Professional Notes, Notebook and Progress

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130 British Carriers and VTOL

By John Fricker

133 Tropospheric Scatter:

A Communications Solution By Commander William C. King, U. S. Navy

137 When Meeting a Merchant Vessel

By Ross E. Pollack

139 The Case for

Roll-On/Roll-Off Ships

By Lieutenant Colonel John R. Hauser, U. S. Army

144 Notebook

BRITISH CARRIERS AND VTOL*

Despite the undisputed British lead if vertical take-off and landing aircraft technology, the Royal Navy has decided to remain with conventional equipment for its next generation of carrier-based aircraft, as well as for the carrier herself.

Detailed design work, plus research and development, are now in progress for a single new carrier which will displace at least 50,000 (long) tons. The new ship will be fully opera­tional by 1973 and, although she will have the ability to fly off VTOL and STOL aircraft, she will primarily be equipped to handle existing naval aircraft. Her commissioning will bring the total Royal Navy carrier strength in the early 1970s to three including HMS Eagle (recently rebuilt for twice her initial cost), and HMS Hermes (now being similarly refitted). The three other fleet car­riers now operational, HMS Ark Royal, Vic­torious, and Centaur, are due to be withdrawn from service when the new ship is commis­sioned.

Hopes that the success of the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 would enable a smaller and less expensive carrier to be designed for the Royal Navy have not materialized. (The

Sheldon H. Kinney, U. S. Navy

* For a discussion of U. S. progress in this field see James R. Williford, “The Slumbering V/STOL Pro­gram,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, March 1964, p. 74.

^{4127 n}ow equips an experimental NATO ^scluadron i_n the United Kingdom and has completed a series of deckflying trials from the ^Ark Royal.)

One of the reasons for the size of the new carrier is conditioned more from reasons of storage capacity than flight deck require­ments. Cost-effectiveness studies by the naval epartment of the Ministry of Defense showed at a 50,000-ton carrier would accommodate ■ ^1Ce as many aircraft as a 35,000-ton vessel, nt would cost only 25 per cent more, assuming ^a 0-year life span from 1972-1973 onwards.

further studies indicated that steam cata- P. s would still be required to launch VTOL -^rcraft since the aircraft would always have ⁰ take off well above their vertical take-off Tk¹^^^{tS to ensure a} reasonable combat load. ^e problem that then presented itself was °w to catapult an aircraft which had its en- ^lr^ thrust deflected vertically downwards ⁰ffl ^a ^°^{0t 0r SO} ^^rorn the deck plating. The jet ^e ux from the Pegasus turbojet in the P.1127 ^s relatively cool, and in the free short-take-off ^case is deflected straight down for only a sec- ?,ⁿ^ or two immediately before “unstick.” °wever, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154, the operational successor to the P.1127, uses P enurn-chamber burning (PCB), or fuel ^c°mbustion in the cold (fan) efflux, to boost J^ts thrust to approximately 35,000 pounds so ^l;it deck temperatures would be more critical.

. the event of a catapult hang-up, which ^s relatively common, the full thrust from the ^vertically-deflected jet nozzles would impose rriajor thermal problem. If the nozzles were ^r°tated aft to avoid overheating and the cata- Pnlt delay-fired, the aircraft would plop expen- ^^vely into the sea. As a final complication, the °yal Navy studies concluded that the only Practical attachment point for the catapult ridle on a VTOL aircraft would be on the ^tlr«ewheel itself, which thus becomes a vital ^ar>d highly-stressed structure of massive Proportions. A Sea Vixen aircraft was to have ^een modified to test the nosewheel bridle- ''hachrnent theory, but the Royal Navy has, ^0r the moment, lost all interest in VTOL, and as withdrawn from the P.1154 program.

, ¹ *e declared aim of commonality between ^e Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, laid °wn in the 1963 defense White Paper for a ^Slrigl e-service strike/interceptor specification,

has not been achieved. For the present, at least, it has been abandoned. The British Fleet Air Arm is going its own way with the procurement of 130 Spey-powered McDonnell Phantom IIs, scheduled for 1967 delivery, leaving the R.A.F. with full responsibility for the development and financing of the ambi­tious P.1154 project for a Mach 2 strike fighter to replace the Hawker Hunter and other tactical aircraft.

Unlike the Navy, the R.A.F. is most en­thusiastic about the possibilities of the V/STOL

combat aircraft, and is convinced that vectored thrust of a single powerplant is the answer for the single-seat fighter. One of the commonality compromises between the two service versions of the P.1154 was to have been a two-seat fuselage for naval application, but the R.A.F. is now free to revert to an uncom­plicated single-seat layout, and is anxious that nothing should interfere with the most rapid procurement possible of its V/STOL fighter.

This will be a scaled-up and thin-winged version of the present P.1127, which is now fulfilling both a research and a tactical de­velopment role. Six P.1127 prototypes were built and employed in a basic flight-test pro­gram from 21 October 1960, onwards, and nine more P. 1127s are in the process of being delivered to the experimental NATO V/STOL squadron based at West Raynham, Norfolk, in Britain.

The P.1127 started its hovering trials with its single Pegasus turbofan delivering only 11,300 pounds thrust, but the sixth aircraft had an improved engine with a maximum thrust of more than 15,000 pounds.

This thrust defines the present gross weight for the P.1127, although the design thrust of the Pegasus is actually in the region of 18,000 pounds. With its relatively thick wing the P.1127 is only transonic, which is one of the reasons why it was not submitted for the NATO V/STOL fighter design contest which specified Mach 2 performance. It is never­theless designed for full combat capability in the lightweight strike/reconnaissance role, with underwing attachment points for ex­ternal stores, provision for fire-control elec­tronics, and suitable navigational equipment. The P. 1127s for the tripartite squadron, financed jointly by Britain, West Germany, and the United States, also have camera in­stallations in a special nose fairing, and com­bine all the versatility and fire-power of the well-tried R.A.F. Hunter fighter-bombers with V/STOL capability.

Although there is now no possibility of pro­duction orders for the P.1127, since its Pegasus powerplant has been passed over in favor of a Rolls-Royce unit for the VTOL fighter’s complementary V/STOL tactical transport, the Hawker Siddeley 681, it has provided invaluable data for the design of the P.1154. The tripartite squadron will provide the first practical information on the tactical possibilities of these new combat weapons for NATO. The American, British, and West Ger­man pilots making up the strength of the tri­partite squadron bring a very high level ol experience to the evaluation of the V/STOL fighter concept.

The squadron is particularly concerned with the logistics and support of v/STOL fighter operations, and the capability of V/STOL aircraft for operating from small and unprepared sites with the minimum of ground- support equipment. New techniques are ex­pected to emerge to match the unique char­acteristics of the P.1127. It is unlikely that any aspect of V/STOL operations for these fighter/ strike aircraft will be left unexplored, so that the earlier carrier experiments with the proto­types may well be repeated on a larger scale-

The tripartite squadron, in fact, is going to have to write the book for VTOL operations, and its experiences are being closely watched by those NATO nations with similar develop­ment programs. Each of the three nations which contributed 28 million dollars indi­vidually toward the P.1127 program is provid­ing six pilots for the squadron, but Britain and the United States are also each assigning 33 maintenance personnel to the squadron. The trials are due to last about a year, and should be completed by the end of 1965.

