This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
142 A-7A Maintainability Program
By Captain J. J. Coyle,
U. S. Navy (Retired)
145 Duty in Washington
By Captain John S. Oller, Jr., U. S. Navy
148 Ghana’s Navy
By Lieutenant Commander James Stewart, Royal Navy (Retired)
152 Oceanographic-Hydrographic Training
By Willis L. Tressler
156 Notebook
Edited by Captain Daniel M. Karcher, U. S. Navy
By Captain J. J. Coyle,
U. S. Navy (Retired),
Former Director, Maintenance Engineering Division,
Bureau of Naval Weapons
A-7A MAINTAINABILITY PROGRAM
The weapon system contract for the A-7A Navy’s attack aircraft, awarded to Ling- Temco-Vought, is the first instance where specific maintenance requirements have been made contractually binding, with a contractor penalty for non-performance. In the past, such requirements have existed as design objectives, and, too frequently, the high hopes of the aircraft designers were dashed on the rocks of reality as the design progressed from the drawing board to the hardware stage.
Ease of maintenance has usually been subjugated to the demands of system performance when conflicts have arisen. Since the latter is more closely defined in contracts, and government acceptance of the end article is based on meeting contract specifications, not objectives, the end result was obvious. Performance requirements were met at the expense of maintainability objectives and weapons became increasingly complex.
The need to reverse this trend was recognized some time ago, and the contract document to accomplish this evolved slowly, being finally approved in May 1963. This document is Weapons Requirement 30, “Integrated Maintenance Management for Aeronautical Weapons, Weapon Systems and Related Equipment.” This document provides for the total logistic support of a weapon system. One element of this specification is a quantitative maintainability requirement which must be demonstrated under given conditions. The A-7A light attack airplane contract is the first instance where this unique feature of WR-30 has been invoked.
The WR-30 document has other unique features: It demands that maintainability be considered in the early design stage of a weapon system. This is accomplished by requiring that maintenance engineering analysis of each system, sub-system, or component
of maintenance significance be performed. This maintenance engineering analysis documents maintenance concepts, requirements, and tasks; provides a basis for the determination of maintenance personnel and training requirements, and the content of technicald manuals, support equipment needs, and spare parts necessary for repair and rework. This feature had already been applied to several other aircraft and the results have been extremely gratifying.
In the case of theF-4B Phantom II fighter, maintenance engineering analysis was applied after the design was completed, but significant savings were still achieved. Scheduled maintenance man-hour requirements for the Phantom II were reduced from 2,124 to 1,128 Per year per aircraft, a dollar savings averaging $2,980 per aircraft, and a substantial improvement in aircraft readiness. Another example of this program’s results was the redesign of the throttle control to facilitate removal and installation. This operation formerly required 200 man-minutes, but redesign reduced this to 18 man-minutes and provided for more accurate throttle adjustment. It does not take many gains such as this to justify the need for maintenance engineering analysis.
The A-7A Corsair II is the first U. S. Navy aircraft to have specific maintenance requirements and contractor penalties for non-performance written into the contract specifications. Behind this full-scale mockup of the A-7A are F-8E(FN) Crusader fighters being produced for the French Navy.
t-ing-Temco-Vought
DANCE"
The P-3A Orion patrol plane is another aircraft where this concept was backed-in just before the aircraft was delivered to the Fleet. In this case, scheduled maintenance requirements were reduced 34 per cent, the major scheduled maintenance interval was extended from 100 to 300 hours, preflight maintenance was reduced from two hours to 33 minutes, and the out-of-service time for scheduled maintenance was reduced from 25 hours to 13| hours. This aircraft also provided a good example of what savings can be made from little items. In the low-pressure fuel system there are 16 throw-away paper fuel filters. The original replacement interval
was 30 days. A maintenance engineering analysis showed that the optimum replacement interval was 90 days. This resulted in “cost avoidance” averaging $1,150 per aircraft for one year.
These are worthwhile results, but the real pay-off is in preliminary design, and it is here that big benefits are expected to accrue to the A-7A. In preliminary design, maintenance nightmares can be avoided before they become reality. This can be accomplished with a reasonable amount of maintenance engineering judgment and review.
In addition to wringing out system design for maintainability, and providing the basis for logistic support, WR-30 provides five stages of integrated maintenance management verification for control purposes. These stages are time phased with the maturation of the weapon system.
Stage one takes place at the planning conference where the contractor presents his maintenance management plan. Stage two occurs progressively through the breadboard and mock-up stage. In this, phase, maintainability predictions and requirements are updated as the design begins to take form. The object of stage three is the first representative end article. In addition to updating maintainability data, there is an evaluation of the compatibility of maintenance resources. The maintenance engineering inspection, equipment interchangeability, and the handbook verification are also conducted at this stage. Stage four takes place during the trials phase, and the contractor is required to demonstrate achievement of end article maintainability requirements as part of the test program.
The fifth stage of verification is the culmination of the maintainability program. It is here that the contract for the A-7A blazes a new trail. Stage five is an in-service verification under operating conditions, simulating as nearly as practicable weapon system maintainability during sustained primary mission application of the aircraft. In the A-7A program, for the first time this is a contract requirement and failure to meet the maintainability criteria of the contract results in a contractor penalty. The maintainability criteria are defined in terms of direct maintenance man-hours per flight hour for organizational and intermediate maintenance under specified conditions. Quantitative requirements are comparable to current experience on the A-4E Skyhawk aircraft, and substantially less than present experience with the A-6A Intruder aircraft.
In terms of the definitions of the three new levels of aircraft maintenance, organizational maintenance includes both hangar and line maintenance, the old “E” and “F” levels. Intermediate maintenance includes shop maintenance and component repair, the old “C” and “D” levels. Direct maintenance excludes supervision, maintenance administration and training, workload control, material control, military duties, and travel time to and from jobs. It also excludes time lost due to non-availability of material and plant and equipment maintenance. Maintenance manhours generated by damage through aircraft accidents or incidents, cannibalization, and change incorporation are also specifically excluded.
Aircraft engaged in the maintenance demonstration will be flown for one complete maintenance cycle of 150 hours. For each aircraft involved the demonstration shall commence immediately after a periodic inspection, and maintenance man-hours for the periodic inspection at the conclusion of the demonstration will be included in the manhour total.
The aircraft assigned for stage five verification will be in the configuration as delivered by the contractor, modified by selected approved changes. If, during the course of the demonstration, maintenance improvement changes are developed, they may be incorporated, and the maintenance man-hours associated with the changes may be re-evaluated at the contractor’s request. Prior to each flight, all systems should be operational and armament configurations will meet specified requirements. Shipboard operations and familiarization flights will be excluded from the guarantee demonstration.
To insure adequate skill levels of Navy maintenance personnel, a specified number of men will be assigned from the factory trained cadre, and the remainder will be graduates of the A-7A maintenance training program and mutually acceptable to both the contractor and the Navy. Contractor participation in maintenance will be limited to technical
advice to Navy demonstration personnel and the monitoring of the maintenance and failure data collection system. The total personnel allowance for the demonstration must be mutually agreeable to both the contractor and the Navy. However, the personnel planning data developed in the course of the maintenance engineering analysis will be used as the basis for the distribution of rate and ratings in the Fleet.
The Bureau of Naval Weapons looks to the A-7A maintainability program as a model for future weapon system and equipment contracts. Too often in the past, the Navy has been disappointed by unreliable equipment which has failed to live up to expectations. In such cases, the Navy has been faced with added expenditures of money and manpower, and reluctant acceptance of reduced Fleet readiness. The judicious application of Weapons Requirement 30 with quantitative maintainability requirements, which must be demonstrated, will insure against such occurrences m the future. It can be expected that use of this specification will prove to be a deterrent for those questionable contractors who might sacrifice quality for cost in competitive procurement bidding. The contractor of high integrity should have nothing to fear, and will find that WR-30 protects him as well as the Navy from less reputable contractors.
By Captain John S. Oller, Jr.,
U. S. Navy, Joint Staff,
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
DUTY IN WASHINGTON
I f there is a single set of orders guaranteed to strike fear and trepidation into the ;lcarts of many a naval officer and his wife, it js that which sends him to his first tour of duty ln Washington, D. C.
