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The Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, has given the Red Sea its importance as an international waterway since the canal’s opening in 1869- The canal’s special status was defined and sanctioned by the Convention Relating to the Free Navigation of the Suez Canal, signed at Constantinople 29 October 1888. This convention, which guarantees for all time freedom of passage through the canal for ships of all nations without discrimination, in peace and in war, was signed by Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and Turkey. Although the United States is not a signatory, the United States has always subscribed to its principles. Egypt, however, closed the canal to Israeli shipping after the 1948 Middle East War by invoking Article X of the convention, which authorized closure if necessary for the maintenance of public order. Despite the convention and a United Nations Security Council resolution of 1 September 1951, Egypt continued to deny the use of the canal to Israeli ships bearing Israeli goods.
The issue of international navigation was also a factor in the second Arab- Israeli War. Israel’s invasion of the Sinai
Peninsula at the end of October 1956 was followed by British and French landings at Suez in November. The landings were made with the stated purpose of separating the combatants and preserving the international character of the Suez Canal. As a result of the sinking of several vessels during the hostilities, the canal was closed to international traffic the same month. A cease-fire was arranged in November upon the insistence of the United States and the U.S.S.R., and British and French forces were replaced by the end of December with forces of the United Nations Expeditionary Force (UNEF). The Suez Canal was cleared and reopened in March 1957, following the withdrawal- of Israeli forces. In spite of a U.N. Security Council resolution of 13 October 1956, adopting six principles to govern free navigation, the canal remained closed to Israeli shipping and goods destined for Israel.
As a prelude to the third Arab-Israeli War in May 1967, the arrangements with regard to navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba and for the stationing of U.N. troops between Israel and Egypt fell apart. Egypt moved armaments and about 80,000 troops into the Sinai Pe
ninsula and asked the U.N. Secretary General to withdraw the UNEF from Sinai and the Gaza Strip. On 22 May President Nasser declared the Strait of Tiran closed, thereby blockading the Israeli Port of Eilat. When the Six-Day War terminated, and when the combatants had accepted the cease-fire called for by U.N. Security Council resolutions, Israel controlled the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip and areas in Syria and Jordan; the Suez Canal was closed to shipping.
Since 1967 overall U. S. policy on a Middle East peace settlement has been based on a U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously on 22 November 1967. The resolution includes the basic concepts of withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territories and affirms the need for freedom of navigation through international waterways.
During the fourth Arab-Israeli War, which began on 6 October 1973, Egypt declared all waters in the Red Sea north of the 23rd parallel a war zone. Shipping entering this zone was said to do so at its peril. The South Yemen and Egyptian governments temporarily blocked the Bab el Mandeb at the south end of the Red Sea, and the South Yemen
government also declared the Bab el Mandeb strait a war zone. This blockade at Bab el Mandeb effectively shut down the Port of Eilat to exports and imports, particularly critical oil shipments from Iran.
The Bab el Mandeb blockade highlighted a problem which will now have to be resolved in any overall peace settlement. Until October 1973 the Israelis had insisted that they must control Sharm el Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula in order to ensure freedom of navigation to and from Eilat. Now, however, it appears that control of Sharm el Sheikh will not be much good if the Red Sea can be so easily blockaded further south.
The Bab el Mandeb strait will, with the reopening of the Suez Canal, become an even more strategic international waterway. It is not surprising, therefore,
that at the recent U.N. Law of the Sea Conference in Caracas, Venezuela, sections of the proposed convention which deal with the territorial sea and the straits were of special concern for the United States and all nations interested in freedom of navigation and guaranteed passage through and over international straits.
At the request of the Egyptian government in January 1974, the U. S. government agreed to assist in sweeping mines in the waters of the Suez Canal. The United States also agreed to provide technical advice and training to Egyptian personnel responsible for clearing unexploded ordnance in the canal and on its banks. By June this work was for the most part completed by the U. S. Navy, which had operational respon
sibility for the actual performance of this operation, utilizing an existing contract with Murphy Pacific Corporation of California.
