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Nuclear Navy; Fast Frigates for the Royal Navy; Navy Reveals Details on Petrel Missile; Army Forms “Fire Brigade” of Air Troops; Ship Experiment nears Sea Stage; Self-Adjusting Camera Developed; Landing Craft Retriever; XFY-1 Pogo VTO Plane Trainer; The New Officer Structure of the Royal Navy; Portable TV Transmitter and Receiver; New Course Set by Air Academy; Hospital Ship Due for Sea Change; New Uniform for Royal Navy; New London Submarine Entertains “Namesake”; Robots at Anchor in Remote Seas to Report Weather for the Navy; Tiny Sub Air Conditioned; Arctic Fire Extinguisher; Pocket-size Solar-Powered Radio.
Nuclear Navy*
By John A. Grimes
Wall Street Journal, March 27, 1956.— Uncle Sam’s Navy is steaming an expensive, full-speed-ahead course into atomic energy.
The objective: Atomic propulsion of all major combat ships, from submarines to destroyers to aircraft carriers, some time in the 1960’s.
Prospects are warming up for nuclear- powered civilian vessels. Four manufacturers have offered to build an atomic engine for a merchant ship.
The Navy is pushing plans for faster, more powerful nuclear submarines at a rate that’s already outmoding the highly successful pioneer atom sub, Nautilus, soon after its first birthday.
The second atomic sub, Sea Wolf, is now being fitted with a nuclear engine and will go to sea this year. Half a dozen other nuclear- propelled subs are in either in the design or construction stage. One will be of a speedy new attack type. Another will be powered by two reactors rather than one and will boast a hull of revolutionary new teardrop design which a Navy official calls “the ultimate—it epitomizes everything.” This ship will offer greater carrying capacity as well as more speed.
A Fast Switch
The Navy rates the urgency so high that they recently switched a planned missilefiring sub from conventional diesel-and- electric power to atomic propulsion in the midst of design work. “Fortuitous circumstances” allowed the switch without “too radical” a change, a Navy spokesman says.
Navy men now plan to build no more conventionally-powered subs, unless perhaps to test hull design. And Rear Admiral H. G. Rickover, who ramrodded Nautilus to success, has flatly predicted all major naval ships started after 1960 will be nuclear-powered.
The real push will come in the shipbuilding program for the fiscal year starting in July. The Navy is asking Congress for money to build six more nuclear submarines swelling this undersea fleet to 14. All these craft would sport the teardrop design and would outperform the record-breaking Nautilus.
What’s more, the sea service is now designing and expects to start building next fiscal year what will probably be the first nuclear-driven surface ship when it’s finished in 1959. It’s a light cruiser designed to fire guided missiles and will be driven by “multiple” reactors; the Navy won’t say how many.
Carriers, Destroyers, Planes
The Navy is also seeking funds in the coming program for the first nuclear- powered aircraft carrier. Design work is going forward now, though the ship won’t be finished until about 1961.
On top of all this, the Navy is rushing efforts to squeeze a nuclear engine into a destroyer’s slim hull, and officials are confident of success reasonably soon. Work is being pushed on a nuclear sub that can fire missiles from under water; already, one official declares, rockets have been fired from undersea craft with “some success.” The service is also looking to nuclear subs for possible use as aircraft fuel tankers or small troop carriers in case an enemy controlled the surface of the seas.
And, of course, the Navy is striving to beat the Air Force in developing the first atomic airplane. No less than five companies are working on the project for the Navy; the service’s top sea dog, Admiral Arleigh Burke, has voiced confidence the first atom plane will be a seaplane.
The major meaning of all this is amply clear: The Navy is being rebuilt from the keel up into a faster, more mobile, more potent striking force. Admiral Rickover says Nautilus’ impact on naval tactics “may well approach that of the airplane.”
Measure of Power
With nuclear power, he adds, the Navy “can go where it wants, when it wants,” at top speed without worrying about the limitations of fuel capacity. The potential energy in a two-pound lump of uranium the size of a golf ball equals about 460,000 gallons of fuel oil or 3,000 tons of coal.
Admiral Rickover adds that the striking power of a nuclear Navy task force would be many times that of a World War II task force with a small fraction of the ships necessary. And Senator Jackson, a Washington Democrat who’s a member of both the Senate Armed Forces and Joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committees, offers this vision of atomic task force operations:
“Nuclear aircraft carriers, with the capability of firing nuclear guided missiles, will send aloft nuclear-powered aircraft to drop atomic bombs on the enemy. The carrier will be supported by nuclear-powered craft, some of which will have nuclear missile-firing capabilities. Nuclear subs would fire atomic missiles from under the water at the enemy.”
Measure of Costs
The approach of the nuclear Navy, along with the arrival of other costly new weapons is helping to push defense spending upward after a sharp drop. Navy figures show an “average” nuclear sub costs $47 million to $50 million, against some $22.5 million for a diesel craft. An official says the atomic carrier will cost “more,” though he doesn’t say how much more, than a conventionally powered carrier with a price tag of better than $191 million.
Navy spending for shipbuilding and ship conversion is climbing from $850 million last fiscal year to an estimated $900 million this fiscal year to an expected $1 billion-plus next fiscal year.