It would be well for those officers—and heir wives—who have yet to be initiated to Washington duty to take a long second look eiore giving vent to cries of dismay to the etail officer in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. He is actually doing them a favor.
The professional aspects of duty in the Washington area have many ramifications. It cannot be categorically stated that every billet in Washington lies on the golden road to selection. As elsewhere, there are many routine jobs. On the other hand, there is probably no geographical area that presents as great an opportunity to overcome an assignment to a routine billet. Quite often, officers coming up for their first tour in Washington have not yet had adequate shore or staff evaluation to assess them as top performers ashore. There are never enough top officers to fill the “good” jobs. The flag and general officers in the key billets in Washington quickly become talent scouts and body snatchers, to snare those newcomers who display real talent.
There is no statistical criterion with which to evaluate the degree of enhancement to promotion opportunity that Washington duty provides. There is a strong indication in this direction in the fact that every one of the 31 captains selected by the May 1964 flag selection board had served in Washington. All but two had more than one tour, and over half of them had at least three duty stints in the capital city. The actual duty pattern in Washington varied widely for these selectees, but 24 of them served in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and 19 in one or more of the bureaus, nine of them in the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
In looking at the pros and cons of any duty station, the professional considerations should include the contribution the naval officer can make to his service as well as the benefits he himself will receive. There exists in Washington the opportunity for shore duty in every field of endeavor and every specialty which a naval officer could be educated for or could contribute to. Every staff corps, every engineering duty specialty, and the line as well, have both breadth and depth in a variety of billets in and around Washington. On the somewhat altruistic side, there exists the opportunity to employ technical educations to the fullest, and to repay, to some small extent, the time and money that provided those educations.
The web of Washington naval activities stretches in all directions from the hub at the
Pentagon. The offices, bureaus, and laboratories stretch from Maryland through the District of Columbia and well into Virginia. There are a myriad of activities and a kaleidoscope of duties to be performed in them.
For developing that combination of professional base and background so essential for those who will be the uniformed leaders of the Navy in not-too-distant years, it would be difficult to conjure a more ideal environment than that of the nation’s capital. On the purely educational side, George Washington University, the American University, the University of Maryland, the University of Virginia, Southeastern University, Howard University, Benjamin Franklin University, and Georgetown University offer a wide selection of courses on both the undergraduate and graduate level. Educational standards are generally high and tuition fees comparatively reasonable. Classes are held in government offices and public schools as well as in the universities themselves, making it as convenient as possible for evening study. Only disinclination should prevent an officer from raising his educational level during a Washington tour.
National headquarters of professional societies are numerous in Washington, and local chapters of such associations are even more numerous. They provide ready contact in both technical and non-technical specialties, whereby those who are interested can keep abreast of the latest trends and policies in their specialties. Many of the recognized leaders in scientific and other professional fields are frequent visitors to Washington, as advisors to government or on other business, and are featured speakers at professional society meetings.
As the nation’s capital and the hub of Allied policy-making, Washington is the scene of history in the making. The latest White House and Department of State pronouncements, Congressional debates and votes, and the contents of yesterday’s Congressional Record are very much in car pool and lunch table conversations at naval activities. More often than not, the policy-makers, the names in the front page news, become familiar figures to the officers in Washington billets.
Washington’s biggest business is government, which makes for a unique situation in housing. The District of Columbia itself and the surrounding areas of Maryland and Virginia must provide homes for both the civilians and military personnel who make the wheels of government turn. Any selected neighborhood will guarantee a varied representation of professions and businesses—and in all probability an interesting group. Major roads run like spokes in a wheel from numerous popular communities—such as Chevy Chase, Bethesda, and Annandale—toward the central area of Washington. For those who want to circle the edge, 66 miles of new, nonstop circumferential highway form a circle around the fringes of the city. To judge from real estate advertisements, no house or apartment is more than ten minutes travel from the Pentagon or the Potomac River bridges. This patently is not so. There are some monumental traffic jams on the roads leading toward the Pentagon, even in good weather. Three inches of snow are guaranteed to parlay a normally 20-minute drive into a 2-hour nerve-wracker. On the whole, though, new and wider roads and improved traffic engineering have taken most of the edge off the major traffic problems around Washington.
Family life during Washington duty centers in the neighborhood, in contrast to the ship and squadron life known to the Navy wife with husband on sea duty. This neighborhood life can be as active or secluded as one desires. The varied interests usually represented in a neighborhood can be the source of new interests for the Navy family. Conversation struck up at a neighborhood cookout can lead to new hobbies that may last a lifetime.
Social life can be as quiet or as active as the Navy family wants to make it in Washington. It is a take-it-or-leave-it situation. Most naval officers coming to Washington will make at least a few friends in the numerous foreign embassies, and invitations will be forthcoming. Friendships will broaden, and more invitations will follow. This can be a demanding cycle, or it can be a relaxing, occasional opportunity for a social evening in pleasant company. Except for senior officers, the level of activity depends on personal predilection. A wide choice of restaurants exists. Cuisine runs from hot Mexican, through solid Bavarian and heavily spiced Middle Eastern, to more subtle Chinese and
Japanese. For the meat-and-potatoes fan, there are excellent steak houses.
Should theater or music be high in the family’s interest, Washington has its share to offer. At the time of writing, three pre-Broadway openings were scheduled. There are also several summer theaters including Shady Grove, in a tent, and Carter Barron Amphitheater in Rock Greek Park. On the classical music side, the National Symphony, has a 1964-1965 season of 19 concerts, with such guests as Rubinstein, Iturbi, Stern, and the Casadesuses; guest conductors Mitchell, Solti, and Copland; and the London and Boston symphonies as guest groups. A separately sponsored series of concerts by symphony orchestras from Warsaw, The Hague, Cleveland, and Japan, starring Van Cliburn, Victoria De Los Angeles, and Birgit Nilsson, and the Ballet de Madrid constitutes a fare that is hard to top.
For those who themselves want to participate, there are little-theater groups at several of the universities and in some communities. Likewise, there are community and student musical groups. The level of professionalism varies, but many of the shortcom- mgs are overcome by enthusiasm.
Sports—both spectator and participant— are available in variety around Washington. Gn the scholastic side, the major universities held a full school year’s schedule. The Naval Academy with its midshipmen is only an hour’s drive from Washington. In professional sports, the Washington Redskins represent ^he capital city in football, and the Senators In American League baseball. These two Rams are not usually among their league eaders, but the leaders do come to Washington to play them.
For active sports, there are opportunities galore: the Potomac and Chesapeake provide ^cellent boating; the beaches of New Jersey, "Maryland, and Virginia are but a few hours rive; there are numerous swimming pools around Washington at military officers’ clubs and country clubs; there are golf courses at Andrews Air Force Base, Fort Bel voir, the Army-Navy Country Club, and private clubs; aJto Little League baseball teams abound for .e children in the suburbs. Several local mnks have long seasons of ice skating. Stream, riVcr, bay, and ocean fishing is excellent.
Hunting starts almost at the edge of the suburbs.
When viewing a new assignment, schooling, shopping, and medical facilities are particularly important. The public schools in the Washington area enjoy deservedly excellent reputations. Standards of teaching are high, and placement of graduates in good colleges stands well above average. Schools in the area are accustomed to educating the children of the military, and adapting children into them is accomplished with a minimum of upheaval. There is a good selection of private schools, both for children who need special instruction, and for those seeking prestige institutions. The innumerable Washington government activities and museums are also an attractive feature for the children—and the rest of the family as well.
Most Navy wives in Washington take advantage of one of the commissaries which ring the city for their food shopping. The commissaries, as well as the Army, Navy, and Air Force exchanges, are frequently crowded, but fortunately for the pocketbook they are available.
For medical care, all three of the services maintain hospitals in the Washington area. The hospital at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda handles Navy personnel and most of their dependents. However, dependents are encouraged to use the dispensary, of whatever service, closest to their residence.
