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Model Range for Better Ship-Borne Communication Systems
By Charles M. Hatcher[1]
Many months from now a powerful new warship will join the operating forces and set itself to the establishment of higher standards for our nuclear-powered, electronically-guided fleet. When it takes its station the Command- mg Officer will know just what to expect from his complicated communications system, and just as important, he will know its limitations. Experiments conducted with a fleet of brass ship models on a dry-land, lead-covered “ocean” at the Navy Electronics Laboratory high atop Point Loma near San Diego will have tested—far in advance of the actual construction—the performance capabilities of his vessel’s radio and radar antennas and their auxiliary equipments.
The Laboratory’s ship model antenna range was developed as a result of operational experience during World War II. As combat ships added new electronics equipments they found themselves cluttered topside with thickets of antennas and masts. At first the separate antennas, wire ropes, loops, arrays, whips, parabolas and other radiating devices were engineered to fit individual requirements. But antennas designed to give 360-degree horizontal coverage along the horizon frequently failed to function in accordance with expectations. Sometimes, it was asserted, ships within visual range found communication by radio difficult or impossible. Obviously, as the communications equipments aboard ship became more sophisticated and numerous, something had to be done
about the antenna systems.
The earlier approach to antenna system study was to test and measure the antennas directly on board, “turning” the ship under operational conditions. This method was slow, expensive, and subject to all kinds of environmental variations. And, of course, there could be no realistic, empirical test of design in advance of the ship’s construction. A better way had to be found to test existing systems and to permit advance experimentation under controlled conditions.
From 1945 through 1948, therefore, instrumentation and techniques for ship model studies were investigated on a number of temporary facilities at the Navy Electronics Laboratory (NEL). Plans were ready by 1948 for a modern range that would permit accurate simulation of operational conditions, and the main portions of the present range and associated laboratory buildings were completed in 1950.
The model technique has been found to have many advantages. It is inexpensive: electronic models of existing or projected naval craft cost from $5,000 to $20,000— much less than needed to operate an equivalent ship for one day! The method is effective: measurements and analyses can be obtained in a fraction of the time that would be required with the use of operational vessels. The model range results are accurate: correlations between models and full-scale ships have proved completely trustworthy. The technique encourages better design and creative thinking: with models the potential communication abilities of contemplated ships not yet actually to the blueprint stage can be probed. Masts, stacks, guns or missile mounts —all kinds of topside structures can be moved or altered at will and highly specialized ship models can be built to demonstrate the practical results of new designs both in communica-
Carried and fired in an external POD. shown fitted to the bomb rack of a Douglas A4D-2 aircraft, this 20-MM gun is capable of firing 4,000 rounds per minute. Its primary application is in air-to-ground attack.
BUSINESS END OF REGULUS II
Keeping abreast of latest weapons developments, the Navy recently at Mare Island commissioned the guided missile submarine Grayback (SSG-574). Another of this class is expected to be commissioned late next month.
SHIPS AND ANTENNA SYSTEMS OF ADVANCED DESIGN CAN BE TESTED LONG BEFORE ACTUAL SHIP HITS THE WATER. STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS ABOVE THE WATERLINE CAN BE MOVED INEXPENSIVELY AT WILL
tions equipments and in ships.
The “ocean” used for measurements is a flat field, a circle 160 feet in diameter, with a 22-ft. turntable at its center. The asphalt- concrete field is sprayed with 6,000 pounds of lead that provides an environmental effect roughly approximating that of the ocean over which normal communications would pass. This field thus becomes a conducting ground plane carefully designed to eliminate variances in directivity caused by discontinuities within the field. The periphery of the field is scalloped to reduce standing waves which might be produced from the outer edge. The turntable was designed with an overhanging lip which turns within a mercury-filled trough, although experimentation has shown that there is enough capacitive coupling to maintain continuity even if the mercury were omitted. Discontinuities between the ship model and the turntable are eliminated by soldering the model to the table surface.
The ship replicas themselves are painstakingly crafted with zealous attention to all topside detail. Each is complete down to the waterline, built to 1/48 scale, and equipped with operational antennas for transmitting and receiving radio signals at varying frequencies. NEL electronic scientists test the efficiency of each antenna design at each potential location by sending and receiving signals at all practicable frequencies. The ship structure usually has considerable effect on radiation patterns in frequencies greater than 2 Me; below 2 Me these effects are too small in terms of wavelengths to affect patterns. The main cause of directivity for vhf- uhf antennas (usually installed high aloft) has been found to be nearby objects. A natural division of instrumentation, model construction, and testing has, therefore, been developed: those for 2-30 Me ranges and those for vhf-uhf studies.