Authorizations for this kind of work are running even higher, because actual construction lags so long behind Congress’ okay. The lawmakers approved over $1 billion worth of shipbuilding and conversion work for last fiscal year and nearly $1.4 billion for the current year. And the Navy has asked more than $1.4 billion for the next fiscal year. * * * *
The nation’s top admirals figure nuclear craft are more than worth the huge sums they cost. “A bold program is mandatory,” declares Admiral Burke. Rear Admiral Albert G. Mumma, Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Ships, says: “It is not a question of economics; it’s a matter of necessity. We must push it as no one else could afford to. It is an absolute must that we have tomorrow’s equipment today.”
* * * *
Peacetime Uses
Unlike other Navy Weapons, atomic propulsion for warships will provide a direct peacetime boon to civilians, the Navy claims. Aside from the obvious boost it will give to development of nuclear engines for merchant ships, Admiral Mumma says the technology learned by the Navy will be directly translatable into terms that may speed the hunt for economic nuclear electricity.
“We are building a broad base for the whole (atomic energy) industry,” the Admiral states. He likens the Navy’s atomic program to what he calls its pioneering role in diesel power. The Navy’s work in this field, he says, gave rise to the growth of diesel engines to run everything from ships to trucks to locomotives.
A sharp spur to the Navy’s nuclear rush is the tremendous, fast-growing sub fleet of Soviet Russia. Defense officials report the Reds, a negligible undersea power before World War II, have more than 400 submarines now and will commission 75 or 80 new ones each year. So far as the Navy knows, the Russians do not yet have atomic subs, but Admiral Burke emphasizes: “We have learned from experience Russia has not been far behind us in other developments and there is no reason why she should not have nuclear power” in submarines.
NA UTILUS’ Record
Accelerating the rush is the success of Nautilus. Key Congressmen declare the Navy was at first reluctant to go ahead with the atomic program, despite Congressional urging, until Nautilus proved without a doubt she was as good as the reports said. Navy officials admit Nautilus exceeded their expectations.
In more than a year of operations she has gone more than 26,000 miles without refueling and can probably go another year without new fuel. She steamed 1,300 miles, fully submerged, in 84 hours. This was ten times further than any other submarine is known to have traveled under water and the trip was made faster than any other sub is known to have done it either below or on the surface. All her power needs are supplied by her atomic reactor, which can provide the equivalent of enough power to take care of a city of 20,000 persons.
By comparison, diesel-powered subs relying on storage batteries for submerged power could last only about half the time below water that the Nautilus did, and that only at the very lowest speed.
Naturally, the Navy says nuclear power means vessels must be heavier because of the shielding needed to protect the crew from radiation. But officials add the advantages far outweigh this drawback. There will be a great saving in space for fuel storage and for the air system needed in the combustion of diesel fuel; “burning” of nuclear fuel needs no oxygen. This extra space can be used for more weapons, more aviation fuel in the case of atomic aircraft carriers, more supplies to enable the ship to stay at sea longer.
Because of atomic power, Admiral Rick- over says, ships will become largely selfsustaining fighting platforms. Because of their mobility, they will be hard to hit. They will move over a wide area quickly, hit hard and escape fast. Admiral Mumma sees the nuclear-powered craft as able to operate at full speed at all times, rather than having to conserve its full power for the time of attack. And Admiral Burke commented recently: With nuclear power the Navy “will be able to design atomic ships around their power plants and weapons rather than around their fuel-carrying capabilities.”
Senator Jackson, a frequent critic of the nation’s defense abilities under the Republicans, flatly declared the Navy is the only service in which we have a clear superiority over the Russians. This lead, he contends, will widen with the advent of nuclear power in the Navy. He says the atomic task force is “coming fast.”
How long will the atomic fleet of the future take to arrive? According to Admiral Burke, the bulk of the conversion of combat vessels will take 10 years. In commercial-type ships, such as tankers and transports, the Navy probably won’t introduce nuclear power until it is economic to do so—probably about the same time it is commercially feasible to build atomic merchant ships.
The conversion job, Senator Jackson claims, is going to “revitalize” the nation’s shipbuilding industry. By law, half the Navy’s ships must be built in private yards, h'alf in Navy yards. Admiral Rickover, however, warns that the atomic building program will “generate radical changes” in shipbuilding.
* * * *
Fast Frigates for the Royal Navy
London Times, March 13, 1956.—HMS Dundas, a sister ship of HMS Hardy and the second of the Blackwood- class anti-submarine frigates to come into service, has been provisionally accepted by the Admiralty. After completing her handing-over trials, the ship will be commissioned and will join the 2nd Training Squadron of the Home Fleet, Portsmouth.
Although of the “utility type” care has been given to providing the best possible accommodation in these small anti-submarine frigates. Improvements include special furnishing, interior-sprung settees, and fluorescent lighting in the living quarters.
Blackwood frigates are of all-welded construction, being fabricated in a manner which permits rapid construction; they are highly maneuverable and the hull form enables the vessels to maintain high speed in heavy seas during submarine search. Their armament consists of three 40, mm. Bofors guns and two three-barrelled anti-submarine mortars of the “squid” type.
The mortars can each fire a pattern of large projectiles with great accuracy; the projectiles can be set to< explode at a predetermined depth, and they can be trained over a wider arc than any previous types of anti-submarine mortars. Two twin-torpedo tubes are also installed in the Dundas, which has a displacement of about 1,300 tons.
Geared turbines of an advanced design, which are extremely economical in fuel consumption at cruising speeds, propel the ship by a single screw.
Navy Reveals Details on Petrel Missile
Aviation Week, April 9, 1956.—First official details were revealed on the Fairchild- built Petrel air-to-surface missile developed by the National Bureau of Standards for the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance.