Should the Navy wife desire to augment the family coffers, teachers for the public school systems in the area are in heavy demand. Some wives take advantage of their professional qualifications for employment in widely diverse fields such as law, home economics, finance, and other areas. The federal government and businesses have many vacancies which the Navy distaff side can fill.
Washington duty is not all peaches and cream. There are long hours, traffic jams, steaming summers and drizzling winters, demanding seniors and frustrating problems. In the balance, however, both the professional and personal advantages in the Washington area far outweigh the disadvantages. Every naval officer should carefully weigh the pros and the cons before he tries to head off his first tour of duty in Washington, D. G.
By Lieutenant Commander James Stewart,
Royal Navy (Retired)
GHANA’S NAVY
Ghana was the first of the former colonial African states to win independence, becoming an independent nation at midnight on 6 March 1957. Having blazed the trail to independence, Ghana has continued to lead the way in tackling all the tasks that face a new nation. The country has set a particularly fast pace in the build-up of a navy of its own, as was shown in November 1964, when an order was placed for a 2,300-ton frigate.
Like all other new African states, Ghana found that it needed a navy as soon as independence was achieved. This need was based on a matter of maintaining territorial integrity, and not a mere matter of prestige. New states require a seagoing armed service to exercise control of their national waters and to prevent such illegal activities as smuggling, poaching, and the infiltration of agitators. Before independence, these maritime duties could be carried out by civilian agencies under the protection of the navy of the colonial power, but once that protection was withdrawn, the new nation needed a proper seagoing armed service if it was to carry out these activities effectively.
After providing for this requirement, Ghana needed additional naval forces to maintain its position as a leading African power, and to pursue the mission of winning independence for those Africans still under colonial rule.
Ghana inherited the nucleus of an army from Great Britain, but it had to build a navy from scratch. This is a situation that has since faced most of the new African countries, but Ghana, as the first of them, had to find its own solution. The nations which followed have been able to learn from Ghana’s example.
The new nation would have been hard pressed to do this unaided, so it turned to Britain and the Royal Navy for assistance.
The first requirement was for help in preparing a plan to provide for a steady build-up in men and ships and for the establishment of a naval base at Sekondi, near the port of Takoradi.
To implement the plan, Ghana needed further assistance and continues to require help from Britain, particularly with the training of Ghanaian personnel and with the loan of British personnel to fill key posts until the Ghanaians are sufficiently experienced to take over. The Ghanaian army was able to provide a Sandhurst-trained senior army officer who transferred to the navy in 1961 as its Chief of Naval Staff with the rank of commodore. Most of the navy’s other senior officers, including all the commanding officers of ships, are British officers on loan. They have served in Ghana under various arrangements, but since 1962 have come under a Combined Service Training Team provided by Britain.
Most of the Ghanaians who eventually will take senior positions are still learning their profession in the United Kingdom. Ghanaian cadets, midshipmen, and acting sub-lieuten-
ants are under training at the Britannia Royal Naval College, and at the Royal Navy’s Engineering College and Electrical School. Others are building up practical experience in operational ships of the Royal Navy. In addition, enlisted men are being trained for senior technical rates. The most senior of the officers are now qualified, and they have begun to
return to Ghana to serve in their own ships.
In these circumstances, the loan of British active service personnel has been of vital importance to Ghana. It has enabled the country to go ahead with the acquisition of naval vessels without waiting until Ghanaian personnel are qualified to command them. This means that the history of the build-up of
Ghana’s Navy is first the history of its acquisitions of ships and craft
Ghana’s Navy acquired its first vessels in 1959, and, in choosing them, Ghana was willing to try novel designs, but taking care to ensure that every ship acquired would be suitable for operation and maintenance by relatively inexperienced personnel. Ghana has preferred simple but reliable weapon systems, in preference to highly sophisticated equipments needing very highly qualified technicians to maintain them, and has concentrated on diesel machinery to simplify the training of engine room personnel.
The nation’s first acquisitions were two 120- ton British inshore minesweepers. These were turned over from the Royal Navy in November 1959, and renamed Afadgato and Togaga. Manned by crews of 15, and with a 40-mm. and a 20-mm. gun in addition to their minesweeping gear, they are well equipped for patrol duties in Ghana’s national waters.
Two seaward defense boats—of the same displacement—were ordered directly from a British shipyard in 1961 and delivered the following year. Named Elmina and Komenda, they are armed with a 40-mm. gun and depth charge throwers. An example of the stress Ghana lays on simple armaments is the fact that the standard British version of these craft carries a more sophisticated antisubmarine weapon.
All these craft need the support of a base or depot ship. The next acquisition was a 600- ton British yacht which had already seen naval service in World War II. Renamed Achimota, she is employed as a headquarters and training yacht, and can carry 30 trainees in addition to her crew of 35.
Ghana was then ready to acquire ships which were less dependent on base support and so could range further afield. In 1964, Britain provided Ghana, on loan, with a coastal minesweeper which was renamed Ejura. This type of 360-ton ship has proved very versatile in the Royal Navy which has employed it in a wide variety of duties, including operational service in Malaysian waters. Manned by a crew of approximately 30, the Ejura carries a single 40-mm. gun and a twin 20-mm. gun, has a top speed of 15 knots, and good endurance. Britain is expected to provide Ghana with a second ship of
this type on a loan basis sometime in 1965.
Before Ghana took over the Ejura, the nation had already progressed to the next stage of naval expansion by placing orders for two ships of considerably greater power and performance. Chosen was a new and interesting type: a corvette of a novel design developed by Vosper, the well-known British builders of patrol craft, in co-operation with Vickers- Armstrongs, a famous name among warship builders.
Vosper’s basic idea was that existing designs of escort vessels, frigates, and destroyer escorts had become too large and too expensive for the smaller navies. Such navies could not afford to purchase sufficient numbers of these increasingly costly and complex ships to meet their operational needs, and found great difficulty in manning them and keeping their complex equipment operational.
This process of increasing size and complexity is something that has happened repeatedly in naval history. Whenever any type of ship has grown in this way, a time has always come when the warship designer has had to make a clean break, starting again with an entirely new design of small, simple ships. Vosper and Vickers-Armstrongs felt that this time had come in the case of escorts.
What they set out to do was to produce a small ship which would be capable of carrying out most of the peace and war functions of present-day escorts, but at a fraction of the capital and maintenance costs of conventional types. They aimed at producing a ship which could carry modern equipment, but which would be planned for ease of operation by a small crew, and so would not need to spend long periods out of service for maintenance and repair.
Working to these requirements, Vosper and Vickers have designed several variants of a 435-ton corvette. These ships are 177 feet long, have a beam of 28^ feet, and draw 13 feet. Their hulls are of welded steel, but internal partition bulkheads and the superstructure are of aluminium. To overcome the normal bad-weather disadvantages of a small ship and enable them to operate in conditions that would otherwise be prohibitive, the corvettes are equipped with Vosper roll damping fins. Vosper claims that this gear gives the ships a major improvement in seakeeping qualities and fighting efficiency.
Other common features of all the design variants include a 440-volt, 60-cycle A.C. electrical power supply; partial protection against atomic, biological, and chemical attack; and unusually good air-conditioned accommodations.
The variations offered relate mainly to the operational equipment, armament, and main machinery. The Ghanaian ships have a Decca air-and-surface warning radar, British type 147 and 164 sonars, and modern navigational aids. The operations center associated with this equipment is roomy and well- equipped with a tactical and a navigation radar display, an automatic surface-antisubmarine plot, and an air operations plot. All communications can be remotely controlled from the center.
Each corvette’s armament consists of a hand-operated 4-inch gun, a single 40-mm. gun, and a three-barrelled Squid antisubmarine mortar. Here again, Ghana has been careful to choose straightforward equipment. The total armament load that the ships can carry is about 45 tons. (Another variant of the design has a more sophisticated armament of an automatic, radar-controlled 4-inch gun; a Seacat close-range, surface-to-air guided missile system; and a Terne antisubmarine rocket launcher.)
Ghana’s corvettes are powered by two hlaybach marine diesels which develop a maximum continuous rating of 2,000 b.h.p. to drive twin screws. They give the corvettes a maximum speed of 20 knots, a maximum continuous speed of 18 knots, and a range of more than 3,000 nautical miles.
