirely oriented toward deepwater operations. As another recent Proceedings article pointed out, many of the ocean-going ships supplied by the United States to Latin America are not well suited to the naval needs of these countries, and also impose a heavier than necessary economic burden on these developing nations. *
"Mahan—Mariner or Misfit?”
(See pages 92-103, April 1966 Proceedings)
Rear Admiral John D. Hayes, U. S. Navy (Retired)—Captain Brent has ingeniously exposed the vein of anti-intellectualism within the naval profession. All active vocations have this singular characteristic to some degree, but it is conspicuously strong in ours for reasons that are easier sensed than explained. Admiral Mahan was painfully aware of it for he realized that acceptance of his ideas was to some extent dependent upon his professional
* See Robert McClintock, “Latin America and Naval Power,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1965, pp. 30-37.
and seagoing reputation.
Naval anti-intellectualism manifests itself in the notion that an officer must first display outstanding competence as a mariner, warrior, and engineer before he can be accorded standing and authority as a naval commentator. That it still exists was demonstrated last year by Admiral Emory S. Land’s verbal flogging at a testimonial dinner of Lieutenant Commander Charles DiBona, U. S. Navy, for his article “Can We Modernize U. S. Shipbuilding?” in the January 1966 issue of the Proceedings. Three decades ago service folklore had it that the author of the widely read text On A Destroyer's Bridge was a poor ship- handler. True or not, his book was a godsend to officers maneuvering the cranky 1,200- tonners for the first time.
What Admiral Mahan did was to combine not expertise, but a lifetime of varied naval experience with his intellectual discernment and gift of expression to create his maritime literary masterpieces. He demonstrated to a remarkable degree that convincing military history is a product of both professional background and literary talent. The soldier- historian Charles Francis Adams pointed this out in a paper which he delivered before the American Historical Society in 1899:
Captain Mahan has recently shown us what naval history becomes when handled by one who has himself sailed the ocean and had thoroughly familiarized himself with maritime conditions. His work . . . marks a new departure; and it does so for the simple reason that he did combine the two qualities I have referred to,—literary skill with professional knowledge.
Military operations, past and present, recent and remote, . . . have been analysed on paper and fought over in print more than enough, but it has been either by military men who failed to possess Captain Mahan’s literary gift, or by literary men who had not shared his professional work. [1]
A proven reputation can be a handicap in writing on military subjects, for it inhibits challenge and the scholar who is not challenged becomes nothing but a dogmatist. Even greater danger exists in expecting the military theorist to prove his doctrines in active operations. The following comment was made in November 1862 about General George B. McClellan by an Army officer contemporary of this controversial Civil War general:
McClellan is a thorough student of military science and art, and intimately acquainted with the history of war, ancient and modern; but is, on account of his very study and information, wanting in promptness and decision. Batdes have been lost and won in so many different ways, and through such variety of accidents that an ingenious and well-read man, when he has made a plan of batde, can discover means of defeating it, and confirms his apprehensions by examples from history. McClellan’s very knowledge disqualifies him for action.j
Admiral Mahan’s rejection by his contemporaries also had other causes. One was his pro-British attitude at a time when antiBritish feeling was still strong in the U. S. Navy. Related to this was his selection of British naval history as a subject for analysis rather than the naval operations of the then recent American Civil War, in which he and his contemporaries had had a part. Captain George E. Belknap, U. S. Navy, caustically remarked on this in an address at the Naval War College in 1897:
I do not know, indeed, but that our distinguished fellow alumnus of Annapolis should be court-martialed for furnishing such aid and comfort to our British cousins in their effort to maintain their supremacy at sea.
The English have been wont to say Napoleon never encountered a first-rate general until he met Wellington—but in all his fighting, Lord Nelson never had to contend with a first-rate man of the sea. His victories were over second-rate, half hearted captains, as at the Nile and Trafalgar, or men taken by surprise as at Copenhagen. What a difference he would have found, we may think, in a battle test with a Farragut, a Porter, a Foote or a Rowan.