The R.A.F. is pinning all of its hopes on the Hawker Siddeley P.1154, even at the expense of a gap in the fighter-bomber inventory be­tween 1967, when the existing Hunters be­come obsolete, and the introduction of the first VTOL fighters into squadron service in about 1970. A development contract has now been placed for the prototype P.l 154, on which metal is starting to be cut. No official details have been released on the P.1154, beyond its basic specification, but it apparently resembles the P.1127 in general configuration, apart from an over-all fining-down and sleekening of its lines. Since the layout of the engine for the P.1154, a BS.100 with a thrust of about 28,600 pounds, is similar to that of the Pega­sus, with two pairs of rotating nozzles, the bicycle landing gear of the P.1127 is appar­ently retained together with the wing-tip out­riggers. This also means that, like the P.1127, weapons stowage in the new aircraft will be strictly external.

A more sophisticated engine intake ar­rangement than that on the P.1127 will un­doubtedly be necessary for Mach 2 speeds. In ^e P.1127, the round-edged intake lip re­quired for satisfactory inlet air-flow during e hover is achieved by a pneumatically- ^lnflated rubber boot, but this would not be a satisfactory long-term solution for the P.1154, Specially with its far wider speed range. The •¹154 will also require more advanced elec­tronics and fire-control equipment since its ^armament will probably include missiles, p ^Vith its fantastic thrust-weight ratio, the •tl54 should have the highest rate of climb of ^any combat aircraft yet built, and should erefore be as effective for interception as for ^lts strike role. In low-level operations, low fuel Consumption of the turbofan should result in a ^-reaching range, while the thrust margin |^V1U ensure supersonic dash capability at sea ^eyel without the complication of a variable j'^veeP configuration. On a cost-effectiveness ^asis, the relative simplicity of the single- cngined, single-axis, autostabilized v/STOL Sfuter compares quite favorably with that of conventional combat aircraft, even discount- ^lng the extra versatility. For this reason, it is Unlikely that naval air arms throughout the j'C’rld will continue to reject the VTOL fighter, nevitably it will be made to work from the ^ecks of aircraft carriers.

TROPOSPHERIC SCATTER: A COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTION

I 'he most pressing problem of Fleet com­munications is the lack of satisfactory communications among widely dispersed °^rmations. The need for Fleet dispersal over ^a wide area in this day of nuclear weapons ^Creates a requirement for a high command net, °ne which will link Fleet, task force, and task S^roup commanders, and one which will not ^subject the Fleet to discovery by enemy radio direction finding methods. For local communi­cations, commanders can talk to their own units in company by conventional line-of- sight, ultra-high-frequency radio. The prob­lem then is how do commanders several hun­dred miles apart communicate without dis­closing their position at sea? The solution to this problem does exist.

Several means of communications are now available for inter-force use. The most obvi­ous one is high frequency radio. Communica­tions in this frequency band have improved in recent years with the widespread use of a single sideband (SSB) instead of conventional amplitude modulation (AM). Although SSB has increased useful ranges and reliability, the basic problems inherent to this mode of com­munications still exist. The enemy can direc­tion find a high frequency signal, whether it is SSB or AM, from long distances. Thus the fleet commander is prevented from using this means if he does not want to disclose his posi­tion. High frequency radio has other serious limitations: It has relatively poor reliability, far below the 99 per cent-plus circuit conti­nuity required in the support of modern weaponry. The lower degree of reliability effectively prevents use of high frequency radio for passing data. These communica­tions are essentially narrow band systems, which means a limited number of channels can be established using one frequency. An­other severe limitation of high frequency communications is inherent in that part of the frequency spectrum in which it operates. Frequency allocations to the military in this band are limited and great care must be ex­ercised in their use. Even when so-called cleared frequencies are used, interference is often a problem which tends to degrade com­munications. Ionospheric disturbance further hinders high frequency communications. This prime means of direct radio communications available to commanders at sea, although satisfying the range requirements, fails to meet the needed standards of reliability, security, and band width. The Fleet con­tinues to use high frequency extensively, but only because nothing better has come along to take its place.

For long distance communications it is common for fleet commanders to use the lov frequency band for inter-force communict

tions. This band is less susceptible to iono­spheric disturbances than is high frequency. It covers the range required, but it, too, is a narrow band system and subjects a naval force to enemy direction finding procedures. The frequency allocation problem in the low frequency band is even more acute than in the high frequency portion of the spectrum.

Ultra high frequency (UHF) is a reason­ably secure means of communications, in that it is normally limited to line-of-sight. There is no absolute security in any unclassified radio transmission; rather it is only a question of relative security value. In this contest, UHF is more secure than high frequency. For the problem of inter-force communications in­volving a distance of several hundred miles, UHF has insufficient range. But it has been used in conjunction with relay stations for long-range communications. For instance, an airborne station can often communicate with two surface forces which are too widely sepa­rated to talk directly to each other. This means can be effective, but the channel capacity is extremely limited and the system depends upon availability of properly equipped aircraft in sufficient number to insure one being airborne when required. Weather and other factors can prevent the aircraft from maintaining station. Other means of security are available, such as detaching a destroyer from the force to transmit on high frequency at some distance from the force, thereby ne­gating enemy direction finding efforts to locate the main force. The method of send­ing messages ashore by aircraft for subsequent transmission on a broadcast has been used, but this is relatively slow. These and other means can be used to get around the high fre­quency problem, but they are cumbersome at best and they are only a make-shift solution to the problem. The need exists for direct com­munications between commanders at sea.

A solution proposed for the inter-force communications problem is to use tropo­spheric scatter, a technique of radio communi­cations more commonly known as “tropo.”

Recently the first seaborne tropo equip­ment was placed in operation in the command ship Northampton as part of a ship-to-shore link. Although the tropo technique has been known to radio engineers for at least a quarter of a century and has been in use for several years in U. S. military fixed point-to-point communications systems, it had never been used operationally in a ship at sea prior to the Northampton installation. It has now been proved that seaborne tropo will work. The next step is to prosecute vigorously a program for getting tropo on board flagships of the Fleet and adapting it to the command of tacti­cal units.

Tropo possesses three important advantages over high frequency: security, channel capac­ity, and reliability. First, tropo has an in­herent amount of security in that it is highly directional in nature. An intercepting station must be within the beam of the antenna and must be within the range of the transmitting station. This range, at the present state of the art, is not over 500 miles. This type of trans­mission should be compared to high fre­quency which is omni-directional in nature and can be heard halfway around the world. It should be noted that while tropo does not provide absolute transmission security, it does minimize the opportunity for locating a trans­mitting station by direction-finding tech­niques. Furthermore, the nature of tropo trans­mission requires that an intercepting station have a highly-sensitive receiving antenna if the signals are to be recorded over the horizon. Thus a ship, in order to intercept a tropo signal being transmitted by another ship at sea, must be in the beam of the antenna and must additionally be equipped with a special, highly-sensitive directional antenna.

The second important advantage of tropo over high frequency is bandwidth. A seaborne tropo system could be designed to accommo­date 12 or more voice channels. (Larger fixed systems contain 60 to 120 channels.) This 12- channel capacity should be compared to the normal four-voice channels which can be placed in one 12-kilocycle high frequency system. One reason for this superior multi­plexing capability in tropo is that it uses higher frequencies—tropo signals are UHF or above. In addition to the multichannel voice capacity, it is possible to further multiplex each voice channel into eight or more tele­typewriter channels. Thus a fleet commander served by one tropo installation could have the benefit of a 12-channel system providing 11 voice and eight teletype circuits. Tropo can also be used to pass data and could provide a

igh-grade communications link required for the Naval Tactical Data System.