A continuous signal is sent to the model on the turntable from a parabola located at the edge of the operating field. The model antenna under test is connected to a receiver within the ship model from which an audio output is obtained. The magnitude of this signal controls the deflection of a pen on a polar recorder, the turntable of which is rotated synchronously with the revolving model so that signal strength amplitude is plotted as a function of bearing. The plot is a characteristic of the ship antenna, applicable whether the antenna is used for transmitting or receiving.
Unmodulated continuous-wave signals in the frequency range from 2-30 Me correctly scaled (96 to 1,440 Me) are obtained from Standard Signal generators, the sources of which are located in the measurements control room. A receiver modified for linear output response with accompanying tuning heads is used for reception of the transmitted signals. The receiver is mounted directly below the model ship on the underside of the turntable, access to which is afforded through a 90-ft. tunnel extending from the basement of the measurements laboratory. Signals received at the ship model are fed into the receiver- input terminal through a short cable, and the 1,000-cps heterodyne from the receiver is returned underground to the control room and there fed into the Polar Radiation Pattern Recorder which then records relative field strength radiations for 360 degrees around the ship.
The ship models are built in a shop adjacent to the field, by technicians skilled in working from blueprints and able to interpret in brass the advanced electronic naval architecture now being assessed at NEL. Most of the 35 models built since 1947 are still on hand. They include an ice-breaker, a battleship, several classes of aircraft carriers, de-
stroyers, guided-missile cruisers, and auxiliaries. Small ships can be turned out in about 600 man hours; larger craft may require as many as 1,500. Oldest model still in use was built in 1947—a 1/24 (1 ft. to 24 ft.) scale destroyer.
The complete range facilities include, in addition to the main 160-ft. field, a wire mesh ground plane of about 40,000 square feet with five 90 ft. wood poles permitting realistic full-scale tests of simulated ship antenna systems. There is also a 120 ft. by 150 ft. wire mesh ground plane equipped with a rotating antenna mount for development and test of specific antennas for ship and shore applications. A two-axis free-space mount is available for measurement of zenith coverage patterns in the 1,000-3,000 Me region, accommodating scale models usually on a 1/6 scale °f ships’ masts and superstructures. Recently completed at the edge of the main model range is a wooden structure shaped as a vertical arch 70 feet high, which will permit 65- degree coverage of zenith arc and absolute measurement of antenna patterns at elevations above the horizon.
Not counting new patterns now possible from the vertical arch, NEL engineers must study as many as 3,000 to 5,000 radiation plots for each new ship communication system. To lighten the workload implicit in analyzing so many separate patterns and estimating their relative efficiency factors, model range engineers recently designed a Pattern Analyzer and Computer. This device can automatically translate radiation patterns (analog) to numerical data (digital) and store this data on punched tape for coded readout and determination of values by an IBM computing machine.
A solid background of mathematics, phys- lcs, naval science and tactics, wave propagation, radio theory, and electromagnetics is required of the crew in the NEL antenna branch. Considered of equal value in the successful design of really workable communications systems, however, is a practical shipboard knowledge of the functions, tactics, and strategy of operating fleet units and forces. Impressed on each man is the fact that time is of the essence—that a communications system must work in close harmony with the needs of the other parts of a seagoing ship
right from the first installation.
The NEL model range is busy now with studies for systems which may be used in the Arctic or Antarctic; on designs of electronic architecture which will permit full advantage to be taken of uncluttered decks on nuclear- powered ships no longer burdened by smokestacks; on ship-shore communication systems engineered to meet global action needs. Some mighty peculiar-looking ship models can be seen on its constantly-rotating turntables, but then, some very unconventional equipments, ships, and weapons are being built for the Navy of tomorrow—and there is not time to be lost!
Antarctica Gets a Record Winter
By Bill Becker
The New York Times, May 11, 1958.— Scientists in Antarctica are beginning to suspect that they are in for a really long, cold winter.
In the last two weeks, reports of record or near-record temperatures and winds have come from observers there. They indicate that last winter, as some scientists believe, may have been a comparatively warm season.
Officially, with the six-month winter only a fourth gone, these marks have been reported:
A temperature of minus 108.6 degrees Fahrenheit at Russia’s Sovietskaya base.
Temperatures of 100 below at the United States station at the South Pole.
Winds of at least 133 miles an hour at Wilkes Station, another United States outpost.
Must Be Verified
The Sovietskaya temperature, reported by the Soviet news agency Tass, would be the lowest ever observed on earth if verified by officials of the International Geophysical Year, the eighteen-month study of the earth and its environment.
This reading surpasses the minus 102.1 recorded last September at the South Pole.
This report is not totally unexpected by Antarctic scientists. Sovietskaya lies at an elevation of about 12,500 feet, some 3,000 feet higher than the pole.
What is unexpected is the early onslaught of winter. Last year’s coldest figures at most Antarctic stations were not recorded until mid-winter; that is, from July through Sept. 22. The minus 120 forecast by some scientists may well be attained in 1958.