Another possible reason for Admiral Mahan’s unpopularity was that many of his early War College lectures were devoted to land warfare, understandably not a popular
f C. H. Davis, Jr., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), pp. 287-288.
method of naval instruction. Admiral Mahan’s preceptor, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, U. S. Navy, was responsible, for Admiral Luce did not believe that sufficient naval history was then in print for a comprehensive study of the art of war.
The friction with Rear Admiral Erben in the Chicago sprang from the inherent mutual antagonism that exists between activists and contemplatives in all walks of life.
Admiral Mahan was fortunate in his early assignment of commanding officers—Louis M. Goldsborough, Percival Drayton, and George B. Balch. Captain Drayton, in a letter to a friend, made the earliest comment on record of young Mahan as an officer: “I have a nice quiet set of officers, the first lieutenant being a young man, son of Professor Mahan at West Point whom I examined at the Navy school only two years since, so he is young enough not to have fixed ways and is quite clever.”
The first title which Admiral Mahan gave to the series of sea warfare lectures that were to become his famous book was “Influence of Naval Power on the Growth of Nations.” One may wonder whether the work would have been such a spectacular success had it been published under this more appropriate but less glamorous title. Admiral Mahan’s reasons for inventing the term “sea power” are discussed in my article “Peripheral Strategy— Mahan’s Doctrine Today” in the Proceedings for November 1953.
Captain Francis S. Craven, U. S. Navy (Retired), in “The Painful Development of a Professional Navy” in the Proceedings for May 1966, compares the high order of strategical thinking in the U. S. Navy with its record of poor ships, poor weapons, poor tactics, and poorly trained personnel before World War II. He attributes the superior strategic thought “to the senior officers who rose above the system that had, in other respects, produced only mediocre results.” These men were the intellectuals who dominated the U. S. Navy between 1880 and 1940. Admiral Mahan was only one of them, but he is too often mistakenly given full credit by today’s naval writers and speakers. The group included Luce, F. E. Chadwick, H. C. Taylor, B. A. Fiske, W. S. Sims, W. V. Pratt, and H. E. Yarnell. These men devoted themselves
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to the art of naval warfare rather than its techniques, to the strategy of naval power and the relation of navies to foreign policy and international law.
Captain Robert Brent, U. S. Navy— I must take some exception to Admiral Hayes’ conclusions concerning the status of anti- intellectualism in the Navy today. This was one of the problems Mahan faced. But we cannot look at the past and expect to find it repeated without distortion in our present and future. Things do change, even very fundamental ones.
Today, the climate in the Navy seems to be not one of anti-intellectualism, but one that, if anything, represents a complete swing of the pendulum to the side. This can be seen in present efforts to broaden the curriculum at the Naval Academy, which is the result of a fear (shared by nearly every school of engineering in the country) that the graduate may only be a high-priced technician having neither the capability nor the inclination to venture beyond the limits of his hardware. When the situation is examined carefully, it becomes obvious that the person with broad practical experience enjoys insights, as Admiral Mahan did, that are denied to the academic community, but which are every bit as valuable in the useful resolution of historic facts (including those reported in this morning’s newspaper) as are the long years of academic preparation of the true intellectual. I would not in any way imply that the intellectual has nothing to offer because it is obvious that quite the contrary is true. Not so obvious is the fact that the person of broad experience also has much to offer if he has the inclination, time, and energy to invade the operating area of the intellectual. Consequently, the individual with broad experience should not be deterred from participating by any feeling that this requires a unique capability that is by the nature of things denied to him. The naval officer of today, by the very character of his duties, is forced to become acutely aware of the political, economic, and strategic problems that face the world. As a result, he has a unique viewpoint that has great potential value and which he should not allow false modesty to prevent him from exploiting.
The fault today lies not in the Navy’s being “anti-intellectual,” but in the fact that it too often takes the attitude, even in affairs that vitally concern the Navy, of “leave it to the intellectual.”