Perhaps the prime advantage of tropo is its ^rcliability. Fixed stations are capable of pro­dding better than 99 per cent reliability. To ne communicator this means that the circuit outage” is less than one per cent. Theo- f ’tically there is no reason why this type of reliability cannot be achieved in shipboard 'retaliations. To the communications officer "'ho has lived with the vagaries of high fre­quency, this advantage is truly welcome. This reliability can be achieved because tropo is ⁿ°t subject to atmospheric disturbances, sun ^sP°ts, or changes in the ionosphere.

Hand in hand with reliability goes circuit quality. It is impossible to distinguish whether oue is talking over a good tropo path or land ^lne. The high quality of the signal, while ^very desirable in improving voice communica- hons, is even more important in the trans­mission of teletype and data information '^vhere a high error rate can prevent a circuit ^r°rn being established.

One of the important disadvantages of ^tr°Po is its range limitation, being currently something under 500 miles. The distance etween stations depends on transmitter power, bandwidth, and antenna size. These parameters can be changed to meet the needs of the installation, but generally it could be expected that on board ship they would be more modest than those found in point-to- point systems. Thus the range of a seaborne system would be less than that found ashore. However, this might not be too critical a limitation for a fleet commander who would be able to communicate reliably by tropo with his task forces several hundred miles apart. In fact, the range limitation provides some transmission security.

Jamming is another consideration in the use of tropo. Any radio system can be jammed. But it would require a major effort on the part of the enemy to jam tropo. He would have to place a high-power transmitter in the vicinity of the receiving station in order to be effective. It would be most effective to have the jamming transmitter pointed directly into the receiving antenna. This would place the jamming station on a line between the two tropo stations. In tactical fleet situations it is obvious that the enemy could not so position himself without risking his own destruction.

Tropo operation differs from conventional transmission, both high frequency and line-of-

The USS Wright (CC-2), at left, and USS Northampton (CC-1), are the only ships now equipped with tropo­spheric scatter communica­tions equipment. They have proved seaborne "tropo” will work. "The next step is to prosecute vigorously a program for gening tropo on board flagships of the Fleet and adopting it to the command of tactical units,” says the author.

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sight. It does not depend upon ground waves or ionospheric bounce. Although it may be in the same frequency band as UHF, tropo operates on an entirely different principle. The transmitter is pointed to the horizon. The energy travels in a narrow beam through the troposphere where most of the signal passes spaceward in a line-of-sight fashion. How­ever, because of the very high power of the transmission, a very small amount of the energy is reflected back toward earth and to the receiving antenna. This finite amount of signal is picked up with a highly sensitive re­ceiving antenna and amplified. A relatively small portion of the transmitted signal reaches its destination.

A typical use of tropo would be in a carrier task force consisting of three task groups, with the force commander acting as one group commander. The force is transiting a large ocean area. In order to minimize electronic detection, the force commander has directed radio silence on all transmissions below 30 megacycles. Essentially this means that he can receive messages from shore, but cannot trans­mit to any distant land station. But this limitation poses no real problem, assuming he has received his orders and is proceeding to carry them out. His real problem is to com­municate with his task group commanders who are dispersed with their ships beyond line-of-sight (conventional) UHF range. In this situation tropo provides an answer to the communications problem if the flagship of the force commander and each group commander is equipped for tropo communications. By any of several means each task group flagship keeps its tropo antenna trained on the force commander’s ship. The task force commander may communicate with each task group coni' mander successively by training his antenna first on one flagship and then another and exchanging traffic as required. An alternate and more sophisticated method would be to equip the task force flagship with several an­tennas which could be trained simultaneously at different task groups. This arrangement would in effect permit the establishment of a high command net via tropo. Since all trans­missions by this means would be in a fre­quency range of UHF or higher, the force would be far more secure from electronic detection than if high frequency transmissions wereusedfor inter-task group communications.

The technical problems involved in ship-to- ship tropo are difficult, but not insurmount­able. The characteristics of point-to-point systems—high-power transmitters, large an­tennas, quadruple diversity—must be com­promised in a shipboard installation. These compromises generally result in a system of narrower band width and shorter range than found on the optimum systems ashore, but the resultant shipboard system will still meet seagoing needs. Dual frequency diver­sity can be employed to achieve an accept­able degree of reliability. Perhaps the most critical problem is the matter of antenna train- The two antennas must be pointed directly at each other within close tolerance. This could be difficult in the case of two moving ships. An automatic tracking device could provide an acceptable solution. Stabilized antennas would be required, but such equipment has long been in use. The problem is that in any such system some compromise must be made regarding beam width. A very narrow beam will provide greater signal strength, but it may be too narrow to stay on the receiving an­tenna. A wider beam may allow for some inaccuracy in the antenna follow system, but at the expense of signal strength.

A discussion of tropo must include men­tion of its relationship to other systems, present and future. The Fleet is now tied to two types of radio communications: long-range low and high frequency, and line-of-sight UHF. The first is poor in security and has only fair channel capacity and reliability; UHF com­munications is limited in range. Tropo fills the gap, and it is within the state of the art. It is not a question of developing an entirely

^new technique, but only of adapting a fixed system to a seaborne environment.

A very important type of communications ^the future will be provided by satellites. ^en such a system becomes a reality the ^^ange limitations of tropo will be overcome.

elites will provide real-time communica- ^tons of high reliability. They will be difficult

to ^^{am an<}^                    ^su®^c*^ent channel capacity

meet military needs. They will extend coverage to anywhere in the world so that range will not be a limiting factor. If satellites provide this optimum communications ^vhy bother with tropo? First, it appears j_s ^{at a} practical ship-to-ship satellite system ^a long way off from being a operational reality. It is doubtful that even a valid concept such a communications system has been veloped, to say nothing of the hardware. ⁿ operational satellite system for Fleet tac- ^^Cal use will come into being in the 1970s.

^roP° for ship-to-ship use could be placed in deration within a year or two. The hardware ^exists for tropo. All that is needed is the pro- ^Ce^y^re f^or ship-to-ship operation.

*he need for improvement in Fleet com­^munications is immediate. Use should be |^nade of the resources now available, and ^r°Po communications is such a resource.

WHEN MEETING A MERCHANT VESSEL

appears that relatively few naval officers understand the inherent limitations under ^lch most merchant vessels operate. The conning officer of a naval vessel has all of the ^atest navigational equipment at his com- ⁿ'^and and numerous assistants to help him Us use and in the evaluation of the informa- ¹⁰ⁿ it provides.

In contrast, the conning officer of a mer- ^ant ship has a very limited array of equip­ment. He will usually have a radar. Some­times he will also have a few pieces of addi­tional hardware such as loran, decca, or a Fathometer. Only under unusual circum­stances does he have any assistants.

A merchant vessel normally has only seven men on watch at a given time. A mate and three seamen are “on deck.” The watch engineer with his fireman and oiler are in the engine room. To these may be added the master at times, a pilot when entering and leaving port, and an extra engineer when maneuvering is expected. The three seamen on watch rotate between the wheel, lookout, and “standby.” The standby is below, but avail­able if required.

The mate on watch performs all bridge duties except the actual steering of the ship. He does whatever navigation or piloting may be required during his watch. He is his own signalman, quartermaster, OOD, JOOD, lee- helmsman, boatswain’s mate-of-the-watch, bridge lookout, stern lookout, and CIC.