The Petrel is built around a standard Navy Mk. 13 airborne torpedo. Jettisonable wings, tail, powerplant, and nose guidance
packages have been added. A Fairchild- developed J44 turbojet rated at 1,000 lb. static thrust powers the missile.
Approximate dimensions for the Petrel:
• Length, 24 ft.
• Wingspan, 13 ft.
• Tail span, 8 ft.
• Diameter of the body, about 2 ft.
Detachable parts are of conventional
makeup with the exception of the large triangular fins. They are sheet metal stampings with honeycomb stiffening inside. Metal bonding techniques fasten the assembly.
The Petrel is air-launched from patrol aircraft well outside the range of enemy antiaircraft. The Navy announcement said the missile has an active homing system that guides the missile to the target.
As the Petrel approaches within normal 'torpedo range of the target, its height above the surface of the water is checked by a radio altimeter in the package under the nose guidance section. At the proper altitude for a drop, a signal from this altimeter jettisons the detachable parts. The stripped torpedo makes a normal drop into the water and runs to the target.
During the Petrel test program, the power- plant is recovered by a parachute deployed from the cylinder visible under the horizontal tail.
Tests and evaluation of the Petrel were completed by Bureau of Ordnance at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, Chincoteague, Va., and later by the Fleet Operational De-
velopment Force. During the tests, . . The missile performed with a degree of reliability considered exceptionally high for such a sophisticated weapon,” the Navy said.
The Petrel is the successful culmination of a series of missiles named after water birds and developed under technical direction of the Navy by the Bureau of Standards. Among earlier missiles were the Kingfisher, Plover, and Grebe. Basic mission of all these missiles was the same, air-launched, they were directed against shipping or shallow- water targets.
Army Forms “Fire Brigade" of Air Troops
By Charles Corddry
Washington Post and Times Herald, March 25, 1956.—The Army will organize a brand-new type of paratroop division with its own atomic weapons next September and have it ready to go overseas in early 1957.
The commander of the new unit described it as a “fire brigade” for putting a quick stop to little wars.
Army Secretary Wilber H. Brucker announced the streamlined outfit will number only 11,500 men but will boast far more firepower than the usual airborne division of 17,300.
Its major weapon will be the Honest John rocket,* which can carry a nuclear warhead. No atomic weapon in the Army has previously been assigned below the field army or corps level.
Major General Thomas L. Sherburne, Jr., noted paratrooper, who will command the new unit, told reporters three such divisions might have stopped the Korean war “before it started” if they had been available in 1950.
He hinted that now-secret new atomic guns may later be added to the test organization’s powerful weapons complement.
While entirely new in organization, with no regiments or battalions, the division will fly the colors of an honored World War II outfit—the 101st Airborne of Battle-of-the- Bulge fame. Sherburne, who fought in the old 101st under General Maxwell D. Taylor, now Army Chief of Staff, will start training
at Fort Campbell, Ky., Sept. 5.
Brucker said the division will embody the “most modern concepts of military science.
. . . Organized for battle in an atomic war.”
Sherburne, now Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, pictured the unit as a “fire brigade” for preventing or quickly ending little wars and an instrument for rapierlike thrusts deep in enemy territory in a big war.
The new 101st will be organized into five “combat groups” of about 1200 infantrymen each. Each group, able to fight engagements independently of the others, will include in its weapons a battery of five 105-mm. guns which later may be replaced by somewhat larger atomic weapon-firing guns.
Besides the powerful 105-mm. guns, new weapons and equipment will include the 90mm. self-propelled antitank {Spat) gun, 105mm. mortars, lightweight machine guns, 106 mm. antitank {Bat) guns, “family” of new lightweight trucks and “a great number” of light aircraft and helicopters for movement over the battleground.
All equipment, including Honest John rocket launchers, can be carried by air and dropped by parachute, Sherburne said, and the whole division can move in half the number of planes a normal airborne outfit needs.
The combat groups, designed for wide dispersal and swift action on atomic battlefields, will comprise five companies each numbering about 240 men per company, he said.
The division’s job in war, the general said, would be to “land on the target, do the job and get out like a nest of hornets.” He envisioned missions to destroy enemy supplies, plants and “even some key individuals.”
Activation of the new 101st, Brucker said, shows the Army’s determination to reach a “maximum degree of air transportability of all elements of the Army.”
Sherburne said his orders were to train through next February and then have the outfit “ready to go.” Its overseas post has not yet been decided, he said.
Ship Experiment Nears Sea Stage
New York Times, April 4, 1956.—The Government’s experimental program to give its fleet of laid-up Liberty ships potentially
higher speed and greater commercial usefulness will reach the sea-going stage soon.
In about three weeks the first of four ships selected for the $11,000,000 program will begin regular commercial operations. The quartet is being “upgraded” through hull changes and the installation of more powerful, and in two instances novel, machinery. There are 2,000 Liberties in the Fleet.
The first to go to sea will be the Benjamin Chew. A 6,000-horsepower steam turbine plant is being installed in the ship at the Ira S. Bushey and Son yard in Brooklyn. The new machinery will replace the 2,500-horsepower triple-expansion steam engines, which were standard equipment in the war-built Liberty ships and gave them a top speed of eleven knots. The new machinery is expected to give the ship a speed of fifteen knots.
According to informed sources, the Benjamin Chew will be turned over to the United States Lines on April 25 and will go into service between South Atlantic and continental European ports. A staff of government technicians is expected to be on hand for the first commercial voyage to test the efficiency of the new machinery.