Those First Impressions
Lieutenant Commander R. L. Madouse, U. S. Navy—First impressions have always exerted a profound influence upon one’s thoughts and actions. Bad first impressions are making an emphatically negative contribution toward the Navy’s retention effort. Consider the case of a highly motivated recruit, fresh from boot camp with sea duty orders in hand, and let us address ourselves to some of the first impressions he has of the Navy.
Seaman Apprentice Jones arrives at his ship’s home port. To his surprise, he learns that he is to be assigned to the type commander’s allowance for several months. Ahead lies a less-than-stimulating period of mess cooking on the naval station and compartment cleaning at the type commander’s headquarters.
Perhaps four months later, with his enthusiasm somewhat dampened and his ears filled with the service gripes acquired from the mess hall transients, Jones reports aboard his ship.
The duty master-at-arms assigns him a temporary bunk and locker, but this assignment will change twice during the ensuing week. Jones wanders about in this twilight zone for several days and, after one week on board, he is introduced to his division officer and department head. The main topic of discussion is the reasoning behind the detailing of Jones to mess cooking duties aboard ship. The critical non-rated personnel situation demands Jones’ presence on the mess decks.
His three-month repeat performance in the mess hall is completely uneventful. At its conclusion he still does not know his ship, has yet to reap the benefits of a re-enlistment reporting interview, and his previously high level of motivation has suffered considerably. Seven months after conclusion of boot camp, Jones is still a seaman apprentice, and has not taken the first step in professional development to prepare himself for advancement.
We can do without some first impressions; what positive steps can we take?
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I
a
• Phase out mess cooking ashore for enlisted men. As an essential first step, abolish the demoralizing practice of assigning a recruit bound for sea duty to mess cooking duties before he ever steps aboard ship.
A more acceptable shipboard approach to mess cooking must be found. This necessary evil has been with us for years and, unfortunately will probably be a fixture for some time to come. We might augment supply department personnel in sufficient numbers to provide full-time mess cooks. Mess cooks would be considered as cook strikers, and when a rated cook is transferred, the most promising mess cook would be elevated to cooking duties, with a new mess cook ordered in. In the absence of an outside solution to the problem, each command should recruit potential cooking talent from the non-rated personnel and pursue a continuous, concerted effort to staff the mess cooks with volunteers.
• Greet each recruit with a realistic shipboard indoctrination program, indicating specific goals to be reached at the conclusion of a designated time period after reporting. At the completion of the orientation period, the recruit should be fully checked-in, with all personal matters relating to reporting solved as soon as possible. He should have had one complete tour of the ship and learn all of the ship’s officers and their primary duties. He should be familiar with the ship’s organization and regulations manual, effective ship’s instructions, the general characteristics of his ship, and be thoroughly indoctrinated in shipboard emergency evolutions. To conclude this period, a briefing should be given by the division officer covering the mission of the ship and her operating schedule available at the time.
• The reporting interview, as required by current career counseling directives, should be conducted as soon as practicable. The importance of a productive effort at this session cannot be overemphasized, for this is a face-to-face meeting between a career petty officer who has vital information to offer and a new sailor who needs the information.
• When a new man steps into a shipboard billet he must immediately become part of an aggressive training program, an interesting and challenging program with realistic goals.
If we have not trained our man adequately, nor encouraged self-study to enable him to be ready for the third class examination at the end of his first year, then we have taken a decidedly negative step in the re-enlistment process.
The Navy already has several unfavorable first impressions stacked against it: Seaman apprentice pay is still below the federal minimum wage, some of the worst working conditions imaginable are to be found in our ships, and primitive living conditions are still the rule rather than the exception in our 20-year- old ships. To offset these, the Navy needs career-minded people with the interest and enthusiasm to work with a new recruit from the moment he walks aboard. A man re-en- lists only if he makes the decision to do so. If he does not make the decision the Navy makes it for the sailor by giving him a discharge.
