Royal Air Force Plans For Airborne Early Warning Role
(Flight International, 8 January 1970)
There are two aspects to Royal Air Force thinking on the airborne early warning (AEW) role. In the short term, the R.A.F. is to take over maritime AEW duties from the Fleet Air Arm after the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers—and consequently its Gannet AEW.3 aircraft—are phased out of service. As an interim solution to its take-over of this role, the R.A.F. is putting the Gannet’s ATS-27 radar into the Shackleton Mk 2 aircraft, which will have a new life after they are withdrawn from R.A.F. maritime duties with the advent of the Nimrods. The Shackletons as AEW aircraft would have no overland capability.
As a longer term solution to the maritime AEW role, the R.A.F. plans to develop an entirely new AEW aircraft, which would be based on the Hawker-Siddeley Andover. With the withdrawal of this type from the Far East, there will be Andovers available in the United Kingdom. It is proposed to re-engine some of these with the two under-wing Rolls-Royce Speys and to outfit them with nose and tail radar.
Looking farther ahead, the R.A.F. envisages overland AEW capability in Europe in support of NATO air forces. It insists that this idea has arisen quite independently of its take-over of the maritime AEW role from the Royal Navy. Airborne early warning in support of NATO air forces would be complementary to the NATO Air Defense Ground Environment (NADGE) system, and it would be designed fundamentally to offset low-level attacks. The philosophy is that such AEW is fundamental to a proper air defense system.
The requirement would not be for a large number of aircraft and the British government has approved project definition, while the concept is generally agreed by NATO. However, because the number of aircraft required is so small (19 or 20), it is unlikely that Britain would go ahead with the project for a new AEW type unless this became a NATO-sponsored project and costs were shared among its air forces.
The aircraft envisaged would be a comparatively small one (55–60,000-pound all-up weight) and full-scale tests have already been carried out in a Mintech Comet. A major feature would be adequate range for the aircraft to be on station for about six hours at a time.
Navy To Cut Cost of New Multipurpose Destroyer
(Edgar Prina in the San Diego Union, 28 December 1969)
Faced with soaring costs and declining budget, the Navy has decided it must settle for a more austere ship than originally planned as its new multipurpose destroyer.
The Navy called in representatives of the Bath (Maine) Iron Works Corporation and Litton Industries, Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Pascagoula, Mississippi, and informed them that their estimates were far too high for what is expected to be a more than $2-billion, 30-ship program.
The shipbuilders’ experts were then asked to go back and refigure costs after making 30 money-saving changes and eliminations, outlined by the Navy, in the design and equipment of the 6,500-ton DD-963-class destroyers, formerly known as the DX.
After checking new estimates, the Navy expects to award a contract by 1 April. It is the third postponement of the contract award which was originally set for last November.
Congress recently voted $343 million for the building of the first five DD-963S. It also approved funds for long lead time components for eight more.
Last May, Rear Admiral W. A. Gaddis, U. S. Navy, of the Navy’s comptrollers’ office told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that the unit cost of the DD-963 class was estimated at $68 million.
It is believed that the Navy will try to hold down costs by providing more government-furnished equipment for the series production ships, at the same time reducing the amount which originally was to be supplied by the contractor. This could mean a substantial use of “off-the-shelf” items, such as certain radars and other electronics gear. “We’re going to have to take a ship with equipment somewhat less sophisticated than we had, at first, thought,” a Pentagon official said. “It is very expensive to push the state of the art, you know.”
The DD-963 destroyers will be the first combatant units in the Fleet to be powered by gas turbine engines. The Navy calls them 30-knot ships, but they will exceed that speed by a considerable margin, perhaps by ten knots.
The primary mission for the new ships—the first destroyers to be bought by the Navy in ten years—will be to conduct antisubmarine warfare, but they will have the speed and endurance to escort the Fleet’s fast conventionally powered aircraft carriers and the capability for shore bombardment. They are due to start joining the Fleet in 1974–1975.
The new destroyers are slated to have a system of automatic control from the bridge, greater habitability for the crews, and a quieter operation at sea.