By naval standards, the average merchant ship is also grossly underpowered. To quote Crenshaw’s excellent Naval Shiphandling:* “The ships with which we will be dealing . . . all have one thing in common: relatively low power and low speed as compared to the cruiser, carrier, or destroyer,” and “ . . . the single screw, low-powered propulsion of most of these ships necessitates a nicety of control and command not required in handling our responsive twin-screw destroyer. Expressed another way, the conning officer of a heavy laden single-screw AKA or AE must employ many fundamentals of shiphandling which are seldom called into use by the destroyer conning officer. A destroyer has the ability to circumvent or prevent many situations through her large reserve of power and rapid response to controls, but the conning officer of a transport has to meet each situation head- on. The fundamentals of shiphandling are brought into play more completely with a single-screw, low-powered ship than with any other type.”

When close in, once committed, the mer­chant ship can change her originally intended course of action only with the greatest of difficulty, if she can do so at all.

* R. S. Crenshaw, Jr., Naval Shiphandling (Annap­olis: U. S. Naval Institute, 1960).

While not encouraging an exchange of examples of poor seamanship, disregard of the Rules of the Road, or lack of courtesy be­tween naval and merchant ships, I would like to point out that neither the International nor the Inland Rules of the Road state that a naval vessel automatically has the right of way over a merchant vessel. The enacting clause of the International Rules states that the regulations “shall be followed by all public and private vessels of the United States. Rule 1 .(a) reads, in part, “These Rules shall be followed by all vessels ...” (italics mine). The Inland Rules are similarly worded.

Strict compliance with the Rules may fre­quently be inconvenient. When, as “bur­dened” vessel, the commanding officer of a naval vessel is considering whether to haul now and foul up a practice maneuver, or wait and see if a “privileged” merchant ship will go ahead and haul for him (in violation of the Rules), it might be wise to remember that the longer one waits the greater the danger to his ship.

On another point, frequent and radical maneuvers by naval vessels in the presence of a merchant vessel leave the merchantman, to say the least, confused as to the naval vessel’s intentions.

It may be that the naval vessel’s CIC, navigator, and a full battery of computers assure that she will pass clear a certain dis­tance ahead or astern on the next course change. This is predicted on the assumption that the merchant vessel maintains her course and speed. What happens if at the last minute the merchantman panics? The naval vessel zigs, and the merchantman zags? If you have ever been forced to maintain your course and speed while another vessel bears down on you, radically altering both course and speed every few minutes, you will realize what I mean when I say that after a short time you are not viewing things in quite a normal, calm manner. The courts have held that a man who has been conning a “privileged vessel” while the “burdened vessel” held on into an extremis situation cannot be expected to act with his usual cool judgment. So long as he takes ac­tion, regardless of whether it is later shown to be the wrong thing to do under the circum­stances, he usually will be absolved of blame. I believe that the same would be held to apply here. Reversing positions for a moment, what could the burdened vessel do if her skipper could not determine what the “privi­leged vessel” is doing, or where she is going?

The further off that a naval vessel passes a merchant ship, the better for both of them- In the open sea a half mile is much too close.

No matter how many precautions are taken, things go wrong. Steering gear jams. Engi­neers lose the plant. Helmsmen misunder­stand orders. The list is endless. A perverse fate always seem to arrange things so that failures occur at the most inconvenient times.

The smaller units of the Fleet should not insist on staying right on the ranges when meeting a merchant vessel in restricted waters. Merchant pilots are usually very good about moving over for a naval vessel, but a ship drawing more than 20 feet cannot move very far from the center of the channel in many U. S. rivers and harbors. There are numerous places however, where a minesweeper can run completely out of the channel and still have more than enough water under her keel for safe navigation. Minesweepers and other small craft are not asked to get out of the channel (although when meeting a deeply- laden tanker running with the tide, as an example, it might be the prudent thing to do if at all possible). Rather, it is asked that the smaller naval vessel move over to one edge of the channel. The merchant ship will move over to the other side as far as possible. Both will pass safely with much less sweat generated by all concerned.

The men of the merchant marine, both American and foreign, are professionals. Many of them have more than 20 years of almost continuous sea time (we have no shorveys). In any group this large there are bound to be a few incompetents and other undesirables. Despite the best efforts of all concerned, some will probably always remain. Still, the idea foremost in the mind of the watch officers on the vast majority of the merchant vessels which a naval vessel meets is to pass as quickly and as safely as is possible with the least incon­venience to all concerned.

Merchantmen realize that the Navy men have problems. So do we. Please remember our limitations when dealing with us, show us the same courtesy you expect us to show you, and always go by the Rules of the Road.

THE CASE FOR ROLL-ON/ROLL-OFF SHIPS

| he roll-on/roll-off ship is a special-pur­P^ose vessel designed and built to do a ^sPecial job—rapidly load and discharge ''heeled and tracked vehicles. Beyond that, he roll-on/roll-off ship is not exceptional. ^lke any other conventional cargo carrier she ^Urnishes ocean transportation for her lading. The military need for the roll-on/roll-off ¹¹P is based on national defense requirements '^vh*ch, in turn, are founded on the fact that a ^VerY substantial portion of all military ton­^nages moved during the initial stages of an emergency consists of wheeled and tracked ^ehicles. Although the roll-on/roll-off vessel ^as the unique capability to load and dis­charge promptly, the discharge phase is par- hcularly significant to the military. In time of '^var, rapid discharge is not only desirable, but '^,ltal. It is important that the vessel spend the east possible time unloading in vulnerable Port areas. It is also vital to hasten the de- ^lvery of equipment to troops, and vital to do he job without experienced stevedores or °ⁿgshoremen on a foreign shore.

The roll-on/roll-off method is both ancient and new-born. Originating in antiquity with he invention of the wheel, its great potential has scarcely been tapped. The reason lies mextricably in the history and tradition of ^smp construction. From its crude inception he ocean-going cargo vessel was designed to ^transit seas carrying all manner and types of cargo. Instead of building the ship to accom­modate the cargo, as a rule the cargo has had t° fit the ship. The general cargo vessel be­^Came a veritable catch-all for the carriage of "'hatever kind and quantity of goods that ^c°uld be generated for a given voyage.

Through the years, of course, the cargo ^vessel underwent significant refinement and substantial improvement. The designs of ma­rine architects and engineers found expression in more effective hulls, improved propulsion systems, more efficient navigation and com­munications equipment. Cargo carrying ca­pacity was materially facilitated by the pro­vision of greater cube capacity and by the better use of this characteristic in loading a ship to her cubic capacity and down to her optimum draft—a feat requiring great in­genuity in view of the conglomeration of sizes, shapes, and weights of cargoes to be stowed. And so the cargo ship grew bigger, faster, more seaworthy, and more efficient.

But hardly any of these many improvements appreciably enhanced the vessel’s cargo han­dling capability. Comparatively speaking, little thought was accorded to this consideration. Viewed in its broadest context, the loading and discharge segments of the complete pier- to-pier transportation system simply did not command the same attention as the sea transit portion of the system.

Inexorably, however, the era of specializa­tion was to replace generalization. The great industrial revolutions and the coming of the assembly line gave impetus to a changing pattern of the special purpose methodology. Ocean-going vessels were to be no exception. It soon became apparent that spending time in port awaiting or undergoing terminal operations was not the most lucrative role for an ocean-going vessel. At long last, attention was directed to cargo handling or, more pre­cisely, to the costly delay inherent in cargo handling. As a result, we regard as common­place today the tanker, the collier, the bulk grain vessel, the container ship, the rail car ship, and the auto ferry, all carefully and deliberately designed to do a special task. The unique feature of all these special purpose vessels is outstanding cargo handling effi­ciency—the capability to load and discharge rapidly with relatively little manpower and at relatively low cost.