The first corvette, the Kromantse, was built hy Vosper at Portsmouth, being launched on ^ September 1963. She was commissioned on 15 September 1964. Her complement is five officers and 46 enlisted men. The Kromantse’s captain, and executive and engineer officers are British, and so are both of her chief petty officers.
The second ship, the Keta, was built by dickers. She was launched on 18 January 1^65, and commissioned shortly thereafter. Ghana hopes eventually to acquire two more °f these corvettes.
The ordering of the 2,300-ton frigate, the next state of Ghana’s naval expansion, was
RAYTHEON'S PFR-193 delivers high-contrast 3-D recordings
Raytheon’s Precision Fathometer® Recorder, the PFR-193, is a “new generation” oceanographic survey recorder that meets rugged military environmental specs. It provides unequaled high-contrast recordings on dry electrosensitive paper under extremely adverse conditions, and is compatible with any echo sounding equipment in use today.
The all solid-state PFR-193 can record with an accuracy of 0.05% on its 100, 400, and 4,000 fathom scales. Additional features include: distinct incremental gating to 4,800 fathoms; solid-state variable keying; extensive signal processing with contrast and threshold controls; and plug-in modular-type construction.
The PFR-193 is readily adaptable for use in target detection and classification systems, weather mapping, facsimile and spectrum analysis. For data sheet and details, write: Mgr., Electrographic Systems, Raytheon Co., Box 360, Newport, Rhode Island.
^RAYTHEON^
See Recorder at Ocean Science and Engineering Exposition, June 13-17, Booth 190, Washington Hilton Hotel, Wash., D.C.
announced less than two months after Kromantse was commissioned. The new ship is to be built at Glasgow by Yarrows, and will have the same hull and diesel main machinery as the British Leopard-class antiaircraft frigates. Ghana intends to use this ship in the escort, patrol, and training roles, and also as a despatch vessel. For the last role she will have special accommodations for high-ranking visitors. Her armament, which is considerably less sophisticated than the Leopard-class ships, will consist of a twin 4-inch gun mount, four single 40-mm. guns, and a Squid ASW mortar. Her top speed will be 25 knots.
Looking further to the future, Ghana hopes to be able to acquire a second frigate and a depot ship for the corvette force. Ghana will soon possess a navy which will be a considerable force in African affairs, and which will enable the nation to give effective protection to a merchant marine that is being expanded with the same vigor and drive as its navy. It will not be long before young Ghanaian naval officers begin to take command of their country’s ships, and they will have an exciting prospect ahead of them.
By Willis L. Tressler,
Director, Education and Training Office,
Naval Oceanographic Office
OCEANOGRAPHIC-HYDROGRAPHIC
TRAINING
A tremendous impetus has been given to the U. S. oceanographic program in recent years, with attention being sharply focused upon the vital needs for training personnel in oceanography and hydrography. With the stepped up oceanographic program, the Naval Oceanographic Office finds that there is, and will continue to be, an increasing demand for trained oceanographers, especially for those with field experience. Recently, the Naval Academy recognized the need for training in oceanography for future naval officers and now requires midshipmen to take courses in the marine sciences. Many new ships are being built for oceanographic work, but sufficient qualified personnel to carry out scientific work with them are not now available. There is even now insufficient manpower to analyze the enormous amount of raw data being sent back from the field. As the accelerated oceanographic program attains momentum, the accumulation of raw data will increase tremendously in the coming years.
The Naval Oceanographic Office is meeting this challenge by intensive training classes in oceanography and hydrography. In order to meet the demands for manpower increases, the Naval Oceanographic Office has had in all but a few exceptional cases to hire new employees with no training or experience in oceanography. These include personnel with B.A. or M.A. degrees in biology, geology, meteorology, chemistry, and physics.
In the past, before a formal training effort was commenced, employees would gradually acquire knowledge of a small portion of oceanography through reading and as they progressed with their work. Attempts also were made to see that everyone obtained some field experience. It is evident that such a method of training could not obtain the desired results, and it is amazing that despite this inadequate approach some very capable oceanographers were developed.
It is not surprising that in a few instances the results obtained in some surveys were of substandard accuracy. Inexperience among personnel reducing and analyzing the data also resulted in many errors.
Training at the Naval Oceanographic (formerly Hydrographic) Office was long carried out sporadically by meeting the requirements of naval officers and by having special classes on contract in subject areas such as “effective communication.” Finally, in 1955, a regular course in basic oceanography was given by the Division of Oceanography. This was an orientation course for the benefit of newly employed biologists, geologists, and other scientists. The following year, a Civil Service agreement was reached whereby a newcomer without oceanographic knowledge or experience could greatly accelerate his promotion from GS-5 to a GS-7 rating by taking on-the- job training. This arrangement involved a certain amount of formal classroom instruction.
In 1956, the Hydrographer of the Navy appointed a three-man task group to organize a Training Unit. This became the Training Branch in 1957 and was located in the Office of Civilian Personnel. This Branch functioned for several years until, in 1962, the Oceanographer of the Navy and Commander of the Naval Oceanographic Office made it a separate unit responsible to him and named it the Education and Training Office.
Today, the Education and Training Office conducts oceanographic and hydrographic training of a broad variety and at various levels of complexity. It employs a permanent staff of 11 professionals, plus three secretaries. In general, all course work is at the college graduate level. Field experience forms an nnportant part of the courses, and the students learn mainly by participation. This is very "'ell illustrated in chart construction where students prepare their own individual charts In finished form.
The classes offered range from tutorial type °f instruction given to individuals or very small groups, in which instruction in various subjects is tailored to the special needs of the student, to a year’s course in basic oceanographic and hydrographic engineering. Students participating in classroom work include Naval Oceanographic Office employees, Chilians from other agencies, Naval Reserve officers, active-duty naval and Marine Corps pfficers, and foreign naval officers and civil- >ans. Certain classes, such as the one in ice reconnaissance, are open to enlisted personnel. Occasionally, enlisted men are allowed to take other courses, but generally, students are officers or civilians of equivalent rank.
Many employees of the Naval Oceanographic Office recognize their lack of formal education in certain fields directly connected Wlth their work. This may be in mathematics, statistics, physics, or even in elementary oceanography. For this reason, after- h°ur, college-accredited courses are offered in connection with local universities. A limited dumber of students also are sent away to graduate schools for a year of full-time study.
Many nations friendly to the United States uave no oceanographic-hydrographic programs or at best they have grossly inadequate acilities and untrained personnel. At the same time, the Naval Oceanographic Office realizes that, once under way, extensive oceanographic and hydrographic programs in those nations will return a wealth of bathymetric information as well as other chemical and physical data concerning areas of the seas about which little is known. Accordingly, the Naval Oceanographic Office, through its Education and Training Office, has for the past several years conducted training classes in basic and advanced oceanography and hydrography for naval officers and civilian hydrographers of a large number of foreign governments. In this way, both the United States and the various foreign nations involved are benefited. While in the United States, the foreign personnel work directly with experts who are employing the latest instrumentation and techniques. At the same time the visitors have been absorbing American atmosphere and customs. Foreign officers return to their countries with considerably changed viewpoints after spending a year or often longer in the United States. Some of these students return for more advanced training. This two-way exchange should aid in maintaining the friendly relationships already existing between this country and the other nations involved in the Military Assistance Program. To date, 29 nations have sent representatives to the Naval Oceanographic Office for training: Argentina, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Chile, Republic of China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela, and South Vietnam.
As now constituted, the Education and Training Office has three branches the Technical Branch, the Administrative Branch and the Training Aids Branch. The Technical Branch deals with instruction in all technical classes such as oceanography, hydrography, and photogrammetry. The Administrative Branch concerns itself with the organization and administration of courses within the Naval Oceanographic Office. The Training Aids Branch assists the other branches in such matters as supplying and distributing the various types of aids—visual, audio, mechanical, printed, etc. Because of the small numbers of staff instructors, until very recently the Training Office relied heavily upon the Marine Sciences Department for specialists to handle various phases of the basic oceanographic-hydrographic course. Now, however, a staff of sufficient strength has been built up to make training almost self-sufficient. Guest speakers are brought in periodically to lecture on specialized subjects.