According to Rear Admiral Thomas R. Weschler, U. S. Navy, DD-963 project manager, the ships will be more difficult to detect by enemy submarines.
Navy Facility To Simulate Ocean Environment
(Ocean Industry, January 1970)
A $7.4-million ocean simulation facility that will enable the U. S. Navy to develop, test, and evaluate underwater man-in-the-sea systems is under construction at the Naval Ship Research and Development Laboratory at Panama
City, Florida, and is expected to be in operation by 1971.
The pressure complex will have the unique ability to test man and machine together in a simulated ocean environment to a depth of 2,000 feet. The man-rated facility will be the largest of its type in the world.
The ocean pressure simulation facility means a big step forward for the United States in the entire spectrum of ocean technology. Among other considerations, the accelerated emphasis in deep-submergence and swimmer-diver operations show a critical need for an advanced engineering research and development program for undersea equipment.
The Panama City ocean lab will be interconnected with an already installed and operating $5-million hybrid computer complex, which will make possible simulation of complete missions in real environment under laboratory control.
A steel-frame masonry building will house the facility {see photo below). The building will have an area of about 22,500 square feet and will include a three-story administrative section, a high bay area with mezzanine, a one-story mechanical room, and a testing pool. The entire complex will cover an area of about three acres.
The research facility will center around an arrangement of two connected pressure chambers with diver supporting equipment and controls to permit simulating various depths of seawater to 2,000 feet. All compartments can be operated independently at different pressures and with different gas mixtures. All chambers and associated locks can be operated to 1,000 psi.
Army Using Small, Deadly Darts in Vietnam War
(Fred Farrar in the Chicago Tribune, 1 February 1970)
For almost a year now, the Army has been quietly using a highly effective weapon against enemy troops in the Vietnam War.
It is a rocket warhead that instead of exploding on impact, spews out ahead of itself 2,200 tiny metal darts designed to kill, wound, or incapacitate troops caught in the open.
The rockets are the standard 2.75 inch diameter type, and are used by American helicopter gunships in support of GIs and South Vietnamese troops. The helicopters can carry either 14 or 33 of the rockets each, depending on the model.
The flechettes are packed inside the nine-pound, one-and-a-half foot long warhead with a nose cone in front and a fuse and explosive charge in back.
The fuse is armed by the sudden acceleration of the rocket as it is fired from the helicopter. It sets off the explosive charge when the rocket starts to slow down, thus blowing away the nose cone and sending the flechettes out ahead. From there on the flechettes spew toward the enemy. They can tear up large numbers of troops caught out in the open.
Though the flechettes are small, they are going fast enough when they hit to do a great deal of damage. And if they hit shortly after the fuse goes off they can do even more harm.
This is because half of the flechettes are packed pointed forward in the warhead and half are packed pointed backward. Those pointed backward are sent tumbling as they start on their way because of the action of the fins at the rear. And they can be tumbling when they hit their target.
This is not the first time flechettes have been used in the war. They have been fired from artillery pieces to repulse mass attacks and from shotguns to blanket the openings of enemy bunkers for years. But it was only about a year ago that the Army, without saying it was doing so, started using them in rocket warheads.
Canada’s Pilot Training Program Is Reduced
(Flight International, 25 December 1969) The Canadian Forces’ pilot training program is being reduced to match the requirements of the new force structure—a reduction reflecting the reconfiguration of the Canadian Forces announced recently by the Minister of National Defence. This reconfiguration included the decision to reduce the size of the First Canadian Air Division in Europe in 1970 and the aircraft strength of Air Transport Command and Maritime Command between 1970 and 1973.
Officers now undergoing pilot training, and pilot candidates attending the Canadian Services Colleges and universities under the Regular Officer Training Plan, will not be affected by the reduction. Approximately 65 other men, however, including pilot candidates now at the Canadian Forces Officer Candidate School at Esquimalt and serving officers who have requested transfer to pilot duties, will not be trained as pilots as previously planned.