It would be an understatement to say that some commercial interests do not look with favor on the roll-on/roll-off ship. Periodically, elements of the U. S. maritime industry have publicly questioned the advisability of pro­curing this type of vessel; their arguments allege all manner of difficulties—insurmount­able obstacles—inherently associated with their operation. The Military Sea Transporta­tion Service’s USNS Comet (T-LSV-7), for all practical purposes, is the only really roll-on /roll-off ship in operation, i.e., the only one specifically designed and built for the U. S. Navy. For this reason, roll-on/roll-off op­ponents have centered their attacks, either by direct reference or innuendo, on the Comet.

The allegations against the Comet can be generally categorized as follows: (1) She lacks flexibility of operation, i.e., she requires special pier facilities or expensive satellite craft to load and discharge her cargo; (2) she is an inefficient cargo carrier, i.e., her vehicu­lar deck ramps reduce available space for cargo stowage in addition to the broken stowage occasioned by wheeled vehicle cargo; and (3) the economics of her construction cost, vis-a-vis the modern commercial cargo ship, militate against building sister ships.

The Comet is basically a roll-on/roll-off vessel, designed to meet a specific military re­quirement for the rapid loading and discharge

of military wheeled and tracked vehicles. From the standpoint of cargo handling, she is one of the most flexible ships afloat today- She has been loaded numerous times at conventional piers in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Similarly, she has discharged at St. Nazaire, Bremerhaven, and Rotterdam without requiring the use of any special pier facilities. Nor does the Comet require special satellite craft. She has the requisite organic equipment to “marry up” with conventional piers or lighterage. Five ramps permit vehicular access to the ship from the stern or through four side ports, two to port and two to starboard.

The possibility of operation under adverse conditions was fully considered in the Comet¹ s design. Recognizing that situations could render her basic roll-on/roll-off feature in­feasible, and to insure the Comet's self-sustain­ing effectiveness under all foreseeable condi­tions, she was provided with ample conven­tional boom capability.

But the Comet has still more versatility. The self-sustaining commercial cargo vessel, in loading or discharging heavy vehicles, is limited to carrying those heavy vehicles in only the holds which can be served by the ship’s heavy-lift booms. This is not so in the Comet. Her internal ramps permit these ve­hicles, even when loaded by heavy-lift booms, to position themselves practically anywhere within the ship. Discharge is effected by the reverse process. The vehicles can be driven under their own power directly under the hook and lifted off. The allegation that the Comet lacks flexibility is not supported by the facts. She can load and discharge anywhere, anytime, and under more varying conditions than her most worthy competitors.

The Comet is also a most efficient cargo carrier. Critics note that wheeled vehicles, be­cause of their configuration, result in substan­tial broken stowage. Commercial container ships, recognizing this deficiency, lift the trailer from its bogies for direct stowage on the vessel’s deck. Upon discharge, the container again becomes a trailer when lifted back on wheeled axles. Certainly this procedure makes sense, but a clear distinction must be made between a commercially operated venture and a military operation. Military tanks and trucks are not commercial trailers and are not

be

germane. Obviously, her interior ramps

susceptible to having their chassis so blithely removed. An overseas military commander would look with some disdain on the spectacle °f receiving a shipload of military vehicles without tracks or wheels, especially so if someone were shooting at him! The Comet’s, vehicles are ready to roll when the ship ties up.

Thus the Comet is neither a general cargo carrier nor a container ship, per se. She can function as such but she has a different basic Purpose. If she were a commercial carrier the ^accusation that she stows so inefficiently would and her vehicular cargo result in some lost ^sPace. But the fact remains that the Comet has ^a vehicular stowage capacity, both in cube ^ar*d square feet of usable deck space, un­matched by any of her rivals.

Another allegation, and from the stand­point of roll-on/roll-off opponents, and per­haps their most potent, concerns construction costs. Their logic is constructed thus: It costs the government about 18 million dollars to build a roll-on/roll-off ship. The same ex­penditure of funds would provide the U. S. taxpayer with three commercial cargo ships. Therefore, do not buy the roll-on/roll-off ship. A modern commercial merchantman can be built for 10 to 12 million dollars, only about half of which is paid for by government construction subsidy. But the comparison unartfully combines apples and oranges to produce the proverbial fruit salad. The syllo­gism might just as well state that a single seaplane tender costs about X dollars, but for this amount of money Y number of freighters can be purchased. Accordingly, do not buy the seaplane tender. The roll-on/roll-off ship is required to meet a very specific and particu­lar military need. The commercial freighter, on the other hand, is designed to carry diversified cargo involved in normal com­mercial operations. True, the latter can and traditionally does provide military support. The fact remains, however, the roll-on/roll-off ship is uniquely oriented to special military requirements. The commercial cargo ship is not.

But the fiscal implications require further scrutiny. In claiming a three-to-one monetary advantage total costs are not included. The government, for example, pays commercial carriers substantially higher freight rates than the Comet’s cost for transporting iden­tical cargo. Moreover, substantial economies accrue to the government as a result of sig-

Like general cargo vessels, the Comet can unload vehicles with heavy-lift booms, as shown above. However, she is unusual in being able to drive off her cargo through four side ports and a stern port. A second built-for- the-purpose roll-on/roll-off cargo ship, the unnamed T-LSV-9, is now under construction.

nificant savings in stevedoring costs due to the more rapid loading and discharging inherent in the roll-on/roll-off methodology. Ulti­mately, therefore, the aggregate government outlay, including operating differential sub­sidy payments, is greater for commercial lift than the cost of transportation by military roll-on/roll-off ship. This holds true even when amortization of construction costs and interest thereon are added to the Comet’s operating costs.

Can this seven-year old Lady today meas­ure up to the claims of her ardent admirers? An answer is readily found in the Comet’s per­formance on 24 January 1964. During this routine discharge operation, 386 wheeled and tracked military vehicles, cubing 6,365 meas­urement tons, were rolled off the Comet to a conventional pier at Bremerhaven in just 55 minutes. A discharge rate of 6,943 measure­ment tons an hour was achieved—an average of one vehicle every 8.55 seconds! The record is all the more extraordinary because 11 of the 55 minutes total elapsed time were lost due to two carbon monoxide gas alarms in the lower holds of the vessel. The cargo was tracked armored personnel carriers and 155­mm. self-propelled howitzers, mobile shop vans, jeeps, and trucks. The stevedores were U. S. soldiers many of whom, prior to the operation, had never even seen the Comet. The ingredients for the success were a carefully conceived loading plan which included selec­tive athwartship stowage to facilitate prompt discharge, the morale and enthusiasm of the military drivers, and finally, of course, the unique characteristics of the Comet herself. Interestingly enough, the versatility of the Comet’s roll-on/roll-off capability was demon­strated by pure happenstance. During the operation, battery troubles rendered a few of the vehicles inoperable. This created no big problem for most of the dead-line vehicles were easily towed off, with one being rolled off by the muscle power of enthusiastic soldiers.

A similar, record-making discharge of vehicles from the Comet again took place on 22 August 1964—this time at night under com­plete port area and shipboard blackout con­ditions. In this operation 297 vehicles were unloaded at Bremerhaven including 60-ton, M-60 tanks, the Army’s largest. Again the stevedores were U. S. soldiers, but not the same ones who discharged the ship in January. The unloading, from start to finish, took 81 minutes: A discharge rate in excess of 5,000 measurement tons an hour; a rate of one vehicle every 16.4 seconds in complete blackout!