Taking Sights Without a Visible Horizon
FAHEY’S EIGHTH EDITION
THE SHIPS
AND
AIRCRAFT
OF THE
US. FLEET
Compiled and Edited by James C. Fahey
An up-to-date listing by name and type of over 2,000 ships and 120 aircraft and missiles. Over 400 illustrations. 64 pages. Paperbound. List Price $3.50 Member's Price $2.80 A U. S. Naval Institute Publication
Captain P. V. H. Weems, U. S. Navy (Retired)—Some ten years ago, Mr. Philip Burton, a mathematician and an Australian
Naval Reserve officer who also holds a rating in the merchant marine, designed a marine sextant attachment for which he claims a capability of determining an accurate fix with a single observation, and without a visible horizon. The claim has become somewhat controversial, inasmuch as while no one has fully demonstrated the feasibility of the concept, neither has anyone shown the concept to be fallacious.
In effect, Mr. Burton combines in his device two marine sextants set at 90 degrees to each other. Two stars are used in making the observation. The optics in the plane of the tilted horizon are used to bring the image of the lower star directly underneath the upper, resulting in one star and the reflected image of the other being seen on the same vertical circle. The angle between these two images on the vertical circle is then measured with the standard sextant optics. This is the SARC (Sextant Altitude Reference Control) angle. Mr. Burton’s concept uses this observed angle, the computed difference in azimuth between the two stars, and the parallactic angle to arrive at a solution. The parallactic angle is the angle at the observed body of the normal celestial triangle which is not used in present methods of nagivation. By the use of a somewhat involved mathematical formula two lines of position and a fix can be obtained.
Navigators will, of course, quickly recognize in this system a distinct departure from conventional methods, specifically, the measuring of difference of azimuth.
The present Burton device, although somewhat crude, was evaluated on the SS Atlantic in March 1965. At that time ten observations were made, resulting in an average error of about 38 miles. A plot of these errors showed a curve which was fairly consistent, but below the computed values. However, during the course of the observations, by accident, a star image was noted above the upper star. On the assumption that this was the I. C., the angle was measured and found to be 84 minutes, and a second curve was plotted, which plotted above the computed curve. Moreover, additional study showed that the measured I. C. should be one-half of the sextant reading, and with these corrected values plotted as a curve, a fairly respectable demonstration of Mr. Burton’s concept was obtained.
Further information regarding the concept was provided from evaluations made by the USS Vancouver (LPD-2) in May 1965. The commanding officer of that ship reported that a model of the sextant attachment invention provided by Mr. Burton unfortunately did not fit the type of sextant which the ship had on board. Hence, the rather excessive errors recorded were suspected to have resulted from improper alignment. The Vancouver report concluded, therefore, that while the SARC method did not appear to be sufficiently developed to be of immediate use on board U. S. Navy ships, the Vancouver tests could not be considered conclusive because of the improper alignment of the instrument. It was also recommended that any additional tests should incorporate a SARC attachment which could be easily fitted and accurately aligned to the standard U. S. Navy sextant.
This sextant reading aspect is only a part of the entire concept. The initial task of taking observations, and computing and recording data has been a time-consuming one involving hundreds of hours. The calculations included the use of the McMillen precision globe on which navigation stars are plotted with considerable accuracy to give a rapid approximate solution for the spherical triangle.
While much remains to be done to validate the concept, it has already proved sufficiently interesting to warrant further investigation. When we consider, for example, that celestial navigation is based on timed observations with a hand-held marine sextant, and that with a 24-hour availability of these observations our problem would be fully met, it is obvious that we should strive to extend sextant time availability. This the Burton system proposes to do by using suitable selected pairs of stars which are often visible through the long reaches of the night when a visible horizon is not available.
Because of its potential to augment navigation information, the evaluation of the Burton concept will continue.
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[1] C. F. Adams, “A Plea for Military History” in Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers (1903), p. 346.