The pilot candidates are being offered alternative employment in the Canadian Forces in from three to seven different classifications depending upon their individual qualifications and preferences. The recruiting of pilots for the Canadian Forces, however, will be continued under the Regular Officer Training Plan at the current level.
6,875-Mile Undersea Profile Completed By France
(Oceanology International, January 1970)
time Command between 1970 and 1973.
Officers now undergoing pilot training, and pilot candidates attending the Canadian Services Colleges and universities under the Regular Officer Training Plan, will not be affected by the reduction. Approximately 65 other men, however, including pilot candidates now
France’s ultramodern oceanographic vessel, the Jean Charcot, recently returned to her base at Brest after what has been termed a “positive” three-month probe of ocean depths in the North Atlantic.
The study, called “Noratlante,” is considered to be the most important French expedition of this kind in over 30 years. It was sponsored by the state-run Centre National pour l’Exploitation des Oceans (CNEXO) and organized by the center’s scientific department at the logistic base in Brest.
Using a new French technique, the vessel was able to obtain a profile of the ocean floor over 6,875 miles.
Soundings were obtained through the setting off at regular intervals of small explosive charges. A total of 91,000 charges were exploded during the voyage. The soundings penetrated depths to 30,000 feet.
The main object was to go a step further than experiments already carried out by the United States in the Atlantic. U. S. scientists have discovered mammoth 10,000-foot mountains that divide the North and South Atlantic at the middle. But little is known about the area spanning from east to west.
Two Oldest ASW Carriers Will Be Decommissioned
(Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 December 1969)
The Navy has announced plans to lay up a third antisubmarine warfare carrier, the 26-year-old USS Yorktown (CVS-10). The Yorktown is the oldest U. S. carrier in active service.
The Navy said the inactivation, due by next July, will leave it with five antisubmarine warfare aircraft carriers. The Yorktown will go into mothballs for future use if needed.
(The Washington Post, 23 January 1970)
The Navy has announced it will lay up the USS Hornet (CVS-12), the fourth antisubmarine warfare carrier to be placed into mothballs in the past five months.
A Navy spokesman said the Hornet is being inactivated mainly because of her age. The ship completed her 26th year of service on 29 November 1969.
The move will leave the Navy with only four antisubmarine aircraft carriers. Of these, three are in the Atlantic and one is assigned to the Pacific. The Hornet will leave her home port of Long Beach, California, in early March for the Bremerton Naval Shipyard in Washington to be inactivated by July.
The 1,600 officers and enlisted men of the vessel will be assigned to other ships and stations in the Navy.
China To Have Missiles Soon
(Kansas City Star, 7 January 1970) Mainland China should be able to deploy a medium range ballistic missile system soon and a moderate intercontinental ballistic missile force by the mid-1970s, the State Department says.
In a pamphlet entitled, Communist China, the latest in a series of publications on U. S. foreign policy issues, the Department said that “present estimates indicate Peking has the capability soon to deploy a medium-range 600-1,200-mile ballistic missile system.”
The pamphlet, intended primarily for use in academic studies of foreign policy problems, raised the question of whether the Chinese might eventually try to use their nuclear weapons power to obtain new sources of food from other nations.
It said food supplies must at least double in the next generation if the present level of nourishment is to be maintained among the Chinese masses.
“If the Chinese cannot achieve this within their present borders with presently available resources, what options are open to them?” the State Department asked.
The pamphlet noted that the Chinese air force is still the largest in Asia and its nuclear and ballistic missile systems are developing.
But it stopped short of saying that the Chinese would use nuclear blackmail against Asian countries to reach its goals.
Navy Free Swimmer Program Aims at 1,000-Foot Depth
(Oceanology International, November/December 1969)
The Navy is planning to undertake a five-year developmental program to put man on the continental shelf as a free swimmer.
Goal of the program, dubbed CAVE (Consolidated Aquanaut Vital Equipment), is to devise a complete self-contained package that would contain the breathing apparatus, navigation, and communication equipment, and environmental protection—and furnish heat for the diving suit—so that man could work unfettered at depths down to 1,000 feet for periods of up to six hours.