Do these capabilities and limitations mean that the Comet and future roll-on/roll-off ves­sels are mutually exclusive of the commercial types? The military look with great enthusi­asm to the current modernization programs of the American merchant marine. Undoubt­edly today’s ships are the finest, most versa­tile ever built for commercial cargo service. The military’s need for them is genuine. In time of peace and emergency alike, they provide substantial, significant, and effective military support. They neither compete with the Military Sea Transportation Service’s fleet nor does the latter with the former. Rather, they complement each other.

To many, this assertion is a bitter pill, at times quite difficult to swallow. For much of the vigorous opposition to the roll-on/roll-off ship is founded on the myth of competition. It is thus feared that by adding a new vessel to the M.S.T.S. fleet, commercial carriers will incur a corresponding loss of revenue. These fears, however, can properly be dis­pelled by fact. The Navy’s M.S.T.S. depends on commercial ships to lift the majority of its cargo. In fiscal year 1963, for example, the M.S.T.S. cargo fleet carried only about 17 per cent of the total M.S.T.S. cargo work­load, or 9.1 billion of the total 51.5 billion measurement ton-miles. Construction of another roll-on/roll-off ship is not intended to, nor, reports M.S.T.S., will it, adversely affect the maritime industry. It is merely intended to offset, in small measure, the obsolescence of the present M.S.T.S. nucleus fleet. A numerical increase in the size of the fleet is not sought. The retirement of over-age, inefficient ships currently being operated by M.S.T.S. is programmed on a one-for-one basis. Thus the same level of employment of commercial shipping will continue.

★

Notebook

PART

10’

U. S. Navy

Q A-3 Sub To Begin Patrol (Missiles & Rockets, 14 September 1964): The first U. S. Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine armed with the Polaris A-3 missile will begin its patrol this month, President Johnson told a news conference.

“I have been advised by Secretary of De­fense McNamara that a new and significantly improved weapon—the Polaris A-3 missile— will soon become part of our strategic missile force,” the President said.

Sixteen of the 2,500-n.mi. missiles will go to sea on the USS Daniel Webster when it goes on station later this month. The A-3, the President said, was put under “accelerated development in 1964.”

Polaris A-3 was actually operational in August with the successful completion of the flight test program. The missile is 31 ft. long and 54 in. in diameter and consists of two solid-propellant stages.

0 Study Seeks More Carriers (Richard Fryklund in the Washington Evening Star, 15 September 1964): A new Navy argument for a large aircraft-carrier fleet has just been sent to Secretary of Defense McNamara.

The United States now has 15 attack car­riers, but after a Navy study last year of its future needs, Mr. McNamara tentatively de­cided to reduce the force gradually to 13 and perhaps 12.

Top Naval officials say today the new study answers the questions raised by Mr. McNa­mara so well that a force of at least 15 and perhaps 18 now looks both effective and eco­nomical.

Civilian officials, who started their first offi­cial reading of the study this week, say the new Navy argument is, indeed, a substantial improvement, but they say there is no hint now how Mr. McNamara will decide.

The new study does not recommend a spe­cific number of carriers but examines the cost and the effectiveness of a force of 12, 15 or 18 along with the aircraft, support ships, sailors and supplies each size force would require.

The study assumes that one carrier task group—the carrier and all its supporting forces—is roughly the equivalent in aircraft (about 75) and cost to an Air Force fighter- bomber wing and that the aircraft themselves are about the same. It then assumed that if the Secretary of Defense scrapped a carrier task group he would add an Air Force wing and vice versa.

Thus, the money saved by going to 12 car­riers would be spent on three more wings. Or the extra money for 18 carriers would come from three disbanded Air Force wings.

These three different combinations of wings and carriers were put into paper war games in different places in the world at different times in a hypothetical future. The Navy calcula­tions indicate, roughly, that a force emphasiz­ing carriers rather than land-based Air Force planes will be much more effective than a force weighted toward the Air Force.

Even in Central Europe—traditionally as­sumed to be natural Air Force territory—the mix most favorable to the Navy scored high­est. In other words, more carriers and fewer Air Force wings resulted, on paper, in more destruction of the enemy.

In the study, the Air Force was assumed to have a serious problem of vulnerability. Its bases are so close to enemy aircraft that they could be taken out in a few minutes in a sur­prise attack. The carriers were assumed to be

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stationed in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic.

In every study, it should be emphasized, both carrier and land-based aircraft are as­sumed to be necessary. The only question is the numbers of each.

Calculating that the total cost of a carrier fud all of its airplanes and supporting forces ^ls about the same as the cost of an Air Force ^Wlng, its airfield and all of its supporting forces, a mix heavy on carriers is more effec- ^tlVe and no more costly, the study concludes.

Air Force officers no doubt will disagree.

When Mr. McNamara’s analysts have gone °ver the study they will pass it on to the Air *orce for recalculation and comment.

Air Force officers, on the other hand, say they can hardly wait to poke holes in the study.

53 Navy May Revive Atom Fleet Plan

(John W. Finney in The New York Times, 13 September 1964): A major advance in atomic ^reactor technology by Vice Admiral Hyman C- Rickover is forcing a reluctant Defense I Apartment to reopen the question of build- ^lng a nuclear-powered surface fleet.

With the joint approval of the Defense De­partment and the Atomic Energy Commis- ^s'on, Admiral Rickover has begun develop­ment of a ship reactor that promises to be far more efficient and higher powered than those now being used in the first generation of nu­clear-powered surface ships.

Two of the new reactors, for example, could Power an 80,000-ton attack carrier, compared "nth the eight reactors required for the U.S.S. Enterprise, the first atomic-powered carrier.

Furthermore, the uranium fuel in the new factors would have about four times the lifetime of the original fuel loadings in the Enterprise reactors.

The advance does not spring from any dis­covery or breakthrough in reactor technology. Rather, according to commission officials, it represents an extension and extrapolation of the reactor technology which has been pio­neered by Admiral Rickover’s nuclear pro­pulsion branch in the last 10 years.

But for the Navy, the technical advance could provide the political breakthrough in overcoming Defense Department resistance to construction of nuclear-powered surface ships.

The advance promises to lower the cost of nuclear ships and thus overcome the principal Defense Department objection to their con­struction.

Significantly, as far as the future decisions on a nuclear fleet are concerned, the first disclosure of the advance in reactor tech­nology came from President Johnson.

At his news conference on Saturday, the President described development of the “new, very high-powered, long-lived reactor” as “a major step forward in nuclear technology.”

More important for the Navy, the President described the development as “another signifi­cant step in the creation of a nuclear-powered Navy” and one that “will make nuclear power more attractive in the construction of air­craft carriers.”

The Presidential statement could tip the balance toward making the next carrier nu­clear-powered. It is a decision that the Ad­ministration will have to make next fall. The Navy, in preparing its shipbuilding program

of

communication which no other satellite in his-

The Syncom satellite is unique among all heavenly bodies — man or nature-made. If you ^c°uld peer through a telescope which could dis­tern it — hanging still in the numbing vastness of ^sPace, 22,300 miles above the earth — you would witness an amazing sight.

As you watched, all the other stars would move, ^ut Syncom would not. It would appear to be Perched atop a pole of monumental height, whose ase was driven into the middle of the Pacific Ocean’s expanse.

From this height, and hanging always at one Point above the earth, Syncom can perform feats ^tory has ever been able to accomplish.

Syncom now looks down on over a third of the globe — covering Japan, Australia, the Philippines, oe Pacific islands and North America. It can ex­change television and radio signals between any °f these points — at any time of day, without inter­ruption.