The subjects covered in the 12-month basic course in oceanography and hydrography, include the following: Physical properties of sea water; biological oceanography; tides and currents; ocean surface waves; underwater sound; geological oceanography; A- sheet calculation; photogrammetry; hydrography and bathymetry; technical English and math review; control surveys (leveling, baselines, triangulation, primary and secondary control, geodetic calculations); electronic surveying; drafting materials and techniques; geodesy for mapping agencies; nautical chart construction; map reproduction; and astronomic observations.
Considerable time is spent in the oceanographic laboratory, and a tour is made of the Oceanographic Data Center and the Instrumentation Center. Field experience is gained through cruises on a sound boat exclusively assigned for training purposes at the Naval Air Station, Patuxent River. Employees at the GS-5 level are given a formal course in basic oceanography which includes all the phases of the oceanographic portion of the basic course given to foreign naval officers and others. The GS-7 employees are given a more advanced version of this course. In the course in applied oceanography, principles are reviewed, but emphasis is placed on practical exercises in all phases of oceanography. Certain added features include statistics, the electronic bathythermograph, the sea surface temperature recorder, antisubmarine warfare environmental prediction system techniques, seismic data exercises, geomagnetics, the bubbler tide gauge, and underwater photography. Students, including all foreign officer students, are taken on tours of various agencies in the Washington area. These include the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Geological Survey, and the Army Map Service.
The Administrative Branch offers courses in such subjects as effective communication, conference leadership, English usage, reading improvement, message writing, and Russian. The two-month course in management supervision given to supervisors includes a great many subjects. These are taught by specialists from the Naval Oceanographic Office. The Administrative Branch also administers the after-hours technical courses, part-time and full-time college work, and various classes given at other agencies to which Naval Oceanographic Office employees are sent individually or in groups. After-hours courses now given include: marine meteorology, dynamic oceanography, cartography, photogrammetry, map projections, theory of errors and adjustments, land capabilities, calculus, mathematics for engineers and oceanographers, and basic oceanography. These courses are given at the Education and Training Office. Upon completing the course with a grade of “C” or better, the student is reimbursed for one-half of the cost of tuition. Students are also reimbursed one-half for classes in physics, mathematics and other courses given at one of the local universities. Upon completion of one year’s employment, an employee is eligible for one full year’s study at a graduate school of a university. During this time his salary is paid, and he receives reimbursement for all tuition, laboratory fees, and books.
This extensive training program at the Naval Oceanographic Office, and the related after-hours and college courses, is paying rich dividends in furthering the development of future oceanographers and furthering the acceleration of oceanographic programs of the United States and other friendly nations.
★
There is nothing constant except change.
Secretary of the Navy John B. Connally, 1961
Notebook
U. S. Navy
s U. S. Navy Develops Navigation System (From Orr Kelly in Washington Star, 20 February 1965): Washington—The Navy has developed a revolutionary new electronic navigational system that will provide pinpoint accuracy for ships and planes throughout the world by 1968.
The new system, called Omega, will cover the entire world with only seven transmitting stations.
Existence of the new system was revealed with the recent visit here of the USNS Mizar, an oceanographic research ship that took part in a successful test of Omega during a two- week voyage in January.
Omega has been used by ships to determine their position with an accuracy of one mile at ranges up to 7,000 miles from the transmitting station, according to Dr. Allen Coven, head of the Naval Research Laboratory here, which developed the new system in cooperation with the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California.
The Mizar, a Military Sea Transportation Service ship skippered by Captain Raymond E. Salman, has taken part in several exciting new developments in oceanographic research since it was given its new assignment a little less than a year ago.
C. L. Buchanan, head of the sonar systems branch at the Naval Research Laboratory here, described the way scientists aboard the Mizar were able last summer to photograph the wreckage of the submarine Thresher.
By 1968, seven Omega transmitting stations will be in operation and many Navy and civilian ships and planes will be equipped to make use of it wherever they sail or fly throughout the world.
Gradually, Omega is expected to replace the Loran system developed during World War II. Both systems use shore-based transmitting stations which enable ships and planes at sea to pinpoint their precise location by comparing the signals from two widely- spaced transmitters.
But Loran covers only certain heavily traveled parts of the world and its accuracy begins to fall off when a ship or plane is more than 400 miles from a transmitter.
In theory, Omega could cover the entire world with six stations. Four have already been built—in New York State, Panama, Hawaii and Wales—and three more are to be built in the near future. One will be in the Arctic, to avoid distortion of signals traveling over the vast areas of ice and snow, and two others will be built in other parts of the world.
Later, as traffic develops, an eighth station will be added in the Antarctic.
While the system is not yet operational, “it has been proven; it is beyond the experimental stage,” Coven said.
s Navy Pushes Power Study (Baltimore Sun, 21 February 1965): A compact atomic power plant is being proposed for deepdiving submarine rescue and research vehicles, official reports indicate.
Almost inexhaustible nuclear power for such vehicles could greatly aid search operations such as were conducted for the lost submarine Thresher.
Present deep submergence craft, like the Trieste used in the Thresher search and in oceanographic exploration, are sharply limited in mobility and dive endurance by the use of ordinary storage batteries as the power source.
A study today of two recently published documents revealed the proposed project for development of an almost miniature reactor that could be fitted to a small, deep-submergence vehicle.
Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense, in his annual military review before the House Armed Services Committee, devoted a portion to discussion of the Navy’s research and development program. He said that one part of the program concerns work on ship hull structures including “characteristics of deep-diving submarines, as well as advanced propulsion systems, including nuclear.”
This appeared to relate to a terse reference
in the annual report of the Atomic Energy Commission. That said the joint AEC-Navy nuclear reactor program is directed at development of a wide range of propulsion plants ranging from “small submarines” to large aircraft carriers.
Presumably the project is for development of a compact reactor to be used in small research and rescue diving vehicles.
It is probable that the first phase of the Project would be of comparatively low cost, involving an analysis of the feasibility of building a reactor compressed enough to fit inside a small submarine or to be suspended in a pressure-proof “pod” beneath the hull.
0 Polaris Shots (Missiles and Rockets, 22 February 1965): The crew of the Navy’s USS John C. Calhoun, a new ship especially designed for firing the Polaris A-3, scored the 17th consecutive success for the A-3 in a shot that had the additional distinction of being the 250th Polaris launch.
0 Phoenix Flight Tests Set (Missiles and Rockets, 15 March 1965): First flight for the Navy’s Phoenix guided missile is scheduled for March, 1966, Robert W. Morse, the Navy’s civilian R&D chief has told the House Armed Services Committee.
First test launch is planned with an A-3A Skywarrior as the airborne platform. An increased FY 1966 budget request totaling $71.2 million has been coupled with reprograming of FY 1965 funds to overcome unforeseen early development difficulties and the Program is now proceeding smoothly.
Stretchouts in delivery dates for early prototypes of the F-111B airplane, for which the Fhoenix is being designed, were necessary to thatch the Phoenix lag, Navy spokesmen said. Cut this adjustment is not expected to delay operational deployment of the F-111B, comPlete with its missile system. The first experimental Phoenix missile and its control system have been assembled and Hughes began test- lng from a ground facility this month.
0 End of the Liberty Ships (The New York Times, 28 February 1965): The Liberty ship is slipping into history.
Most of the 2,600 built as work-horses for World War II are gone, some to scrap and others to the Government’s reserve fleet of old merchant ships. About 500 were sold after the war to commercial operators.
Recently, the Navy took two Liberty ships out of the fleet to haul obsolete explosives far out to sea where they were scuttled.
The ignominous role of the 10,800-tonners on their last assignment saved the Government nearly $1 million. Instead of paying about $60 a ton to commercial concerns that specialize in disposing of outdated but explosive ammunition, the steamships Village and Shafroth were used for that purpose.
According to a recent issue of Sealift Magazine, published by the Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service, the Village was loaded with 7,535 tons of explosives which, at $60 a ton, would have cost $456,000 if a private company had towed the cargo out in barges and dumped it. Instead, a Navy ship did the towing.