Sovietskaya is deep in the interior, near the so-called Pole of Inaccessibility, in the Australian-claimed sector of Antarctica south of the Indian Ocean. A dozen Soviet scientists are reported spending the year there.
Polar Crew Adjusted
Latest short-wave radio reports from the South Pole indicate that the eighteen men at the United States station are adjusting well to the extreme cold.
The ten scientists and eight Navy men continued routine duties during the cold snap in late April. They reported that the temperature in the tunnels that connect station buildings was minus 77.
They even managed to repair a tractor fuel line at these temperatures.
Palle Mogensen of Alexandria, Va., the stations scientific leader, took star shots with his theodolite several times a day. This data will be used to pinpoint the geography of the polar plateau.
At Wilkes Station, winds were so violent that the recording pole was blown over. Two Jamesway huts—canvas and frame Quonsets —were ripped apart by gusts estimated at 145 m.p.h.
Before the recorder was lost, the wind had reached 133 m.p.h. This topped the high of 114 m.p.h. recorded at Hallett Station in 1957.
This peak, however, is only for American stations. Both Russian and French coastal stations have recorded winds of 140 m.p.h. or stronger.
The sun, of course, is now down for all major bases in Antarctica. At Little America, nearly 100 men bade it farewell in a special ceremony April 24. It will return in August for coastal stations, but not until September for the pole and inland bases.
There are about 340 men at seven United States stations, 175 at five Russian bases, and probably about 200 other men at various New Zealand, Australian, Norwegian, British, Belgian, Japanese, Argentine and Chilean bases.
This is doubtless the largest year-round population Antarctica has ever had. But a total of 715 is hardly overcrowding an area of nearly 6,000,000 square miles.
Profile of a Missile Base
By Hanson W. Baldwin
The New York Times, April 27, 1958.— Eleven seagoing ships, forty-two aircraft, 16,500 men and women, an instrumentation that reaches into the stratosphere and stretches from Florida’s citrus groves to the lava slopes of lonely Ascension Island. These are some of the things that it takes to run a missile test center. Plus brains and about $400,000,000. These statistics pertain to the largest and most completely equipped long- range missile test center in the free world centered here at Cape Canaveral and at near-by Patrick Air Force Base.
The Air Force Missile Test Center, commanded by Maj. Gen. Donald N. Yates, is a fantastic monument to the space age. Its launch pads have been the site of all of this nation’s earth satellite launchings, and from
Cape Canaveral the great rockets and missiles of all services, the “birds” that spell security in the atomic age, are tested.
The Nerve Center
The missile test center has three major complexes. Patrick Air Force Base is the administrative nerve center and headquarters, and the processing plant for the quarter of a million items of data collected from an average ballistic-missile flight test.
Cape Canaveral is the launching area, ■where the “birds” of all our military services are serviced in seventeen specially built hangars and work shops, checked and fired by military contractors.
Extending from the Grand Bahama for 5,000 miles to the green-capped cone of lonely Ascension Island in the South Atlantic are the down-range monitoring stations that check the flights of the missiles.
This far-flung technical empire, knit together by cable, radio and all the electronic marvels man has devised, has a capital valuation estimated at about $400,000,000.
Run by Air Force
It is operated by the Air Force for the benefit of the nation through contractual arrangements with Pan American Airways, Pan American, through its guided-missiles range division headed by R. S. Mitchell, a vice President, is responsible for the operation and management of the missile-launching sites at Cape Canaveral and for all the down-range stations.
Radio Corporation of America, a principal subcontractor, provides the technical services fi)r the intricate business of firing missiles, recording their behavior and processing the data.
Cape Canaveral and the down-range stations are staffed, therefore, preponderantly by civilians.
The 15,000 acres of what has come to be known locally and nationally as “The Cape” Presents by day or by night a kind of schizoid landscape.
Pines and Gantry Cranes
The stunted pines and palms and the sandy wastes are broken by enormous structures— uge 450-ton gantry cranes, towering 120
feet high—that cage Thor and Jupiter and Atlas and the other modern gods of the missile age in lattice works of steel.
The gantry cranes are in a sense gigantic servicing stations, from which before a test the missile’s skillful servitors check the 36,000 to 37,000 items that must function perfectly if the “bird” is to fly successfully.
These are the “hard-hat” men of the missile art, the men in safety helmets, who work by day and night around the steelwork scaffolding to ready a missile for its tests.
By day the gantries loom stark and menacing against the blue sea; by night they are aglow with lights, red and green and white, and through the embracing steel the smooth flanks of the missile gleam.
14 Major Launching Pads
There are now fourteen major launching complexes on the cape for long-range ballistic missiles, and more are planned. There also are smaller sites for launching cruise-type missiles like the Matador or anti-aircraft missiles like the Bomarc.