One Gets Diesel Plant
The second vessel in the experimental program, the Thomas Nelson, is being fitted out in Baltimore with a new bow and a 6,000-horsepower diesel main propulsion plant. Work is expected to be completed on June 1. The Nelson is also slated to be turned over to the United States Lines for operation on the same run—the services maintained by its subsidiary, the South Atlantic Steamship Company.
The other two ships will be equipped with newly developed gas turbine engines—the most radical changes in the program.
The John Sergeant, now being converted at Newport News, Va.,[1] will receive an open- cycle gas turbine power plant to deliver 6,000 shaft-horsepower and a new streamlined bow. Work is expected to be completed on Aug. 10, when the ship will be assigned also to South Atlantic.
Work on the William Patterson at Baltimore is slated for completion by Aug. 15. She is to receive a 6,000-horsepower freepiston generator gas turbine propulsion unit. No commercial operation for her has been selected.
Self-Adjusting Camera Developed
Army-Navy-Air Force Register, April 7, 1956.—A new motion picture gun camera, which automatically adjusts itself to varying light conditions much like the human eye, has been developed for the Air Research and Development Command. Known as the KB-5 camera, it was developed for ARDC’s Wright Air Development Center, Dayton, Ohio, by the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation, Syosett, N. Y. Just as the iris of the human eye expands and contracts to control the amount of light entering the eye, this camera automatically adjusts its lens opening to control the amount of light reaching the film. Thus, the correct film exposure is insured.
Using present cameras, the pilot must guess whether to set his camera at “bright,” “dull,” or “hazy,” which are very vague distinctions. Dependability is also reduced because present cameras operate only while the guns are firing, and the pilot has no time to adjust the camera for quickly changing light conditions. As a result, much of the aerial film has been improperly exposed.
This new camera automatically compensates for light changes during combat and corrects itself without pilot attention by use of a neon light. This light, within the camera, shines at a constant intensity on the camera shutter, which is coated with selenium. The reaction of the light on the selenium sets up an electrical impulse. At the same time, sunlight enters through the camera lens and shines on the selenium-coated shutter, setting up a second electrical impulse. The impulse set up by the neon light is always constant, as the intensity of the neon light is constant. But the impulse set up by the sunlight varies as the light on the subject varies.
The new camera is so rapid that it can adjust through its seven lens openings— f 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, and 22—to an accuracy of within one-half stop, in just 1.8 seconds. It may run film at 16, 32, or 64 frames per second, and the shutter speed is always constant at 1/250 of a second, regardless of the rate of film being run.
Powered by a 400-cycle, three-phase electric motor, it is started simultaneously with aircraft’s guns and may be set to stop with the guns, or one, two, or three seconds afterwards. Fully-loaded with film, the new camera weighs about one pound more than present cameras and has approximately the same volume.
Landing Craft Retriever
National Defense Transportation Journal, March-April, 1956.—A sprawling mass of olive-drab beams, wading about the ocean surf and resembling nothing so much as a massive sandcrab on tremendous rubber- tired wheels, promises to save the Army Transportation Corps millions of dollars through mechanized recovery of stranded landing craft.
Labeled the Landing Craft Retriever, it is an intricate arrangement of hoists, wheels, and engineering power which straddles a 67- ton vessel and lifts it from the water. Like a huge kangaroo with its young tucked under its midriff, the retriever can “right” a cap-
sized or beached craft, transport it into deeper water, or carry it bodily out of the water and onto shore.
The new vehicle was constructed to satisfy an Army requirement for retrieving equipment to handle craft that become crippled during landing operations. Studies of landing-craft casualties during World War II indicate that only ten per cent of such casualties were due to enemy action. Most landing-craft casualties were the result of damage by high winds and rough seas that caused the craft to be sunk or grounded.
Recovery of damaged landing craft during World War II was both arduous and expensive, involving the use of tugs, salvage vessels, and improvised methods and equipment.
The Landing Craft Retriever is able to enter water at depths up to eight feet, pick up the damaged craft, and climb ashore over beaches with grades as steep as 20 per cent.
The retriever, electrically self-propelled and traveling on four of the largest rubber tires in the world, was conceived by the Transportation Research and Development Command at Fort Eustis, and engineered and constructed by R. G. LeTourneau, Inc., of Longview, Texas.
Secret behind the retriever’s workability is a separate electric motor and gear reduction built into each individual wheel. Because these are contained within the centers of the wheels themselves, and frequently must operate under water, each is totally waterproofed and furnished air under pressure for cooling.
A system of simple electric switches makes it possible for one man to operate all functions for the 101-ton unit, although a crew is maintained for attaching hoist cables to the grounded or capsized craft.
In size, the retriever is 75 feet long, 38 feet wide, and 22 feet high. Power for all motors is supplied by two General Motors diesel engines driving LeTourneau-built generators.
Basically, the machine is a U-shaped frame mounted on four “electric wheels” which drive, brake, and steer to give optimum maneuverability and driving traction on varied underfoot conditions.
Each wheel is equipped with tubeless tires 10 feet high and four feet wide, allowing flotation and traction in extremely soft terrain.
In January the huge Army monster got a chance to show the Navy what it could do. As an aftermath to freeing the destroyer escort Basilone from the sand near Fort Story, a Navy landing craft had become grounded. Moving with ponderous precision, the retriever straddled the small craft. With four hoist cables secured to the sides of the LCM the beast’s engine easily lifted it and headed for deep water. Once in the deep surf, the retriever held fast to the landing craft
See page 346, March, 1956 Proceedings.
while her engines warmed up and then turned her loose, giving her a gentle boost with one of the big wheels.