A dramatic sample of these abilities was yours ^tr> share when Syncom brought you the opening or the Olympics “live,” not on film, from Tokyo, J^apan to your television set.

hughes and nasa are justifiably proud of Syncom. It is a major step forward in creating a 'yorldwide TV, telephone and radio communica- h°ns satellite system which every country in the '^v°rld can use.

The next step will be made early next year. Then, a HUGHES Syncom-type satellite will be Parked” over the Atlantic Ocean for the Com­munications Satellite Corporation. “Public Satel- ute ^#I”— it will bring Europe as close as your tele­phone and television set.

for the fiscal year 1967, is expected to ask for a carrier to replace one of the five World War II attack carriers of the Essex class still with the fleet.

Thus far, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara has resisted the transition to a nuclear fleet. For example, he overrode the Navy by ordering that the carrier John F. Kennedy, whose keel will be laid shortly at Newport News, Va., be conventionally powered. He is in the process of vetoing a Navy request that a nuclear-powered frigate be included in next year’s shipbuilding pro­gram.

Mr. McNamara’s objections have been based largely on additional cost, which in the case of a carrier comes to about $90 million.

On the basis of his “cost effectiveness” ap­proach to defense policies, Mr. McNamara has maintained that the advantages of nu­clear power would not be worth the addi­tional cost.

jnj World Circled in 25 Days (From Naval Aviation News, September 1964): A C-130 Hercules, flying logistic support for a training exercise in the Indian Ocean area, flew 46,000 nautical miles in 25 days from Barber’s Point, Hawaii.

Crew members of the world-girdling flight, which crossed the Equator four times, were from VR-21, Fleet Tactical Support Com­mand of the Pacific Fleet.

Carrying an average payload of 18,000 pounds for the entire mission, the C-130G made five crossings of the Indian Ocean. It flew westward to the Philippine Islands, then to Bangkok, Thailand, Madagascar, Kenya, Aden in southern Arabia, Athens and Paris. The Hercules flew back to Barber’s Point via Washington, D. C., Dayton, Ohio and Ala­meda, California.

Eighty per cent of the flight was over water. The crew flew an average of eight hours per day for a total flight time of 165 hours.

Ship Notes

0 United States: The following ships have been placed in commission—Benjamin Stoddert (DDG-22) on 12 September 1964; Von Steuben (SSBN-632) on 30 September 1964; Tinosa (SSN-606) on 17 October 1964.

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CREI men now serve the Armed Forces wherever advanced technical knowledge is required. And, be­cause CREI men study on their own time and pay their own tuition, the cost to the Armed Forces is nothing.

Many officers not only encourage CREI students but they also suggest getting information on CREI courses to other qualified men. And they welcome the CREI Field Service Representative who visits their command.

We’ll be glad to send you complete information about CREI Programs and a complimentary volume of CREI study material. Write directly to the President of CREI.

Other U. S. Services

0 It’s the Alaska Patrol Now (Coast Guard Release, 4 September 1964): The Coast Guard today opened a new chapter in its 97 year operation of the famed Bering Sea Patrol by renaming it the Alaska Patrol. The former name is not sufficiently descriptive of the modern Patrol’s many law enforcement and conservation tasks, officials said.

Over the years, the tempo and scope of the Patrol’s work have increased steadily, reflect­ing Alaska’s dramatic rise to Statehood. Its responsibilities now embrace a wide arc from the Canadian border on the south to the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and Arctic Ocean on the north. Obviously, the modern Patrol is a far broader and far more complex opera­tion than could ever have been imagined at the time of the original Patrol. In responding to the challenge of a fast changing world, it has long outgrown its early function. Time and change have caught up with this colorful and historic Coast Guard operation.

S3 New Designators Scheduled For Buoy Tenders, Lightships (Macon Reed in Navy Times, 9 September 1964): All Coast Guard buoy tenders and lightships will get new designators come the first of the year, but there will be no change in the big cutters and patrol craft Earlier, the service had changed the designations of a host of its shore stations, large and small, to get a more uniform and descriptive nomenclature.

It is now doing much the same thing with its tender designators.

Buoy tenders—from 189-foot sea-going ves­sels to inland waterway barge pushers only 75 feet long—have for many years all been lumped together under the Navy designation AGL, for “miscellaneous auxiliary,” with an aid-to-navigation mission. A “W” was stuck in front to show they were Coast Guard, and scores of quite different craft are all tagged “WAGL.”

Now the Coast Guard is going to divide them up into five groups, according to size and purpose. It will keep the “W” for Coast Guard—oddly, nobody seems to know how the letter came to have that meaning—and it will keep the “L” to show “aid-to-naviga­tion.” Presumably this meaning has de-

^VeI°Ped over the years from “L” for “light.” , ^a^l tenders of 65 feet or more will begin L.” Then the letter “B” was adopted for sea-going.” It can be read as “bigger.” At ^any rate, all tenders of 180 feet or more will ^e WLB “sea-going buoy tenders.”

This includes five 189s of the Heather class, the 12 Balsam-class 180s, and the six Button- ^ooo'-class ships and the 19 Acacia-class ships ^of the same length.

The next smaller designator is WLM for ^c°astal tenders. You can read M for medium.

The class covers 17 tenders, ranging from the 133-foot “white tree” group—White Alder, White Sumac, etc.—to the 177-foot ^uniper. It includes the new 157-footers, of ^Vvhich the just-commissioned Red Wood is the

prototype.

Next comes the WLI—“I” is clearly for in­land”—which is divided into two subclasses, though without any distinction in designator. The “inland large” range from the 100-foot, brand new Buckthorn, the latest of her class, up ^to a miscellaneous group including Hickory, Tamarack and Maple, with maximum lengths °f 131 feet.

Also under the WLI designator, but de­scribed as small inland tenders, are the six 65-footers and a group of seven larger boats from 71 to 91 feet, including Bluebonnet, Jasmine and Cherry.

The 65-footers are now “WD,” the origin °f the “D” being unclear. But WD has meant buoy boat and is now being abandoned for 6 5 -footers.

The seven 75-foot inland construction tenders—the Anvil class—will be WLIC. Nineteen river buoy tenders will become

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WLR—the 65-footers, plus two 75-footers and the slightly larger Lantana and Oleander will be called “large.” Again eight river tenders over 100 feet will be called “large.” But again there’s no difference in designator.

The Coast Guard’s remaining 24 lightships will quit being WAL and become WLV, to conform with the new “WL” scheme for all aid-to-navigation craft. Officials drafting the new designators said the “V” doesn’t stand for anything, it was “just an available letter.”

Maritime General

s Britain Will Apply New Fisheries Limit

(Baltimore Sun, 9 September 1964): Britain today [8 September] announced it would ap­ply the new 12-mile fisheries limit in coastal waters beginning September 30. The old limit was 3 miles.

On March 2 most European nations agreed to extend the limit to 12 miles.

s Subsidy Approved for Fishing Fleet

(The New York Times, 1 September 1964): President Johnson has signed a bill authoriz­ing a five-year $10 million annual construc­tion-differential subsidy to help rebuild and modernize the United States commercial fishing fleet.

The measure provides for a maximum Federal subsidy of 50 per cent of the cost of construction of modern fishing vessels in domestic yards.

A House committee report said that since 1947 the Soviet Union had more than doubled its fish catch and that considerable increases had been made by Japan, Peru, China and other countries.

It attributed this to the continued deteriora­tion of the United States fishing fleet because of the requirement that American fishing vessels be built in United States shipyards, where the construction cost is 50 per cent higher than in foreign yards.

Since 1956, the United States share of the total world catch of fish has dropped from 13 to 7 per cent, moving this country from second to fifth place among fishing nations.