There are four launching sites for the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile; three for the Titan ICBM; two for the Thor intermediate- range ballistic missiles; two for the Jupiter IRBM; one for the Army’s 200-mile Redstone and one for the Vanguard earth-satellite project.
The Navy is building a ship’s motion simulator, a huge concrete and steel structure that extends five stories deep into the earth and that will simulate the roll and pitch of a vessel at sea.
From this futuristic structure compressed air will hurl the Navy’s fleet ballistic missile Polaris into the air at seventy miles an hour when this solid propellant rocket is ready for its tests.
Blockhouses Protect
Each of the principal missile-launching complexes consists of a launching pad, a position of concrete and steel, flame-deflection plates and water sprays and movable gantry cranes or servicing towers. Near each pad is a control blockhouse fully instrumented, from which each firing is conducted.
The nerve center of Canaveral is the central control building, which controls the entire range and the firings. Its mechanistic computers and tracking instruments give the range office an instantaneous picture of the missile in flight. Every eighty-one one- thousandths of a second a prediction of the impact point of the missile is presented.
At Canaveral, at each of the eleven down- range island stations, at the eleven satellitemonitoring stations in Florida, and aboard the eleven telemetering ships that fill in the gaps between St. Lucia and Ascension Island, there are all sorts of instruments and devices to track the missile in flight.
These include a recording optical tracking instrument so powerful that it can take a picture of a baseball eight miles away.
All this and much other exotic equipment and the efforts of thousands of men and women focus on one task in this $400,000,000 “shooting gallery,” as General Yates has called Canaveral and its complex.
That task is solely to provide facilities for the testing of the nation’s guided missiles and to record by milliseconds the mechanical heart, pulse, brain and respiration in the brief lift of each of the nation’s test “birds.”
Navy Discloses Mystery Tests
The New York Times, May 4, 1958.—At frequent intervals for months, clouds of smoke have been shooting from an unexplained device at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard.
The Navy disclosed this week it had been testing the prototype of a launching system for the Polaris intermediate-range ballistic missile. In doing so, it had fired dummy missiles of steel and concrete, weighing several tons, into San Francisco Bay and had retrieved them every time for use again.
A statement issued here from Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, director of the Ordnance Bureau’s special projects office, said the first land launchings had been “highly successful.” The solid-fueled Polaris, which is designed for launching from submerged submarines, is scheduled to be in actual operation in 1960.
The test program at the naval shipyard here is being conducted jointly by Westing- house Electric Corporation and Lockheed Missile Systems Division. Westinghouse is in charge of developing a satisfactory launcher while Lockheed is the missile system manager for Polaris.
For First Stage
fhe huge device now being tried was described as a “development version” of the type of equipment that would be used to Blast the Polaris missile on the first part of its tnP through space to its target.
It was likened to a “crazy-tiled lighthouse.” It has a giant tube, supported by steel brackets and with scaffolding around its top for the use of technicians.
Before being fired dummy missiles are equipped with instruments for measuring strains, pressures and acceleration, to show how well the projectiles stand up under the launchings.
Lockheed engineers devised an “extension c°rd” method of getting readings. Before a launching they attach an electrical cable to the missile’s nose and run it out the mouth of the launching device to an instrument hut near by. The reports from missile gauges are communicated to the hut through this cable, which separates and falls to earth when the Projectile is launched.
Each missile falls into the bay a few yards from the launcher. A small life preserver attached to its nose before firing enables a small K)at crew to grab it with a boat hook and attach a rope from the missile to a giant crane for recovery.
Admiral Raborn, who visited the area several weeks ago, emphasized in his statement that no live missiles were being fired in the tests.
Sea Treaties Are Adopted
The Baltimore Sun, April 27, 1958.—Historic treaties on high sea fishing and on the exploitation of the ocean bed were adopted by the World Conference on the Law of the Sea.
The two treaties are to be opened for ratification by any of the 86 nations represented at the United Nations-sponsored conference— despite the conference’s failure to agree on a universal delimitation of territorial waters at 6 or 12 miles, the major item on its agenda.
A final decision on what is to be done with an unfinished draft treaty on territorial waters is to be taken at a closing session of the conference deferred until Sunday.
New Talks Move Likely
The closing session was likely to recommend to the United Nations General Assembly that a similar conference be convened within two or three years to make a new effort to reach agreement on territorial waters.
The treaty on high sea fishing left unresolved a dispute over coastal states’ exclusive fishing zones, which was the major obstacle in the way of agreement on territorial waters.
Throughout the conference, Canada’s George A. Drew led a fight for a 12-mile zone of exclusive fishing rights, which could be closed to all foreign trawlers. He was joined by Iceland, Norway, the Pacific coast nations of Latin America, the Communist bloc and most of the new nations of Asia and Africa.