XFY-1 Pogo VTO Plane Trainer
More Convair pilots will learn to fly the XFY-1 Pogo vertical takeoff plane in a special tether test rig now being erected at Brown Naval Auxiliary Air Station near San Diego, California.
The steel structure will be in the shape of a giant arch with a cable descending in the center. The end of the cable will be attached to the nose of the experimental Navy plane to limit its vertical and horizontal movement
during pilot training operations. The rig is expected to be completed and ready for pilot training soon.
The two side towers of the arch will be 150 feet high and the connecting bridge at the top will be 150 feet wide. The large area inside the rig’s framework will enable pilots to maneuver the plane both vertically and horizontally while learning to fly the Pogo.
A control room for test personnel will be located inside one of the towers about 40 feet from the ground.
The test rig will include cables, control systems and other equipment used in the huge hangar at Moffett Naval Air Station where captive flights with the Pogo were first made nearly two years ago.
Several pilots will be checked out in the XFY-1 before free flights are resumed. During the past two years, two Convair pilots have made 170 free flights in the Pogo, world’s first VTO plane to take off vertically and complete transition to level flight.
New pilots assigned to the VTO plane will first get the feel of vertical takeoffs by checking out in an engine test stand at Convair’s seaplane ramp.
Meanwhile, the XFY-1 has been completely overhauled in the experimental factory at Convair-San Diego where it was built. The work, which has taken several months, included changes in the electrical, hydraulic and control systems.
The Nexv Officer Structure of the Royal Navy
By Vice-Admiral Sir Aubrey Mansergh, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.C.
The Navy, March, 1956.—The changes in the Navy’s officer structure announced in Parliament at the end of January are the last, and perhaps the most significant, instalment of a connected series of big changes.
The first announced over two years ago, was the decision to accept the recommendation of the Montague Committee to enter all naval cadets in future at about eighteen years of age.[2] This final abandonment of “young” entry is regretted by some, but since, for over forty years, the Navy has been entering a good proportion of its officers, and probably some of its best, at this age, no one can say that it does not work. The acceptance of the higher age of entry necessitated a departure from the time- honoured method of teaching midshipmen the rudiments of their profession “on the job” in ships of the Fleet; professionally ignorant youths of seventeen have been accepted by all, but grown men of rising twenty, knowing less about their profession than many of the ratings younger than them
selves, would not have been acceptable. Hence, the opportunity to introduce a balanced and progressive naval education at Dartmouth, based on a complete training squadron under the control of the Captain of the College, in place of the old “hit and miss” midshipmen’s instruction at sea, followed by the ‘“Subs’ courses,” during which the young men lived in eleven messes in thirty-five weeks and did thirteen sets of examinations in the same period! The “New Dartmouth” is designed to provide a better introduction to the Navy than naval officers have ever had before and there is little doubt that it will do so.
Next came announcements in the 1955 Naval Estimates speech. These concerned only the executive list and dealt with insufficient sea time for commanders and above, incomplete integration of the Fleet Air Arm into the line of naval command and inadequate career prospects for executive officers.
The institution of the “post list,”* which incidentally is a misnomer as there will be no separate list, naturally aroused strong feelings in the Navy but it has now, one hopes, been accepted as no more than a formal recognition of a state of affairs which has existed for years. No one knows better than readers of The Navy that, with sickening regularity throughout history, as soon as a war has been won, the Navy, in common with the other armed Services, has dwindled away; money ceases to be forthcoming to support anything more than a small peacetime Fleet.
No one regrets this more than the Admiralty, but there is no call for them on that account to pretend that it does not happen. As in past periods of peace the size of the present active Fleet is nowhere near big enough to provide adequate seagoing command experience for the number of senior officers, commanders and above, that we must have firstly to man the very numerous shore appointments, including very many NATO ones, that must be filled, and secondly to provide adequate promotion prospects for the junior officers required to man the Fleet: for young men will no longer join a Service which does not provide a reasonable prospect of promotion.
Thus, given the small peacetime Fleet, the Admiralty had no choice but to select certain officers on promotion to Commander, who alone thereafter would be given command of seagoing ships. Officers not made “post” may still be promoted, even ultimately to Admiral but, though they may have staff jobs at sea, may command important shore establishments and may even join the Board of Admiralty, they will not have sea or “operational” shore commands. This will be a bitter blow to those officers whose ambitions naturally center on sea command, but it had become dishonest for the Admiralty any longer to maintain a list of nominally seagoing senior officers, knowning that no opportunity could occur for them to obtain the necessary sea command experience to qualify for promotion as such.
The announcement about the genuine integration of the Fleet Air Arm into the Navy aroused much less public comment, but is hardly less important. Lip service has for long been paid to the principle that the Navy must henceforth be a Sea/Air Service in the fullest sense but it has proved very difficult to keep aircrew officers in the line of naval command because of the need to keep them in constant flying practice and because of the many shore appointments that have to be filled by qualified pilots. Both these factors militate heavily against aircrew officers becoming or remaining efficient “sailors.” The solution to be adopted is to increase somewhat the proportion of cadet-entered officers who will be taught to fly and then to return up to one third of them to general service at the end of seven years. This will permit a smaller element of short service aircrew, will increase the proportion of senior naval officers with an air “background” and will permit all permanent aircrew officers to serve one complete commission as Lieutenant and another as Lieutenant-Commander in a non-air appointment, each to be followed by a formal refresher course to get them back into flying trim. This is calculated to give them enough “sailoring” to remain qualified for promotion to Commander, even to “post” Commander.