Coast Guard Is Training South Vietnamese Navy Men
(U. S. Naval Support Activity, DaNang News Release, 20 December 1969)
For the sailors of Coast Guard Division 12 operating out of DaNang, Republic of Vietnam, training their Vietnamese counterparts is a rewarding experience as they witness the increasing success of the Small Craft Assets, Training, and Turnover of Resources (SCATTOR) program.
Vietnamese Navy men are trained on board U. S. Coast Guard craft under the SCATTOR program up to 16 weeks.
They report on board for training by their Coast Guard counterpart, and upon completion, the U. S. Coast Guardsman is then relieved by his qualified trainee. When the entire crew is trained, the craft is turned over to the South Vietnamese. Eight U. S. Coast Guard boats are now manned by Vietnamese throughout the Republic of Vietnam.
Most of the teaching is accomplished by on-the-job type training with the Coast Guard sailor showing his counterpart the task and then having him perform it. Basic shipboard drills at sea are also taught as part of the instruction.
Training is not only limited to the operational part of the boats. A Vietnamese repair force is also being trained in engineering and generator maintenance and overhaul by the Coast Guard at the Small Craft Repair Facility, Naval Support Activity, DaNang. This enables the Vietnamese sailors to repair their own boats.
The SCATTOR program, which started in July 1969, will continue until each of the boats are transferred to the Vietnamese Navy.
Canadian Circumnavigation Of Western Hemisphere Begun
(Ocean Science News, 21 November 1969)
The first circumnavigation of the Western Hemisphere is underway. The Canadian R/V Hudson sailed from Halifax, on the 14,000-mile journey which will also include the first continuous oceanographic sampling of the Pacific Ocean from the Antarctic to Alaska.
The Hudson’s icebreaking capabilities should enable her to make the west-to-east passage of the Northwest Passage next fall, bringing her back to Halifax in a little less than one year. The first phase of the voyage, the work in the South Atlantic, Antarctic, and South Pacific Oceans, is described as Canada’s contribution to the International Decade of Ocean Exploration.
Air and Water Pollution Is Target of Nixon Order
(Robert B. Semple, Jr., in The New York Times, 5 February 1970)
President Nixon has issued an executive order that he said would “eliminate air and water pollution* caused by Federal agencies.”
The directive gave Federal agencies less than three years to comply with state water and air pollution standards.
Federal agencies will be required to begin pollution abatement activities at all Federal facilities, including “buildings, installations, structures, public works, equipment, aircraft, vessels, and other vehicles and property” by 31 December 1972.
Under the order, agency heads and Cabinet Secretaries are required to set specific “performance standards” for each Government-owned or Government-leased facility.
The standards must be as strict as those established under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Clean Air Act and must meet the approval of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the case of air pollution controls and the Secretary of the Interior in the case of water pollution controls.
Some observers on Capitol Hill objected that the new order continued to provide an exemption for agencies that asserted that the installation of antipollution devices would threaten “national security.”
The Defense Department is generally regarded as the largest single polluter of the environment in the Federal establishment. Russell E. Train, Under Secretary of the Interior, who is chairman-designate of the Council on Environmental Quality, said:
The largest single agency involved in this order, I am certain, will be the Department of Defense, defense facilities all across the nation, the air bases, training facilities of various kinds, other bases. Almost all of these have serious pollution problems.
Asked to cite an example, he named the United States Military Academy at West Point, which discharges, he said “largely untreated” sewage into the Hudson River.
Mr. Train singled out several provisions of the order that he considered substantial improvements. Among them is specificity. The new order sets forth a list of Federal “facilities” covered, including for the first time “aircraft, vessels and other vehicles” used by the Federal Government. Asked if this meant that military aircraft would be fitted with antipollution devices, Mr. Train said:
If it did not interfere with national security objectives, yes, I would assume so. Federal facilities are owned by all the people. This order will see to it that they are operated in the interests of all the people. As the Federal Government considers and institutes further pollution abatement measures in the future, it can do so with the confidence that it has first moved to sweep its own doorstep clean.