Spearheads Opposition
Britain’s Attorney General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, spearheaded opposition to this demand. He repeatedly told the conference a 12-mile zone would have disastrous consequences for the entire British fishing industry and was unacceptable to Britain. The United States, Japan and most Western European nations held a similar view.
The conference thus was split into two almost equally balanced groups. This led to the adoption—by small committee majorities— of several conflicting proposals on territorial waters and an exclusive fishing zone. All were finally rejected for want of the requisite two- thirds majority in a plenary session of the conference.
The proposal which came nearest to adop-
tion was a compromise submitted by Arthur H. Dean of the United States. This would have extended the universal limit of territorial waters from the present 3 nautical miles to 6, and would have set up a 12-mile zone of exclusive fishing—in principle. But it would have granted foreign fisherman a permanent right to continue operating in their traditional fishing zones more than 6 miles offshore.
7 Short of Majority
This exception made the American compromise plan unacceptable to Canada, Iceland and the Communist and Latin-American delegations. The plan got 45 votes against 33 ■—7 short of the two-thirds majority.
The adopted treaty of fishing mainly sets out international action to preserve fish stocks on the high seas. It provides for consultation and arbitration between governments involved in fishery disputes, but permits governments to decree unilateral waters when agreement with other interested governments cannot be reached.
The ocean bed treaty, for the first time in the history of international law, establishes the exclusive right of a coastal state to explore and exploit mineral and other resources— including oyster beds—in the continental shelf adjacent to its coast.
This right will convey no control over navigation or fisheries, but will extend to an almost unlimited distance beyond territorial waters.
In the absence of agreement on territorial waters, the major Western maritime nations gave formal notice that they will continue to recognize the three-mile limit as the only principle universally applicable under international law.
The French Navy of Tomorrow and the Day After Tomorrow
Translated from Bulletin dInformation de la Marine Nationale, March 18-25, 1958.
The navy of today and tomorrow is articulated around the aircraft carrier, which will remain for quite a time in the future the backbone of naval forces.
With its ability to bring into action vectors of striking power and effecting both AA defense and AS warfare by means of its specialized planes, the carrier is the multi-purpose instrument of sea power.
Three aircraft carriers are necessary to effect under all circumstances the missions proper to the French Navy. The Indochina campaign made this quite clear. This means one additional carrier to be laid down. It should have been in the 1958 program, but despite the will of Parliament its construction has been deferred.
It would be superfluous to list in detail our naval forces. Suffice it to say that they include the following:
2 cruisers, the De Grasse and the Colbert, still armed with guns, but our latest vessels of that type. These units have excellent electronic equipment.
20 squadron leader escorts and as many rapid escorts constitute our present escort forces. They are still armed with conventional weapons, guns, torpedoes, and ASM rockets.
9 escorts, termed “French Union” vessels, particularly adapted for service in tropical waters, will be added to the escort forces, as relief for our units stationed over-seas.
Some 20 modern submarines which enable us to carry out, in addition to ASW training of surface forces, the offensive missions for which they are specially adapted.
To these combat forces, one must add the sweepers and patrol craft of each region, the units of amphibious forces, and the auxiliary fleet which constitutes the mobile logistic support of the Navy.
One vessel merits special mention: The Jeanne D’’ Arc provides a unique solution to the problem of the training school ship. This helicopter-carrier cruiser is suited for both ASW and helicopter-borne landing operations, is an excellent command ship and troop transport. She seems destined to be a success, and has at any rate aroused considerable interest abroad.
This picture of the navy of tomorrow would be incomplete if we did not mention the naval aviation. Our present carrier-borne aircraft are of foreign origin and design. However, they will soon be replaced by purely French units: Breguet 1050, Alize for ASW, Etendard IV, pursuit and attack plane, whose prototype has just brought France the record for pure speed over 1,000 kilometers, and, we hope, an all-weather bomber-fighter capable of carrying the atomic bomb.
Besides these planes, we shall have helicopters, likewise of French manufacture, for the multiple missions for which this craft seems destined.
Finally, if our shore-based aviation will in the near future be equipped with foreign planes, we hope that it can be relieved by an ASW patrol craft of European design and manufacture.
This fleet of tomorrow is still the conventional fleet with conventional propulsion, armed with guns and torpedoes for surface units, and with bombs and rockets for planes.
But each stage of fleet development should include transition materials looking to the stage ahead. We have, in the present stage, a first atomic-propelled vessel, the submarine Q 244, a first vessel equipped with the new ASW weapons and associated missiles, the squadron escort T 56 La Galissonniere; and as soon as the budget permits we shall have the first all guided-missile ship, a large escort, a veritable cruiser-escort for both AA and ASW, which is being actively studied by the technical service of the Constructions et Armes Navales.
Having realized these prototypes, we shall fie able to undertake quite competently by 1963 the following stage, which we call the fleet of the day after tomorrow and which we wiU venture to outline very briefly here.