The time spent as aircrew by the “seven years only” group will be, on the whole, . longer than that spent as aircrew by the
short service officers they will partially replace and a substantial saving in initial flying training costs is anticipated. The annual intake of short service aircrew can also be reduced by lengthening their engagement, thus making them available to fill more of the shore “air” jobs and releasing permanent aircrew officers to pursue their “sailoring.”
The third provision in this announcement tackled the question of officers’ careers. Recognizing that the Navy could not compete with industry, commerce- or the other professions in the length of the career or the financial rewards offered, the Admiralty have decided to provide a “higher” (and therefore somewhat longer) career for a bigger proportion of cadets entering Dartmouth. They aim eventually to promote to Commander three out of four Lieutenant- Commanders reaching the promotion zone. The number of Commanders being virtually fixed the only way to achieve this is to reduce the cadet entry and this is what is being done. To preserve the standard of senior officers it will be necessary to substitute increased selectivity at entry for decreased selectivity at the promotion stage; selection boards, provided they are not hamstrung by political considerations, make remarkably few mistakes and there is no reason to suppose that they will not take this new requirement in their stride. It will be noticed that the reduced entry and high promotion factor to Commander will make a two-fold reduction in the number of “over-zone” Lieutenant-Commanders, who in future, instead of being a high fraction of a big entry, will be a small fraction of a smaller entry; this will help to keep their numbers manageable when the compulsory retirement age for Lieutenant-Commanders is raised to fifty.
And so we come to the recent announcement of the institution of the General List, the Special Duties List and the Supplementary List. The really big change here is that the Admiralty have come to the conclusion that the present system of division of the officer corps into “branches” fails to make full use of the talents or to fulfill the legitimate aspirations of technical and supply officers. They have decided therefore, as far . as permanent officers are concerned, to unify the lists, substituting for branches “specializations” which will be effective up to and including Commander’s rank.* Ultimately (i.e., when numbers have adjusted themselves) promotion to Captain will be pooled between all specializations and subsequent promotion and employment will be equally available to all. Thus the General List is to be the main body of highly-qualified naval officers, commonly entered as cadets (excepting, for the time being, electrical cadets), largely commonly trained, all having the same status and powers of command and all enjoying the same promotion and employment prospects. All, that is, except the “post” officers in the ranks of Commander and above; these, though on the General List, will constitute a limited body of designated “sea specialists” who alone retain qualifications for ship and “operational” command. They will have prospects of more promotions to the highest ranks but, due to the need for operational commanders to be physically fit and mentally adaptable, they must continue to retire at about the present ages. There will not be the same need in the case of non-“post” officers and, in due course, their ages of promotion and retirement will be allowed to rise perceptibly, thus tending to lengthen naval officers’ careers and make greater and more economical use of their experience.
Below the rank of Commander “sea command” will remain the responsibility of General List officers of the “seaman” (ex- “executive”) specialization but all General List officers will be qualified by their early training and subsequent experience to command boats.
Complements of junior officers are to be re-examined, for it is a fact that, in the last twenty-five years, the ratio of Lieutenant- Commanders and below to Commanders and above in the Fleet has risen from nearly five to one to nearly nine to one but, even should it prove possible to cut down junior officer complements, a shortage of them is bound eventually to arise from the process of promoting the same number of Commanders from a reduced cadet entry. This shortage will be made good as far as possible by stepping up the Special Duties (ex-Branch)
List. The status and prospects of these officers have been spectacularly improved, and there is little doubt that this will tend to attract more of our best ratings (who now nearly all go ashore at the end of their first engagement) to stay on and make a career in the Navy. Thus there should be every prospect of being able, when the time comes, to promote more ratings to the Special Duties List without lowering the standard than is done at present.
To the extent that a shortage of junior officers still remains, the new Supplementary List will be available in all specializations (not only in aircrew categories as at present) to fill the gaps. This list, by providing means for the Navy to obtain more, or less, officers at comparatively short notice, will help to solve the Admiralty’s age-old problem of trying to estimate the size of the Navy 15 to 20 years ahead, when fixing the cadet entry, and should introduce that flexibility into the planning of officer provision which has hitherto been lacking.
What is the underlying significance of all these great changes? They reflect a timely recognition on the part of the Admiralty that, to attract the very high quality of cadets which they undoubtedly require, they must offer a longer career and a more rewarding one, not only for the “seaman” but for the non-“seaman” and “air” specialists, whose contribution to the higher direction of the Navy must inevitably assume more and more importance.
Portable TV Transmitter and Receiver
Army, April, 1956.—Under the supervision of the Televisual Branch of the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories, Radio Corporation of America has built an 8-pound hand-held TV camera and 47-pound back- carried transmitter for use on the battlefield. It sends its pictures to a portable 10-inch receiver which can be mounted in a jeep or placed in a foxhole. The operator of the receiver can monitor pictures from five of these cameras, selecting the one to be relayed to higher headquarters or “piped” into a commercial TV system. The camera and transmitter also can be placed in unattended operation as a silent sentry on forward ob-
servation duty. The transmitter can send pictures continuously for two hours. The lightweight five-cell rechargeable silver-zinc battery can be replaced in two minutes.