The Shafroth was loaded with 9,328 tons of old ammunition and with defective Polaris missile motors, a load that would have cost more than $400,000. She, too, was towed far
ARMSTRONG
WRENCHES
“Few if any books dealing with the naval role of World War II succeed to the extent that this book does in gripping the attention of the reader.”
—U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
out by a Navy ship, and with her seacocks opened, she went to the bottom with her cargo of old ammunition.
The Navy called the operation “Cut Holes and Sink ’em,” or Project C-H-A-S-E. The first of the ships so used was the Liberty ship Wm. C. Ralston, in 1958, when she went down in the Pacific Ocean with Lewisite and Mustard gases.
Rear Adm. Frank L. Johnson, Atlantic area commander of the transportation service, said the “degree of fiscal success of the C-H-A-S-E method of ammunition disposal is being evaluated” by other area commands, and probably will be repeated.
Maritime General
0 Merchant Fleet in Cuba Expands (Paul Hofmann in The New York Times, 13 March 1965): Cuba has one of the fastest-growing merchant navies in the world and expects to have more tonnage in two years than most other Latin-American nations, it was stated yesterday.
Implicit in the statement was that the regime of Premier Fidel Castro would survive United States’ efforts to isolate Cuba.
According to data disclosed in Havana, Cuba’s gross tonnage of ocean-going merchant vessels increased from 52,135 in 1959 when Castro came to power to 113,942 at Present.
New units commissioned in shipyards of Communist and Western countries are scheduled to bring the figure to 211,268 tons by
1966.
Premier Castro’s high seas merchant fleet now consists of 26 vessels displacing 2,115 to 12,284 tons. The latter figure is that of the flagship of the Cuban merchant marine, the Uvero, built in France in 1960.
Four other vessels of more than 10,000 tons were built in 1961-1963 in East German and Polish shipyards. Thirteen more cargo ships are scheduled to be put into service during the next two years, a publication authorized by the State Fleet said yesterday.
The new vessels were said to include 10 Urge ships that “are being built for socialist Cuba in friendly countries” for navigation in |Ce bound seas and equipped with refrigerat- lng compartments and holds for liquid and solid cargo.
The seaports most frequented by ships under the Cuban flag were named as Montreal and St. John’s, Canada; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Antwerp, Belgium; London, England; Barcelona, Spain; Algiers, Algeria; and Szczecin, Poland.
On one given day recently “Cuban ships were in almost all of the most important seaports in Spain—Alicante, Gijon, Cadiz, Palmas de Majorca and Tenerife,” the publication said.
Spain not only is an important trade partner for Cuba today but is also building fishing vessels and other ships for the Castro regime.
The 19 small units that made up the Cuban merchant marine before Premier Castro came to power called mainly at such United States ports as New Orleans, Tampa, Pensacola, Philadelphia and New York.
Yesterday’s publication announced that the drydock in Havana harbor would be enlarged from its present 10,000-ton capacity so that it could repair and overhaul the biggest units of the future Cuban merchant fleet. Heavy machinery for ship repair was stated to have been imported recently from Poland.
Red Trawler for Ghana (New York Herald Tribune, 7 February 1965): The 10th Russian-built fishing trawler for Ghana has been launched at the Ukrainian Leninskaya Kuznitza shipyard at Kiev.
The 900-ton vessel was sponsored by a Ghanian student, Sabina Botsui, who sent the trawler down the ways after smashing the traditional bottle of champagne on its prow.
The trawlers, according to the Soviet news agency Tass, have a cruising speed of 12 knots,
. Brave Ship, Brave Men..
by ARNOLD S. LOTT, Lt. Commander U.S.N. (ret.) introduction by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
The incredible, true story of the U.S.S. Aaron Ward, to id with a deep insight of the sea and its fighting men...
”... One of the best of all military books . . . unique flashback technique. Only a sailor could have produced this book.”
—Annapolis Evening Capital
at bookstores $4 Bobbs-Merrill • • *
are partially automated with automatic steering, and feature special navigational equipment and devices to aid in the underwater search for fish.
Each trawler has a fish storage capacity of 12 tons. The catch can also be kept indefinitely by being stored at a temperature that can drop dotyn to 18 degrees below zero C, in an hour.
Alexander Baibakov, chief engineer and naval architect at the Leninskaya complex, said that dockside facilities for the maintenance and repair of the vessels are nearing completion at the Ghanian port of Tema.
These dockside facilities, he added, will be staffed by a crew of Leninskaya technicians, who now are busily laying out the communications system of the workshops and selecting the machine tools they will need to keep the trawlers in good repair.
Three more fishing vessels are scheduled to be launched from the Ukrainian yard soon, he said.
0 Japanese Shipyards (Anthony Harrigan in Charleston News and Courier, 8 December 1964): “We expect to be building nuclear- powered merchant ships in four years time.”
This statement by Tsuneo Nakamura, managing director of the Sasebo Heavy Industries Company (known as SSK), is a revealing measure of Japanese capabilities and ambitions in shipbuilding. It is no empty boast. Mr. Nakamura’s company built the 132,334-ton tanker Nissho Maru, which flies the house flag of the Idemitsu Kosan Co.
The confidence with which the Japanese yiew the nuclear era at sea also was shown m a comment by Naomasa Ohki, executive director of SSK, who said nuclear power “is Just another heat source for us.”
Talking with these Japanese shipbuilders m their executive offices and touring the former naval shipyard the company occupies, A was possible to gauge the pace and method °f shipbuilding in Japan.
I asked Mr. Nakamura what he regarded as lhe limit in ship size in the future. His reply was:
“I believe ships of between 160,000 and
170,0 tons will be built. But the determining factor is the amount of water a vessel draws. Some points that ships must pass in the
Strait of Malacca (the essential passageway from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific) have only 20 meters of water. Then there is the factor of the depth of the Suez Canal. It would not be commercially feasible to send ships around the Cape of Good Hope.”
Mr. Ohki remarked that “the U. S. is our best customer.” Under construction in the SSK yard at this time, for example, is a freighter being built for the Everett Line in the United States.
“This is the first of five similar ships we are building for the line,” I was told. One of the biggest vessels built for an American owner was the Oriental Giant, a 70,365-ton tanker constructed for Tanker Services Inc.
While much new construction is for U. S. or Japanese companies, SSK also has constructed vessels for Chinese firms based at Hong Kong, the oil-rich Arabian sheikdom of Kuwait, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries. At present, SSK is building four ships— two tankers and a subchaser for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, and one freighter.
The company needs to have two ships
I $15,000
GROUP LIFE INSURANCE
1 at Very Low Cost * |
[a available to
OFFICERS
j ON ACTIVE DUTY
i World-Wide Coverage a
1 Flying Officers Welcome • No War Clause |
Underwritten by g
pi John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company and a a State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America a
Our 19th Year of Service and Proved }|] Dependable Protection a
Over 63,000 Members g
1 * currently $3.50 NET per month, after g
g refunds ($3.50 additional per month for
@ active flying officers), regardless of age a
S For complete information, without obligation, S § write Dept. -N §j
ARMED FORCES
I RELIEF AND BENEFIT ASSOCIATION 1
jf 1710 H Street, N. W., Washington, 0. C. 20000 1
1 Ask Other Officers About This Association 1
under construction at all times in order to operate with a profit. Its current routine involves construction of two ships in three months. In the case of a 100,000-ton tanker, delivery can be accomplished in a year.
High speed construction is one of the principal advantages enjoyed by Japanese shipyards, Mr. Nakamura said. The shipyard is currently operating on only a single shift, with three days of overtime work. Even so, it is able to complete two ships every three months. The SSK believes that it can build a vessel in half the time needed by a British yard. This may have been a major factor in the recent order by the British Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Go. (P. & O. Line) of two ships from Japanese builders.
Asked to explain the advantage Japanese shipbuilders have over U. S. yards, Mr. Ohki said that American shipyards “are designed to build warships.” He indicated that the standards of construction are geared to wartime needs, and that the U. S. shipbuilders can’t easily cut costs.