Removal of explosives, however, constituted only the first step of the work necessary to reopen the canal to international commerce. Other tasks have included removal of the six pontoon bridges built across the canal during the recent war, the salvaging of 16 immobilized but usable ships, two of them American, and the removal of some 70 wrecks, all remaining from the 1967 war.
The clearing of the Suez Canal is an international operation. In the top photo a U. S. Nary RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter tows a Mark 105 magnetic mine sweeping sled past the Egyptian freighter Nasr. Below, Royal Navy divers working near the wreck of the Egyptian steamer Mecca.
The most important work remaining is the dredging and repair of the canal banks. This is being carried out by several commercial contractors under the general supervision of the Suez Canal Authority and is intended to make the canal 44 feet deep and about 500 feet wide on the surface. This would permit the passage of ships drawing 38 feet of water. This first phase of the clearing of the waterway should by January 1975 restore the canal to its pre- 1967 war depths and provide for the passage of most dry cargo shipping. However, it would permit the passage of only a small percentage of the world’s recently expanded tanker fleet, i.e. loaded vessels of up to only 30,000 tons deadweight. Nevertheless, tankers of up to 200,000 tons could use the canal at its 1967 depth when returning empty through the canal to the Gulf of Suez.
The Suez Canal Authority anticipates initiation of a second phase in its construction plans in 1975 to deepen and widen the canal to accommodate ships drawing up to 52 feet. This phase, expected to be completed in late 1977, would consist almost entirely of dredging; international shipping would operate normally during the work. A subsequent third stage in construction would deepen the canal to 73 feet. That would permit passage of ships drawing 67 feet, including tankers of up to about 200,000 tons.
The effects of the closure of the Suez Canal to international shipping have been summarized and projected in a 45-page 1973 report compiled by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva. The canal closure reportedly cost the world more than $7 billion in higher shipping
charges, trade reductions, and other losses between 1967-1970 and will cost an additional $1.7 billion yearly or $6.8 billion for the years 1971-1974. Longer hauls around the Cape of Good Hope or those trade routes directly concerned cost $250 million yearly. In addition, the loss or transfer of Southeast Asian exports that would have passed through the canal has been running at $175 million a year. Similar trade dislocations from East African nations have been costing $125 million a year. The canal closure has also caused hardship to a string of ports running from Trieste to Aden.
Aden in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and other nearby areas such as in India, and that the move is needed to lessen U. S. naval dependence on units stationed in the Philippines, 5,000 miles away. In addition, the United States may request limited naval access rights at certain Red Sea and Suez Canal ports when the canal is reopened so as to more directly increase U. S. flexibility in the area.
Some U. S. naval and strategic defense advisors argue that the only drawback to the reopening of the Suez Canal is the prospective strategic gain for Soviet vessels operating in the Indian Ocean.
The Soviet Navy could improve its flexibility by having more readily available vessels from the Black Sea rather than from the Soviet Pacific Fleet or from Vladivostok by 14 days steaming time, or 2,500 miles.
Although plans for the reopening of the Suez Canal are quite recent, the U. S.-U.S.S.R. naval competition in the area began much earlier. The United States has had an agreement since December 1966 with the United Kingdom concerning the use for defense purposes of Diego Garcia, an island 14 miles long and five miles wide and located roughly in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In October 1972 the United States concluded an agreement with the United Kingdom for the construction, operation, and maintenance of a limited naval communications facility on the island.
In March 1974 the United States announced its intention to expand fuel storage, runway, and ship berthing facilities on the island. As a result of this expansion, it will also house patrol planes watching Soviet fleet movements and serve as a stopover point for other aircraft. In defense of its announcement, the United States has stressed that Diego Garcia is not a "major base” but a "limited supply facility” for ship fueling and some ship repair work. The United States has also stressed that the Soviet Union already has certain naval access rights near the Red Sea in Berbera, Somalia, and in the Port of
Saudi
Economic policy strategists view
Facing the prospect of a continuing energy crisis, the United States, even with the announced Project Independence, will become more and more dependent on Middle Eastern countries as suppliers of an increasing proportion of projected U. S. petroleum imports. In fact, U. S. petroleum imports from the Middle East, which accounted for 6% of the 1973 U. S. consumption, are expected to rise to 30-40% by 1985.