New Course Set by Air Academy
By Seth S. King
New York Times, March 25, 1956.—The Air Force Academy has decided to alter a
part of its original flight plan during the next three years.
These changes have been prompted by two factors: A desire to keep the Academy curriculum in better harmony with the growing demands of the global air age and an effort to reduce the number of cadets who drop out during their first year.
A special four-man board has drafted a revised curriculum that will be used for the next three years.
Two new tests have been added to the series of examinations now being given to young men who want to enter as the second class in July.
The Academy aims to produce what Lieutenant General Hubert R. Harmon, its first superintendent, describes as broad men with cultural backgrounds rather than narrow technicians.
The Academy graduates second lieutenants who are rated as aircraft observers. They are not trained as pilots.
The original plan called for a curriculum balanced evenly between social humanistic and scientific engineering courses. The emphasis on the former was greater than at either West Point or Annapolis.
Balance to Be Kept
This balance will be retained. However, within it changes will be made to keep the cadet abreast of the shifting world of science and to equip him more fully to represent the Air Force around the globe.
The major change is in the study of languages. Originally a foreign language was to be an elective course in the cadet senior year when he would have a choice between this and a course in aircraft design.
Now a two-year course in either French or Spanish will be crammed into the senior year curriculum and will be required of all cadets.
The elective aircraft design course will be changed to a required course in “design appreciation.”
The science curriculum will be altered with the physics course expanded by two semester hours to include an introduction to nuclear physics. The electrical engineering course also will be expanded two semester hours to study new techniques in electronics.
To fit the new language requirements into the crowded study plan something had to go. History was the victim. It was planned to give cadets a year-long course in the history of Western civilizations, American history and twentieth-century world history. Now the last two courses will be reduced to one semester each. Because of overlapping courses in military history, international relations and law will become one-semester courses.
In addition, experience in the first-year program showed that aerial navigation courses could be taught more efficiently by concentrating ground instruction in the last three years. The one-hour-a-week classes in navigation were dropped last October. Navigational flight training will be retained in the first summer. However, no ground courses for freshmen will be given next term.
The review board of four generals decided that Academy cadets must take language courses to stimulate their interest and remove the psychological blocks in learning to speak another nation’s tongue.
The new aircraft design course will concentrate on the problems of developing military aircraft plus the procedures the Air Force uses to procure these planes from civilian manufacturers.
Efforts to cut down on the number of cadets who leave the Academy in their first year have been guided by the experiences in handling the first cadet class.
Out of 306 who reported last July 11, forty-five are gone. Only six of these were dropped as academic failures or “washouts.” Four others are academic turnbacks who will have a chance to start again with the next class.
“Lack of Motivation”
Twenty-one dropped out for what the Academy calls “lack of motivation.” They simply decided they did not want to stay.
Of the remainder one was dropped for “deficiency in conduct” and three were physical discharges. The others withdrew for hardship reasons or were dropped for violation of the honor code, for deficiency in physical aptitude or for lack of academic background.
One of the new examinations will be a physical aptitude test similar to that now used at West Point. The other will be a searching questionnaire attempting to determine the applicant’s desire and determination to stick it out four difficult years at the Academy.
The physical aptitude tests were prompted by the finding that a cadet could pass the medical entrance requirements and still not have enough coordination to fly a plane.
The rate of drop-outs during the first cadet year has been lower than the percentage at West Point, but it was higher than what Academy officials had hoped for.
The Academy is still located in temporary barracks and buildings at Lowry Air Force base in Denver. Air Academy officers hope to move to the permanent site at Colorado Springs by the late summer or fall of 1958.
Hospital Ship Due for a Sea Change
New York Times, March 27, 1956.—The Mercy, a former Navy hospital ship, is scheduled to be readied for duty as a training vessel for merchant marine cadets.
For the 6,711 gross-ton vessel this will be the fifth assignment in her twelve-year career. After she was built in California in 1944 she saw active duty during World War II as a Navy hospital ship, subsequently she served as an Army hospital ship, as an Army transport, and as a refugee transport.
She is intended to become the schoolship for the State University of New York Maritime College at Fort Schuyler, the Bronx. She will replace the school’s present training ship, the former Navy attack transport Empire State.
According to informed sources, the Empire State has not been considered an ideal ship for the school’s annual three-month training cruises. Among her weak points are cramped living quarters and insufficient space for classroom work while at sea.
The Mercy’s Qualifications
The Mercy, by contrast, is said to be much better suited to Fort Schuyler’s needs because of her spacious passenger quarters and a large engine room, which could be converted into a first-rate floating steam laboratory.
The vessel, which had been laid up for several years in the James River, Virginia,
Reserve Fleet, was broken out recently. She arrived in New York under tow and will have her hull cleaned and painted at the Fifty- sixth Street, Brooklyn, yard of the Bethlehem Steel Company.
Bids to survey the Government-owned ship for overhaul and refurbishing are expected to be advertised shortly, as the vessel is to sail early in June on her first voyage under the auspices of Fort Schuyler.
It will take the school several weeks to fit out the 395-foot ship with classrooms and equipment. Three hundred cadets will spend three months aboard each year as part of their regular four-year college course.
Hew London Submarine Entertains “Namesake”
The USS Grenadier (SS-525), while visiting Portsmouth, England recently, had the opportunity to entertain a group of the famous British Grenadier Guards on board the New London-based submarine.