Another factor is the labor union situation. Japanese management has only one labor union with which to deal. In Japanese industry, unionization is not along craft lines. This means that a shipyard worker may know and utilize several shipbuilding skills, whereas in the United States a member of one union would not be allowed to do the work of a man in another union. Add this to the assembly line methods of production in yards such as the SSK, and the competitive advantages of the Japanese can be easily discerned even if one ignores the obvious factor of lower wage scales.
It would be a mistake for Americans to put too much emphasis on the wage factor in analyzing Japanese competition. At SSK, for instance, ship construction is not by the old- style “from the keel up” manner of building that is still utilized in some American yards. Instead, SSK utilizes what it calls “block construction.” This means that sizable sections of the ship’s structure are constructed in shops or in the open and then lowered into the construction dock and welded to the sections or “blocks” already in place.
For the time being, virtually all Japanese ship construction involves merchant vessels for home use or foreign buyers. The Soviet
Union is among the big buyers, purchasing fishing vessels and factory ships (in which SSK specializes). But the capability exists for building the most modern warships.
The giant Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard at Nagasaki is currently completing Japan’s first guided missile destroyer. The size of the Mitsubishi operation may be gauged from the fact that it has orders for
838,0 tons of ocean shipping.
With companies such as SSK and Mitsubishi, Japan is prepared to be a leader in the new age of oceanic power that lies ahead. The progress at a company such as SSK is directly related to the needs of an island people. With approximately 100 million people in her home islands, and an industry heavily oriented toward foreign trade, an enormously strong merchant marine and shipbuilding industry is not a luxury but the nation’s chief necessity.
Japan’s need to look to the oceans, to sell overseas, and to enjoy secure lines of sea communication is the central fact of the country’s strategy and history.
Japan, one can be sure, will stick with the country or countries that help rather than hinder her effort to live and prosper in the oceanic environment that is essential to her existence.
0 Japanese A-Ship Status (The Journal of Commerce, 4 March 1965): The Japan Nuclear Ship Development Agency, balked in its attempts to secure bids for Japanese shipbuilders for the construction of the nation’s first atom vessel, is seeking a formula through which the interest of the yards in the project might again be stimulated.
The shipyards who might participate in the program have all backed down on the grounds that the financial burden will be too heavy.
The ship is still in the design stages and no date has been set for the keel laying.
According to seven shipbuilders, the reasons for their refusals are as follows:
(1) Under the present contract formula, a package order for the construction of the projected 6,900 gross-ton nuclear-powered vessel will be placed with one builder. Therefore, it is presumed that the builder will have the responsibility of manufacturing the reactor, in addition to constructing the hull.
Furthermore, if one builder wins the order, the reactor will have to be manufactured by makers belonging to its particular group. However, this would be quite difficult.
(2) The minimum price of $10,000,000 set by the agency is too small.
(3) Since the slipways are being utilized to full capacity presently, such construction is not as attractive as it was two years ago.
(4) It is impossible to compile an estimate within a month.
The shipbuilders feel strongly that the construction order should be divided between the hull and the reactor. Furthermore, they continue, the price ceiling should be raised substantially.
However, the nuclear agency argues that it is a common sense in shipbuilding that the shipbuilder takes full responsibility for the construction of a particular vessel. In addition, it said, delays in the construction of an U. S. atomic-powered-cargo liner supposedly are due to this sort of separation.
The atomic-powered vessel is slated for completion by the end of 1968. The hull and nuclear reactor were designed by the seven shipbuilders and the “atomic group” including Mitsubishi Atomic Power Industries Inc., respectively.
The main object of this construction is to secure sufficient technology in atomic ship construction for the future. The first ship will undertake oceanographic survey work while training the crews.
Out of the $10,000,000 allotted for the construction, 75 per cent is to be financed by the government. The shipbuilders now are asking the agency to persuade the government to supply more funds.
Up to now, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., which has a technical tie-up with Westinghouse Electric Corp. of the U. S., which is experienced in atomic ship construction, was considered the most probable winner of the bid. However, under the current contract formula, even Mitsubishi is hesitating to take part in the tender.
AMERICAN CHAIN & CABLE COMPANY
ABOVE or'iH WN...ALUFLEX A
f fights corrosion
like no other wire rope!
• Al-u-flex combines the Strength of Steel with the Corrosion Resistance of Aluminum
• Each and every wire is aluminum coated to provide corrosion resistance throughout
• Resistant to chemically corrosive elements — atmospheric and under water
• Has the same strength, weight and flexibility as uncoated Improved Plow Steel rope
• Al-u-flex is superior as an operating or stationary line on most marine applications
• Available now in popular sizes and constructions
If you have a wire rope corrosion problem, let our Engineering Department show you the increased service advantages of Al-u- flex Aluminized Wire Rope. Address: American Cable Division, American Chain & Cable Company, 271 S. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
s Verrazano Will Dim Lights (New York Herald Tribune, 27 February 1965): The decorative lights on the cables of the Verrazano- Narrows Bridge will be extinguished on hazy
or foggy nights to reduce glare that has proved hazardous for ships passing through The Narrows.
Shields also will be fixed to the high-power lights on the Staten Island Plaza of the bridge to eliminate their dazzling effect on the pilots of ships passing out of the harbor.
The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority ordered the corrective measures yesterday at the request of the Army’s Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for eliminating hazards to navigation in the port. Arthur S. Hodgkiss, deputy executive director of the authority, said the corrective measures will be taken immediately.
The lighting of the bridge became a target of complaints from harbor pilots soon after the span was opened on Nov. 21. They say that during a haze or fog the lights make a glare reaching from the roadway to the water’s surface that prevents pilots from seeing whether they are approaching ships on the other side of the bridge.
53 New Speedometer (Raytheon Company Release, 15 January 1965): The precision sailboat speedometer that signalled changes in speed as slight as one one-hundredth of a knot aboard the America’s Cup Defender Constellation last summer will soon be commercially available. Introduced under the name “Raysail,” the speedometer has three scales: 0 to 6 knots, 0 to 12 knots, and an adjustable scale of one knot expanded over the entire dial. This unique expanded one- knot scale can be put into play at any speed up to 12 knots to aid the skipper in detecting tncremental speed changes while racing or tuning up.
Most speedometers indicate speed in one of Several ways: measuring the rotations of a hnned “fish” towed astern of a vessel, measur- lng the surge of water pressure in a Pitot tube Protruding through the hull, counting the Evolutions of the propeller shaft, or counting the revolutions of a delicate miniature fan attached outside the hull.
The new “Raysail” electronic speedometer employs a slender sensor that looks like a 4|-inch brass swizzle stick. This thin wand extends through the hull and reacts to the force of the water moving past it. A subminiature electronic device called a strain transducer measures the force against the wand. An entirely solid state, transistorized circuit that requires only a trickle of current from a 12-volt battery amplifies the electronic signals and converts them into readings on the speed scale.
The Raytheon device is particularly rugged and immune to fouling in seaweed or flotsam. Constellation1 s speedometer saw more than
2,0 miles of trouble-free service during last summer.
Should the external sensor rod be damaged it can be replaced immediately while underway, even while racing. An inexpensive replacement wand can be positioned from inside the boat in seconds.
Readings are shown on a water-tight console with a linear dial. Unlike many conventional speedometers, it has the same spacing and accuracy at the low end of the scale as at the high end. The console can be installed in the open cockpit of a sailboat, as it was in Constellation, so that the helmsman can get continuous and instantaneous readings on the effectiveness of each change in course, set of the sails or trim of the boat.
Foreign
53 Indonesian Navy Strike (Neil Sheehan in The New York Times, 11 March 1965): Surabaya, Indonesia—Several hundred Indonesian Navy officers have refused to report for duty at this naval center in an attempt to force the dismissal of the Navy Commander, Rear Admiral E. Martadinata.
dOFR fiffuf/unent | ★ NYLON STUFFING TUBES (Terminal Type) ★ NEOPRENE AND SILICONE PACKINGS |
27 UPHAM STREET, MELROSE 76, MASS. | ★ MOLDED RECEPTACLES AND PLUGS |
Navy Electrical Equipment | ★ RISER TERMINAL BOARDS |
Supplies Since 1939 | * DEGAUSSING TERMINAL BOARDS |
Their strike, now 12 days old, seriously
hampered naval operations at this port city 420 miles east of Jakarta on the island of Java.