In this fleet of the day after tomorrow, the striking power will be exercised by the atomic- propelled submarine equipped with surface- surface (ground-ground) missiles of the greatest range possible.
Aerial defense will entail guided missiles launched from carrier-based planes or surface vessels themselves.
Anti-submarine defense will likewise be based on missiles, but it is hoped that progress m detection will make possible a more remote and exact location of the enemy. It is probable that the helicopter will be used more and more in both ASW and in combating the danger of submarine mines.
As for foreign expeditions, which could conceivably occur only against an opponent who was not too tough or who would have been softened up by large-scale operations, they would fall inevitably to conventional forces inherited from the preceding period, particularly aircraft carriers.
This navy of the day after tomorrow with its nuclear-propelled ships, its missile armament, its highly developed electronic equipment will be a much more costly affair to bring into existence and maintain than the present one. We can be certain in advance that such a fleet will have a much smaller number of ships and will require a less extensive logistic and base setup (infrastructure).
A final word about the destiny of the Navy. It seems indubitable to the impartial observer that the surface of the sea and its depths will constitute tomorrow a privileged theater in the tests of strength that pit nation against nation. Atomic war, if by misfortune it does occur, will be the war of great spaces, and if we French are to prepare on favorable terms for that war rather than go down before it, we will probably require systems of atomic armaments organized around the submarine. Even if atomic war strictly speaking remains in the threat stage, we must expect limited conflicts or internal subversions. In either case the use of the sea will be disputed. A matter as “land- bound” and “limited” as the Algerian rebellion requires a maritime patrol which is all the more effective in that its results are less often spectacular. Future systems of atomic weapons will be quite unsuited to this type of operation; as long as we have maritime interests to defend and maritime spaces to control, as long as we shall have to provide naval and air support to land actions, we shall have to maintain and renew the means best suited to these various missions by making the best use of technological resources in all domains and not merely in the most spectacular ones: those of nuclear weapons and guided missiles. These are the principles that have guided the Navy in working out its policy closely integrated with the State’s general military policy. We can think of no better or more realistic policy for the purpose.
Heat Hints Rise of Ocean Ridge
By Walter Sullivan
The New York Times, May 11, 1958.—- Marked heat flow from deep inside the earth
along a submarine ridge known as the Easter Island Rise indicates that a new land feature may be pressing up from the Pacific floor.
According to Dr. Roger Revelle, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif., the ridge may be 3,500 miles long and about 200 miles wide. A recent 40,000-mile cruise by two of his ships showed it to be part of a complex system of ridges and basins that characterizes the bottom of the Southeast Pacific.
The project, known as the Downwind Expedition, was part of the United States effort during the International Geophysical Year. The research ships Horizon and Spencer F. Baird sailed from San Diego last Oct. 21 and returned Feb. 28.
They also delineated a mountain range that rises 10,000 feet from the ocean floor, extending at least 600 miles, and perhaps 1,000 miles, southwest from Peru. New and greater deeps were found in the trench that parallels the coasts of Chile and Peru. The greatest sounding was 25,290 feet.
Probe Crust of Earth
The ships worked as a team to probe the crust of the earth beneath the ocean. One set off explosive charges while the other recorded the shock waves sent through various layers beneath the sea. At one point the crust seemed
to be only two and a half miles thick.
Usually the oceanic crust is about four miles deep, reaching a dozen or more miles beneath continental mountains. Beneath the submarine mountain range it was found, in one location, to be almost ten miles thick.
A special device was used to measure heat flow from the heart of the earth into the ocean water. It was lowered by cable so that it would plunge into the bottom. Out of forty-two attempts to make such measurements, thirty-two were entirely successful. This is thought to be more than the total of all previous heat-flow observations on the floor of the Pacific.
It was this work that pointed to activity along the Easter Island Rise.
The lowest heat flow observed was that in the ocean basin northeast of the Marquesas Islands, where it was .2 of a microcalorie a square centimeter a second. The highest reading, obtained atop the Easter Island Rise, was thirty-two times greater than this. The heat of sunlight is about 875,000 times greater.
Two Volcanic Isles
Two islands of volcanic origin already rise from the backbone of this rise: Easter Island and Sala y Gomez, both of which belong to Chile. Dr. Revelle said that, although the significance of heat flow variations was not fully known, the data suggested latent volcanic activity.
The scientists of the expedition were surprised to find that little heat flowed through the crust beneath the deep trench along the South American coast. This, and results from their seismic explosions, indicated that the crust there was thicker, rather than thinner, as might have been expected.
Dr. Revelle this week reported on results of the cruise to the American Geophysical Union in Washington.
The work of the expedition has been plotted with the soundings sent in by the many Navy ships that have sailed to and from Antarctica since World War II. The ships were assigned to widely separated routes in order to gain maximum information on the ocean floor. The result is the first true picture of submarine land features over a large part of the earth’s surface.