*See T. A. Clingan, Jr., “Oil Pollution, No Solution?”, U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1969, pp. 63–75; and C. L. Bekkedahl, “Pollution, We Do Our Part,” December 1969, pp. 40–45.
Chilean Warships Get Missiles
(New York Post, 27 January 1970)
The Yarrow shipyard said two frigates ordered by the Chilean government will be fitted with Seacat close-range antiaircraft missiles made by a Belfast firm.
Third CVA(N)—This is an artist's concept of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVAN-69), the Navy’s third nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the first to be named for a U. S. president. She will be 1,092 feet long, have a waterline beam of 134 feet, and a full-load displacement of 94,400 tons. She will have a two-reactor power plant, and will be equipped with the naval tactical data system, an integrated operational intelligence center, and the automatic carrier landing system. Construction of the carrier, beginning this year, will take approximately five years.
Construction is Begun On 100th Nuclear Submarine
(The New York Times, 29 November 1969)
Construction has begun on the Silversides, the Navy’s 100th nuclear-powered submarine.
Keel-laying ceremonies for the submarine were held about 100 yards from the spot where the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine was launched 15 years ago.
The Silversides, scheduled for completion in 1972, will be 292 feet long and will displace 4,200 tons, twice the size of her World War II namesake. The first Silversides, a diesel-fueled craft, was commissioned in 1941 and while on patrol in the Pacific, sank more than 200,000 tons of Japanese shipping.
The new Silversides is one of four nuclear-powered submarines ordered by the Navy from the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics at a cost of $154-million. Construction of the three others will begin in 1970.
Navy’s 88th Nuclear Submarine Follows Nautilus by 15 Years
(The Washington Post, 11 January 1970)
The nuclear attack submarine Bluefish slid stern-first into the icy Thames River almost 15 years to the day since the world’s first nuclear submarine was launched in Groton, Connecticut.
David Packard, Deputy Secretary of Defense, briefly addressed more than 1,500 spectators at the ceremony.
Packard noted that the launching of the 3,500-ton Bluefish, the 88th American nuclear submarine, precedes by one week the 15th anniversary of the day the submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571) got underway for the first time under nuclear power just a few hundred feet away.
Use Of Plastics In Ships Is Being Tested By Royal Navy
(Marine Engineering/ Log, December 1969)
The Royal Navy may soon be building a small 160-foot long coastal minesweeper made of glass reinforced plastics (GRP). Currently, a large section of a minesweeper made of GRP is being put through trials by the Naval Construction Research Establishment (NCRE) at Dunfermline, Scotland.
“The main worry is the brittle character of GRP, which does not yield like steel and at the end of its elastic range just breaks,” Michael Westlake, head of the Surface Ship Division of NCRE, said.
Advances being made at the research center are viewed as providing valuable spin-off data for private shipbuilding.
Jumboized Navy Oiler Is Returned to Fleet
(Marine Engineering/Log, November 1969)
The jumboized Navy oiler, the USS Caloosahatchee (AO-98) was recently delivered to the U. S. Navy by Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Key Highway yard. She is the second of two Navy oilers to be jumboized by the yard. The vessel was lengthened by 91 feet to an overall 644 feet by insertion of a new 395-foot 2-inch midbody built at Bethlehem’s Sparrows Point Yard.
In addition to the new midbody, the Caloosahatchee was equipped with twin rudders of high-strength steel which are operated by dual steering systems and a hydraulically operated helicopter pickup platform.
The bow and stern sections from the old ship were modernized and retained. The new midbody contains cargo tanks for fuel oil, JP-5, aviation gas and diesel oil. There are large dry cargo storage spaces, refrigerated cargo spaces, an auxiliary machinery room, an aviation gas pump room, and a fuel oil and JP-5 pump room. Ammunition and missile storage spaces have also been provided.
Three new elevators were installed in the midbody, as well as replenishment-at-sea gear, which permits transfer of any of the liquid cargo, missiles, missile booster, warheads, or miscellaneous cargo to ships while at sea.