Headed by Lieutenant Colonel A. M. H. Gregory-Hood, MBE, MC, five officers and 32 Guardsmen of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards visited the submarine one afternoon and remained on board for supper that evening.
This visit by the Grenadier Guards culminated a long association between the two units. It was in early 1951 that the Guards presented to the USS Grenadier, through the British Consul-General in Boston, a large bronze plaque and autographed picture of H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) in commemoration of the Submarine’s first commissioning. Since that time the association has continued by means of the annual exchange of greetings on the occasions of Christmas and the birthday of the Queen. But it was not until the recent visit of the submarine to Portsmouth, England, that the two units had the opportunity to meet each other directly.
Of interest is the fact that the above-mentioned plaque and picture were presented under the mistaken assumption that the submarine Grenadier was named after the Grenadier Guards. Rather as is the custom, the USS Grenadier was named after a fish. When informed of their mistake, the Guards considered it a “jolly good joke” on themselves and, if anything, have become more closely associated with the submarine as a result.
New Uniform for the Royal Navy
London Times, March 10, 1956—An improved type of uniform for seamen of the Royal Navy has been approved and will come into use later this year, the Admiralty announced.
The new uniform retains the traditional “square rig” of collar, jumper, and bell-
bottomed trousers, but is given added smartness, it is stated, by the new coat-style jumper, which has a zip fastener at the front, and the smoother yet harder wearing serge cloth that has been selected. The trousers also have zip fasteners and have side and hip pockets.
Uniform caps with crowns of white plastic have been introduced this year and will eventually replace the present caps with crowns, of blue or white cloth and detachable white cap covers. From May 1, naval personnel in all commands will wear white headgear throughout the year. At present blue caps are worn in the winter months in the United Kingdom.
Robots at Anchor in Remote Seas to Report Weather for the Navy
Navy Times, April 7, 1956.—A robot marine weather station, so compact it can be anchored like a navigational buoy and send weather data from remote areas, has been developed by the National Bureau of Standards.
The government’s scientific agency said the buoy could be left unattended up to six months. In all that time, at regular intervals throughout the day and night, the station can broadcast in code the air and water temperatures, barometric pressure and wind speed and direction of its immediate vicinity.
Preliminary tests in Chesapeake Bay show that the station has a radio range in excess of 800 miles. If moored in certain areas of the Caribbean, Bureau of Standards officials said, it might give warning of forming hurricanes.
“At the present time,” the bureau added, “the gathering of comprehensive weather data from many ocean areas outside regular shipping lanes is haphazard and limited.
“Both military and civilian authorities would be better able to predict weather conditions if they received continuous weather reports from a much wider area.”
According to unofficial estimates, the robot weather stations could be turned out for around $25,000 each if produced in quantity.
The automatic station translates information from each of five weather sensing elements into three-letter groups in continental code and transmits the code signals on a pulse-modulated carrier frequency at about six megacycles.
The signals can be received on standard communications receivers and compared with a decoding table that gives numerical values for each of the meteorological variables measured. A single transmission takes three minutes.
The vessel that carries the weather-sensing and radio transmitting equipment was designed at the Navy’s David Taylor Model Basin. It is twenty feet in length and 10 feet wide, with a draft of slightly more than three feet. It is constructed of aluminum and other non-magnetic alloys to avoid undesirable effects on the compass.
The vessel can be anchored in waters as deep as 3,600 feet. It has two masts. Four water-tight wells extending below the boat’s deck hold all the electronic and meteorological equipment assembled in compact, shock- mounted units.
Tiny Sub Air-Conditioned
Marine News, April, 1956.—The U. S. Navy’s new midget submarine (X-l), currently engaged in tactical maneuvers, has been completely air conditioned using cooling equipment manufactured by Carrier Corporation.
The new addition to the fleet weighs 25 tons, is 50 feet in length, has a maximum diameter of seven feet and is manned by a
crew of four. The compact air conditioning apparatus is sized to match. Space occupied is only a little greater than would be required for a 50-gallon oil drum. Cooling and heating coils, which are made with copper fins and tubes as a precaution against corrosion, are installed directly in the ducts. The system generates cooling equivalent to the melting of a ton of ice every 24 hours.
Although especially important in the limited quarters provided by the “minisub,” air conditioning has been shown by Navy tests to be of significant value in raising combat efficiency in all types of ships.
Carrier has supplied cooling equipment for the two atomic submarines, a guided missile and fleet submarine, and for other members of the undersea fleet. Many of these latter are receiving new air conditioning equipment to improve habitability.
Arctic Fire Extinguisher
World Science Review, April, 1956.—A fire extinguishing liquid has been tested by the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory and has proved to be superior to water. Basically, the liquid is a 41 per cent solution of zinc chloride in water to which has been added small amounts of zinc bromide and ammonium bromide. Pre-cooled to —65 F. it was found to be as effective as water at +70 F. and was superior to water under temperate conditions.
Pocket-Size Solar-Powered Radio
Signal, March-April, 1956.—A pocket- size solar-powered radio receiver, weighing only 10 ounces and capable of working more than eight months in total darkness without recharging, has been developed by General Electric Company.
Because these solar batteries are still too expensive to justify the manufacture of devices in which they are used, G-E has disclosed that it has no immediate plans for production.
Long operation in total darkness is made possible by the use of a miniature storage battery which is contained in a transparent plastic case along with four transistors, seven solar cells and other components. The case is 5^ inches wide, 1 \ inches thick and 3 inches high.