Nasca Ridge off Peru
The submarine mountain range extending southwest from a point off Peru is known as the Nasca Ridge. Earlier shallow soundings at several points had suggested to geographers that such a ridge might exist, but it had never been delineated. Its highest summits rise to within 700 feet of the surface.
Dredge hauls from the summits produced reef corals that indicated they once had been nearer the surface. The absence of heavy heat flow or of earthquake epicenters led the explorers to believe the feature was an ancient one, compared with the active belt of the Easter Island Swell. The Nasca Ridge is steep-sided, whereas the Swell is a gradual slope.
Bottom photographs and samples suggested, Dr. Revelle said, that nickel, cobalt and copper might be richly enough encrusted on the ocean floor to be worth $500,000 a square mile. The ships carried out a number of analyses of the water, both for chemical content and radioactive age.
U. S. Satellites Run into Blanket of Radiation
By Robert C. Toth
The New York Herald Tribune, May 2, 1958. —An invisible blanket of unidentified radiation has been discovered by American satellites to envelop the earth at extreme heights, scientists reported yesterday.
Dr. James A. Van Allen, University of Iowa physicist responsible for the satellite measuring instruments, said the radiation is so intense that instruments aboard the Explorer I and III satellites were “overwhelmed” and at times blanked out.
He said the radiation was hundreds of times greater than scientists had expected. If man is to survive space flight in a satellite in this strange “reservoir,” he will need about 100 pounds of lead to shield him, he added.
Dr. Van Allen told a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society that the radiation extends from about 600 miles up to perhaps 8,000 miles or more above the earth’s surface.
The discovery is considered so important that a “crash program” is being contemplated to study it more thoroughly, according to Dr. Richard W. Porter, chairman of the United States rocket and satellite program for the International Geophysical Year.
The program would involve the development of new instruments to measure the radiation. These would be sent aloft as soon as possible in a satellite that would pass north to south. Present American satellites generally pass east to west at an angle of 35 degrees.
Russia’s Sputnik II, which did pass farther north and south and did contain radiation counting instruments, raced high enough in its orbit to measure this new field. However, no mention of such a discovery has come from the Soviets so far.
Dr. Van Allen said the radiation was not cosmic rays, which are electrically charged particles that bombard the earth from the sun and outer space. The new radiation is 1,000 times more intense than cosmic rays.
Rather, he speculated that the radiation comes from the sun. The strongest theory, he said, was that clouds of electrically charged particles of hydrogen gas drift toward earth. Somehow held back in a thick band above the earth, probably by the earth’s magnetic field, they surround the earth.
Electrons Hit Metal and Release X-rays
When a metal satellite enters the radiation field, the negatively charged electrons strike the metal. This causes the release of X-rays that are very much like those used by physicians.
Dr. Van Allen said the radiation was great enough to require protection from it. Within five hours of exposure, man would absorb his safe weekly limit unless guarded.
About 100 pounds of lead would protect him for six months in this environment. The lead would be in the form of a foil one millimeter (1 /250th of an inch) thick and would line the space ship or his space suit.
The Explorer I and III satellites which reach up to 1,600 and 1,735 miles into space, respectively, have found the radiation to increase steadily above 600 miles. (The Vanguard satellite does not have radiation measuring equipment aboard.)
Dr. Van Alien said the radiation area appears to be “semi-permanent” and may extend to 8,000 or 10,000 miles above earth.
He suggested that the “magnetic umbrella” created by the earth’s magnetic field keeps the radiation at a distance. The reservoir of radiation appears to be continually replenished by outbursts from the sun (sun spots), while it decays by leaking down to earth.
This “leaking” is often seen in the auroras, or northern and southern lights, he said.
If the radiation is held back by the earth’s magnetic field, a north-south orbiting satellite should find high levels of radiation near the surface at the earth’s magnetic poles. Here, the earth’s field comes down close to the surface.
The new radiation discovery was announced in the interim report of the findings from American satellites to the IGY. Other findings include:
Temperatures within the satellites were kept within the range necessary for human survival, 32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, although outside it was from 120 below zero to ^00 above.
Little Danger Found From Cosmic Dust
Little micrometeorites, or cosmic dust, was encountered. The scientists concluded that there was little danger to manned space flight at these altitudes from such particles.
The atmosphere above 230 miles is fourteen ttmes more dense than previously believed. About 99 per cent of the air around the earth lies below the twenty-mile height. There are about two ounces of air per cubic mile at 230 ttiiles up, versus about 10,000,000,000 pounds at sea level.
^avy to Establish Moon-Relay Radio Communications System
Aviation Week, May 12, 1958.—Novel point- to-point radio communications system that Nvill bounce signals off the moon and extend the range of line-of-sight frequencies to several thousand miles is being established by Navy.