Major electrical changes included three 1,500-kilowatt diesel generators and outfitting for replenishment-at-sea gear and two 750-kilowatt turbo generators for ship’s service. The existing system was converted to a 440-volt system.
Soviet Admiral Boasts Greatest Naval Power
(Chris Shearouse in the New Orleans State Item, 19 December 1969)
The admiral of the fleet of the Soviet Union is boasting that Russia has become the world’s greatest naval power, “capable of taking its line of defense out into the ocean.”
And as if in support of that statement by Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, Russia’s increasing ocean strength has been on prominent display recently —in Key West, Finland, and Africa; in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Pacific, and Indian Ocean waters.
Admiral T. H. Moorer, U. S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, recently pointed to this new “visibility” as the heart of the Kremlin effort to exert influence “wherever it will serve political, economic or military objectives.”
He mentioned that one of America’s precepts has been that there is no better instrument of foreign policy than the use of seapower.
It is paradoxical, he said, that the Soviets have “watched us do this over the years and they know that in this century, the oceans have enabled us on many occasions to extend our power overseas and to project it ashore in defense of other free nations.”
He said, however, that although there are many old and obsolete ships in the U. S. Navy and American merchant marine, any race against the Soviets for naval supremacy must be kept “in proper perspective.”
Admiral Moorer said it could be foolish to become “too involved in the numbers game. We don’t, nor should we attempt to match ship for ship. In our Navy, we have entirely different missions from those of the Soviet Navy. We must continue to structure our Navy so that we have the capability to conduct operations commensurate with our mission,” he said.
He envisions the Navy of tomorrow as being “somewhat smaller, more modern, and of highest quality.”
Containership Competition Increases in Europe
(Michael Bailey in the London Times, 29 October 1969)
An explosive situation is developing in Europe-Australia trade following announcement of the new Australia Container Service (A.C.S.) consortium of British and European lines. Scandinavian lines, which are outside the consortium, reacted aggressively with a massive order for five big container/roll-on ships for delivery 1972-73.
It looks like an open threat of war by the Scandinavian lines in spite of their assurance that they plan to operate their new ships within the conference framework. Five such ships in addition to their existing fleet of unit-load and conventional ships, are far more than is needed to carry their share of the trade under the existing conference agreement which, significantly, expires in 1972.
The five ships could probably carry the entire trade between Europe (excluding Britain) and Australia, thus substantially duplicating the A.C.S. containerships and defeating one of the prime objects of A.C.S. to limit tonnage to the requirements of the trade.
The implication is that Wilhelmsen of Norway, Transatlantic of Sweden, and East Asiatic of Denmark will want a bigger share from 1972 on, and be in a position to fight for it.
A.C.S. interests in London were clearly shocked by the size of the Scandinavian order, describing it as evidence of “an aggressive posture.” But a spokesman for the Scandinavians insisted that the ships were needed to carry their share of the trade, and reiterated their desire to work within the conference.
To prepare for their big ships, the Scandinavians are getting together in a single joint organization next July, a month before the A.C.S. consortium goes into full operation.
Navy Planning Air Combat Maneuvering Range
(Aviation Week & Space Technology, 12 January 1970)
The Navy is planning an air combat maneuvering range (ACMR) for training and evaluating the performance of naval pilots in air-to-air combat. The range probably will be located near Yuma, Arizona.
Avionics companies likely to be pursuing development of transponders and other equipment for scoring include General Dynamics, McDonnell-Douglas, and Sierra Research Corporation.
Intrepid Family Tree
For many Navy-oriented observers of the recent Apollo 12 space voyage, which featured an all-Navy astronaut crew, there was also a special and satisfying significance in the name “Intrepid,” given to the Lunar Landing Module that carried then Navy Commanders Charles Conrad, Jr., and Richard F. Gordon, Jr., to and from the moon’s surface.
Source of the Navy’s particular pride in the event is found in the origins of the family tree of the LLM Intrepid, which actually extend back through some 165 years of naval history to include at least four name-bearing progenitors whose careers paralleled the nation’s progress.