Sponsors of the bill said it was necessary to enable American fishermen to compete with foreign fleets in what have been considered traditional fishing grounds for U. S. fishermen.

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s Submarines Leave Mediterranean (No- val News Summary, August 1964): It was an­nounced in Malta on July 31 that British submarine forces are being withdrawn from the Mediterranean.

A signal from the Flag Officer, Subma­rines, to Captain C. H. Hammer, Captain S.M.5 in the depot ship H.M.S. Ausonia, said: “The departure of the Submarine Division from the Mediterranean brings to a close an era studded with honour.”

The signal paid tribute to “the ship’s shore support and to the people of Malta itseli during a long and happy association.

The Captain S.M.5 sent the following to the Flag Officer Submarines, submarines under his command and other authoritives:

“This day we, in the Fifth Submarine Divi­sion, are deeply sensible of the honour that has fallen upon us to be the last in a noble line. We recall the names of many famous sub­mariners of the Mediterranean Squadrons. These strangely, but perhaps fittingly, evoke the spirit of great times more vividly than any­thing else. This is inevitably a sad day but we know that Malta, who shares our traditions, will always welcome our people.”

H.M.S. Ausonia sailed for the United King­dom on August 7, where she has since paid off. Her departure and that of submarines which have been based in the Mediterranean will) however, be offset by periodic visits to the area of modern submarines from the Home Command.

0 6 New British Warships (The Times, 28 August 1964): The Navy is to have six more warships at a cost estimated to exceed £40 m.

This is the effect of the announcement to­day by the Navy Department of the Ministry of Defence that tenders are being invited for two more guided missile super destroyers of the County Class, and two more Leander Class general purpose frigates, with the indication that it is planned to order another Leander Class frigate from a royal dockyard.

Although it is unlikely that work will start on any of the ships before next year, it was announced at the same time that an order has been placed with Henry Robb, of Leith, for a helicopter support ship, designed for

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training helicopter crews in deep water op­erations against submarines.

The cost of the guided missile ships will be well over £10 m. each, since they will carry even more electronic equipment than the four already in service or the two which are in process of fitting out. They will be designed from the start to take the later mark of Sea- slug and the Action Data Automation Sys­tem which has been installed in the aircraft carrier Eagle.

Electronics have been estimated to make up nearly half the cost of the present ships of this class, and in future vessels it may be even higher than that.

The first of the County Class, H.M.S. Devonshire, was commissioned in November 1962. These ships have a standard displace­ment of over 5,000 tons and a length of 520 ft. and a beam of 54 ft. Their armament con­sists of one Seaslug guided missile system, four radar-controlled 4.5 in. guns, and two Seacat close-range guided weapon systems. They all carry helicopters with homing torpedoes.

The Leander Class frigates, in which both Spain and India have shown an interest, have a displacement of about 2,000 tons. Thirteen have already been ordered.

The helicopter support ship, which will operate in the English Channel near the parent shore station of helicopter squadrons at Culrose, will cost about £1,500,000.

Q Icebreaker Lenin Five Years Old (Ed­ited by B. M. Kassell from Soviet press re­ports) : The Soviet Union’s atomic-powered icebreaker Lenin completed five years of operational service in September 1964. The powerful vessel is credited with having ex­tended maritime operations over the Northern Sea Route from 90-100 days to the present 150-160 days. This year, for example, Lenin sailed for the Arctic on 22 June.

A product of the Admiralty Shipyard at Leningrad, Lenin is said to have already logged some 70,000 miles, almost 50,000 in Arctic ice, at speeds of between 10 and 12 knots. Earlier icebreakers have ordinarily made but 2 to 4 knots. One reason given for the im­provement in convoy speeds is the 44,000 horsepower developed by the atomic-pow­ered main propulsion plant.

In addition to primary use as a path- breaker for merchant ships moving over the Northern Sea Route, the Lenin has been pressed into service to assist in the establish­ment of drifting ice stations in the Arctic. In 1961, for example, the icebreaker penetrated to 75°27' North, 177°10' East, landing per­sonnel and equipment for the station desig­nated as North Pole-10. Yet another assist to science was the use of the ship to set up fifteen automatic radiometeorological stations and beacons at various points in the Arctic basin. The northernmost penetration noted was 80°40' North, on 27 November.

Lenin’s construction was authorized by the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. Commissioning took place on 15 September, 1959. The icebreaker carries a crew of over 200 men. The regular captain is B. Sokolov and his relief is Y. Kuchiyev.

@ India Said to BuyMIG’s andTanks {The New York Times, 13 September 1964): India has bought supersonic MIG fighters and tanks from the Soviet Union in a new arms deal, an informed source said today [12 September]. The transaction comes four months after a major agreement for United States military aid.

India has also been looking for several frigates, a submarine and other vessels for her navy of mostly prewar British ships, but it Was not certain whether Defense Minister V. B. Chavan had purchased any of these during the visit he has just concluded in Mos­cow.

In Washington last May, Mr. Chavan won a five-year military aid agreement for $60 million a year in grants and $50 million a year in credits.

The source said that the Defense Minister had purchased about 35 MIG-21’s and com­ponents to assemble an undetermined number of others in three MIG factories under con­struction in India with Soviet aid.

India originally acquired six MIG aircraft but two have crashed. With the new addi­tions, India’s small air force will have about 39 MiG’s. The Government considers this sufficient supersonic fighter power for now to meet any Chinese Communist aggression.

Most of the Chinese Communist fighters are of the MIG-15 type, which was first shown in the Soviet Union in 1949, and the MIG-17, a 1954 model. Because of the Chi­nese-Soviet ideological dispute, Peking no longer receives any Soviet military equip­ment.

Although Indians deny that it figures in their defense thinking, the Government is known to have felt outclassed with four MiG’s against the 12 F-104’s that neighboring Pakistan received from the United States. Now Indian air power is considered here to be stronger than Pakistan’s.

Moreover, India’s desire for a submarine was influenced by the fact that Pakistan has one. The official position has been that India needs a submarine for training purposes, but after years of feuding with her neighbor, India is uneasy at being without any item in Paki­stan’s arsenal.

The number of tanks involved in the So- viet-Indian deal was not made known. Mr. Chavan was reported interested in a consid­erable number of light tanks in the 15-ton range for use in the rugged Himalayan terrain bordering Communist China.

There was no word on how much money was involved in the arms transaction. Soviet military sales to India since the 1962 border war with China have totaled about $140 mil­lion. United States military grants have amounted to more than $170 million since then.

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Mr. Chavan is understood to have won Soviet agreement to speed up completion of three MIG plants in India, which at the cur­rent pace are not expected to be turning out planes before 1971.

Progress

New Uniforms—First and second class petty officers wearing garb of the E-5/E-6 Uniform Pilot Program stand inspection on board the USS Galveston (CLG-3). The new enlisted uniform is being evaluated on board several ships and at shore in­stallations.

Eagle Goes to Sea—The British aircraft carrier Eagle goes back to sea following four years of reconstruction. Note the new location of a catapult on her angled deck and advanced radar atop her island. Sea cat missiles will be installed to complement the eight 4.5-inch guns re­tained aft. For a discussion of British carrier strength see page 130 of this issue of the Proceedings.

Royal Navy

Flying Bedstead—For the investigation of hovering flight, the Dornier aircraft engineering firm of West Germany has installed four Rolls-Royce RB. 108 jet turbines on a flying bed­stead. The engines are mounted in a wing-like structure in the center of the bedstead. The contraption is being used by Dornier for research in V/STOL trans­port development.

Dornier