The new system, reportedly capable of providing one voice channel or several teletype channels, was revealed by Rear Admiral H. C. Bruton, director of naval communications, during a recent talk before the New York Chapter of Armed Forces Communica- tions-Electronics Assn.
Admiral Bruton said that much thought is being given to use of man-made satellites for communication purposes, both as passive reflectors and as active relay stations. Another possibility is to store data in a satellite, then play it back on command when satellite is over another portion of the earth.
Complementary System
Two new complementary communications systems intended to meet future Navy needs, which are “well along in development,” also were reported.
High Capacity Communications System for shipboard use will employ single sideband techniques, be capable of providing one voice channel and up to 40 teletype channels for each transmitter and receiver. Single antenna will serve for transmission and reception.
Naval Tactical Data System, also for shipboard use, will employ digital communication techniques for transmission of tactical situation and radar data. Three types of radio links are being developed to satisfy different data rate, transmission distance requirements.
Navy recently made fleet evaluation of single sideband equipment, using commercially available hardware. “Communication improvement was so marked and the operators were so enthusiastic, that considerable pressure was generated for immediate installation of such equipment,” Admiral Bruton said. As a result, Navy is accelerating its plan to use single sideband for medium and high frequencies “to the extent that funding levels will permit,” Bruton said.
The admiral also reported:
New high-power very-low-frequency (VLF) station, for communications with completely submerged submarines, is under construction in Washington County, Maine. New station will be more than twice as powerful as the four VLF stations now in operation.
Acceleration of rate at which data can be transmitted at VLF frequencies is coming. “In time we expect to be able to use one, possibly more, 60 word-per-minute teletype channels on all our VLF stations,” Bruton said.
Meteor-burst and tropospheric scatter techniques are under investigation for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore use. Relatively small antenna size, weight, power and antenna orientation requirements for meteor burst technique make it appear feasible for shipboard installation.
Broadband sleeve type antennas which utilize parts of ship’s hull as antenna element have been developed by Navy laboratories.
Number of different shipboard antennas required also is being reduced through use of coupling devices which allow several transmitters and/or receivers to use single antenna.
Two Swedish Guided Missiles Demonstrated
The American Swedish News Exchange, Inc., November 27, 1957.—The cloak of secrecy enveloping the work on new weapons for Sweden’s defense was lightened somewhat the other day when two guided missiles were demonstrated. Both are believed to be in an advanced stage of development. One of them, officially known as 304, is an air-to-ground missile, for use against both land and sea targets, while the other, bearing the number 315 and popularly known as “Agathon,” will be fired from ships or coastal batteries against floating targets of different kinds. For some time the naval missile has been test fired from destroyers. There are several stationary proving grounds for missiles, the principal one at Karlsborg on the western shore of Lake Vat- tern. The Swedish program does not include long-range missiles.
Of the two missiles now made public, 315 “Agathon” is the most wholly Swedish. It has no foreign prototype, while the 304 has an American counterpart, the “Petrel.” It was in the fall of 1943 that the Swedish defense received its first impulses in the missile field. At that time some thirty crates loaded with metal scrap, the remnants of two mysterious projectiles which had come down and exploded in southern Sweden, were delivered to the navy yard in Stockholm. After one or two months, the pieces had been put together, and the solving of this intricate puzzle resulted in two samples of the first German so-called V-ls. Plans were made for a Swedish missile, and in 1946 the Saab Aircraft Company had the first prototype ready. Work on the two
missiles now demonstrated began in 1949-50.
The Swedish defense has also purchased missiles abroad. The Army has a French antitank missile, and another type, also of French construction, will be tested by the coastal artillery next year.
U. S. Jet Climbs to 91,249 Feet
The New York Times, May 9, 1958.—A United States jet has reached 91,249 feet, a record altitude, the Air Force announced.
Maj. Howard C. Johnson, 38 years old, piloted a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter up at a 45-degree angle 17.28 miles above the Southern California desert town of Mojave.
He exceeded by more than two miles the height of 80,190 feet—15.19 miles—claimed for a French experimental Trident Isere-06 at Istres, France, last Friday. The major made his flight yesterday.
The French flight had exceeded the mark of 76,928 feet, or 14.57 miles, reached last April 16 by a United States Navy Grumman flown by Lieut. Comdr. George C. Watkins.
Major Johnson is operations officer of the Eighty-third Fighter—Interceptor Squadron, Hamilton Air Force Base, Calif.
Major Johnson experienced 2.7 G’s— nearly three times the pull of gravity—when he started his ascent. He had no trouble controlling the plane. At the top of his climb he was going 622 miles an hour. The entire flight lasted twenty-seven minutes.
At the top of his climb the temperature outside the plane was 43 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Inside it was above 70. He estimated he was at maximum altitude ten to fifteen seconds.
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[1] The author, publications editor at the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, has had three Previous articles in the Proceedings.