Indonesia’s main naval base and her naval academy are situated here. The major naval air station is at Waru airfield outside the city.
The number of officers involved in the strike has not been disclosed. Informed sources here believe that about 750 younger naval officers are taking part.
Since last week, naval authorities have been warning officers to return to duty and sign a statement of loyalty or face arrest and disciplinary action, including temporary dismissal from service. The deadline for their return to duty, extended twice, was set for midnight March 10.
Several hundred officers remained on strike yesterday.
A large number of those who returned earlier were arrested. Many of those still on strike are reported to be in hiding here and elsewhere on Java. Most are believed to have donned civilian clothes, and their families are refusing to disclose their whereabouts.
Admiral Martadinata has informed naval officers still on duty that some of the ringleaders in the strike have been arrested and may be tried as enemies of the Indonesian revolution.
Events that led to the strike remain somewhat obscure because of official silence. But the following account has emerged in talks with several sources close to the dispute.
According to these sources, the younger officers sent a delegation to Jakarta early in February. The group presented a petition to President Sukarno asking him to dismiss Admiral Martadinata.
It accused him of mismanagement and charged that he had deceived the President on the battle readiness of the fleet. The delegation was reported to have told Mr. Sukarno that a large part of the fleet was tied up in dockyards because of a lack of spare parts and poor maintenance.
The petition was said to have complained of alleged corruption in the higher navy ranks and to have contended that younger officers were not being promoted fast enough because older men were refusing to retire. It also said the present salaries of junior officers were insufficient.
There are about 31,000 men in the Indonesian Navy including 7,500 officers. Thus about 10 per cent of the officer corps has taken part in the strike.
S3 Northrop Is Offering Naval Fighter
(.Flight International, 21 January 1965): An unannounced supersonic naval fighter, for both fleet defence and strike duties, was recently offered by Northrop to the RAN. Designated the N-285B, the aircraft is similar in appearance to the F-5 Freedom Fighter, now being built in hundreds for eight air forces, but incorporates special features for operation from carriers. The N-285B is closely related to Northrop’s proposal to the USN for an advanced supersonic trainer compatible with carrier operations and this project is itself a growth version of the F-5/T-38 Talon family.
No requirement for a naval fighter has been indicated by the Australian Government, whose defence programme announcement emphasized the switch in the Australian Fleet Air Arm to purely ASW duties with news of an order for Grumman Trackers which, with Wessex helicopters, will certainly fill the one RAN carrier, FIMAS Melbourne.
On the same Australian visit during which the N-285B was discussed, Northrop officials discussed the T-38 Talon—the USAF’s standard advanced trainer—with the RAAF. The company hopes the RAAF will establish requirements for a supersonic trainer with similar flight characteristics to the T-38 after placing its intended order for 75 subsonic trainers. An RAAF evaluation mission is expected in the USA and Europe in the spring and arrangements are being made for the team to fly the T-38 in California.
Research and Development
s Floating Laboratory Sails (Baltimore Sun, 16 February 1965): A converted aircraft carrier—described by space scientists as a floating laboratory—sailed last night from Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company loaded with a weird assortment of rockets, radar and electronic gear.
Destined for a three-month scientific expedition off the West Coast of South America, the ship is the first of a new breed.
It is called the USNS Croatan.
Actually a sea-going launch pad for Nike- Apache and Nike-Cajun rockets, which will be used for upper atmosphere experiments, the Croatan was displayed for the first time yesterday to members of the press.
Scientists and officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Proudly led the tour of the 500-foot vessel, which was one of a class of World War II escort aircraft carriers before its conversion.
At least 50 experimental rockets will be launched from the Croatan through areas of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere that cannot be reached by land-based rockets.
“A floating laboratory is what we actually have with this ship,” said Maurice Dubin, who is a scientist working with the geophysics and astronomy program at NASA.
“Using the ship as a floating launching pad, we can get under almost any area we are interested in. We can fire vertical profiles directly through certain ionospheric areas.”
Material gathered in the rocket research expedition will be correlated with findings of other projects, all part of the NASA rocket Program, being conducted during the International Quiet Sun Year (IQSY) 1964-1965.
This period of time is one of minimum solar flare and sunspot activity, and experiments are being conducted by scientists throughout the world.
About ten teams of experimenters will take part in the studies aboard the Croatan.
The research teams are especially interested in “certain anomalies of the equator which are not well understood.”
The so-called “equatorial electrojet,” a system of electrical currents circulating in the ionosphere in the region of the magnetic equator, is one of the phenomena which will be explored.
The Croatan, owned by Military Sea Transportation Service, is under NASA contract.
Outfitting the big vessel took about a year. It is now a complete, self-contained launching and tracking system which can be operated from any fairly large ship, or it can be rolled off, set up and operated anywhere on land, since most of the equipment is installed in trucks which are lashed to the decks.
The one-time carrier, which was credited with sinking six submarines during World War II, has taken on an other-world appearance—especially the landing deck. Packed with radar fans, tracking antennas and rocket launchers, it looks like no other ship afloat.
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.
The Capitol Radio Engineering Institute 3224 Sixteenth St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20010
FOUNDED 192/
ACCREDITED MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL HOME STUDY COUNCIL
While military elec- solid state physics, differential calcu- tronlcs maintenance lus, pulse techniques, probability and requirements are in- statistics, computers and instrumen- creasing 5 to 6 per tation. Or, it his interest is in the cent a year, a military spokesman re- nuclear field, reactor physics, heat and cently pointed out that the Armed thermodynamics, reactor instrumen- Forces are getting only half the skilled tation and health-physics, technicians they need. CREI men now serve the Armed
CREI can help improve the technical Forces wherever advanced technical qualifications of your electronics per- knowledge is required. And, because sonnel by providing them with tech- CREI men study on their own time and nical knowledge beyond the scope of pay their own tuition, the cost to the military courses. The military man Armed Forces is nothing, enrolled in a CREI Program studies Many officers not only encourage
Is there a shortage of qualified electronics men
Progress
JetBoost—A jet enginehas been installed in the tail of an SP-5B Marlin seaplane as an experiment to increase the plane’s take-off, rate of climb, and one- engine-out performance. The Pratt and Whitney J-60 engine is designed to cut 20 seconds and more than 2,400 feet from the plane’s take-off run with a gross plane weight of 80,000 pounds. The air intake for the engine is above the jet tailpipe.
New Tender—The latest Polaris submarine tender to join the Fleet is the USS Simon Lake (AS-33), the first of a new design. Larger than her predecessors, the Simon Lake is 630 feet over-all and has a full-load displacement of 2 1,000 tons. With the Simon Lake the Navy has four Polaris submarine tenders in service and a fifth, the Canopus, under construction.
Tank Killer—The Shillelagh anti-tank missile, now in advanced development, is fired from the gun barrel of a General Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicle. This is the first missile to be fired from a gun that also fires conventional ammunition. A UH-lB helicopter also has been fitted to test- fire the Shillelagh missile.
Back to Guns—The new Belknap-class missile frigates feature a 5-inch/54-caIiber gun aft in lieu of the twin Terrier missile launcher found in the previous DLG designs. The USS Belknap (DLG-26) also has a helicopter platform and hangar aft and two single 3-inch guns amidships. A twin, combination Terrier-ASROC missile launcher forward and ASW torpedo tubes amidships complete her armament.
Army’s Largest—The Army deep water cable ship Albert J. Afyer *s now on loan to the Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service and operating in the Caribbean area. She is the Army’s largest ship, having a displacement of 7,396 tons and an over-all length of 362 feet. Built in 1946, the Albert J. Myer Presents an unusual appearance "nth three cable sheaves on her bow and one at her stern.
Oeadeye Snakeye—The Snakeye bomb is designed for low-level attacks and features a folding drogue device which opens "'hen the bomb is released, Rowing the weapon and allowing the aircraft time to clear the nnpact area. Snakeye fragmenta- tjon bombs are now opera- honal with the Navy.