Suei
Arabia as the key potential Middle East
* Canal
V P
Professional Notes 105
£ G
ern source of petroleum. Saudi Arabia also imports more products from the United States than any other Middle Eastern country. Therefore, it is not surprising that in a recent Joint U. S.- Saudi Arabian Statement on Cooperation, both countries indicated a willingness "to expand and give more concrete expression to cooperation in the field of economics, technology, and industry, and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s requirements for defense purposes.” This agreement eventually is expected to result in a substantially increased flow of Saudi Arabian petroleum to the United States. Since these petroleum imports will be carried in tankers— whether they are U. S. or foreign- owned—the United States has a major interest in the promotion and continued maintenance of access and safety of bulk cargo commercial navigation to Jidda, Saudi Arabia’s principal Red Sea commercial port and diplomatic city, and Damman, Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf
Bab el Mandeb .. f ^
A Somalia
Port, so as to assure continuity of supply.
U. S. interest in maintaining freedom of navigation in this area is likely to grow in proportion to U. S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil. In fact, a prominent U. S. strategist has stated that Middle Eastern petroleum is the reason the U. S. Navy is expanding its facility on Diego Garcia. In this connection, it is worth noting that in a recent Brookings Institution analysis of the U. S. budget, it was asserted that an important function of our naval forces is to provide "a U. S. presence in peacetime or in time of crisis in order to express U. S. interest in an area or to exert U. S. influence on the terms of settlement in possible disputes.”
The United States also has residual navigation interests in maintaining operational access to Massawa, Ethiopia, the port city for Asmara. Asmara is the second city of importance in Ethiopia, and the U. S. operates the Kagnew communications facility there. The Kagnew station has been significant in U. S. communications satellite links and in the U. S. space program. Some equipment for this facility, as well as U. S.
military equipment for training purposes, arrives via Asmara. In this connection it is worth noting that the American freighter SS La Salle had delivered military supplies at Massawa for the Kagnew station prior to her being fired upon by an "unidentified warship” as she sailed out of the Red Sea, on or about 24 October 1973, through the Bab el Mandeb strait blocked by Egypt and South Yemen. A second American vessel, the guided-missle destroyer Charles F. Adams (DDG-2), was in the strait at the time as part of a routine patrol.
It may be several years before the full implications of the reopening of the Suez Canal can be fully assessed. It may be noted now, however, that for the United States, the reopening represents another step towards normalizing diplomatic relations with Egypt and its Arab neighbors. The United States also considers the opening of the canal and its subsequent favorable impact on the Egyptian economy and on the economies of the other Middle Eastern countries as an additional incentive for continued operation of the canal, and consequently, an inducement for peace and stability in the area.
However, only the passage of time will determine the degree to which the canal recaptures the shipping tonnage, especially in petroleum cargoes, lost to the longer but presently economical Cape of Good Hope hauls. It remains to be seen whether the reopening of the canal will result in any change in the Egyptian policy of denying the use of the canal to Israeli ships or goods destined for Israel. Reportedly, Israel has informed the United States that it will accept an Egyptian agreement to permit Israeli cargoes—but not Israeli-flag ships—through the canal. The passage of time will also determine whether the concluding session of the U.N. Law of the Sea Conference in 1975 adopts a new international resolution to guarantee innocent passage and freedom of navigation through the international straits such as those which are part of the Red Sea. Finally, only the maturing of the U. S.-U.S.S.R. policy of detente will determine the form and intensity that the naval rivalry in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean area will take.
[Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent those of the Department of State or U. S. government.]
Polynesian Navigation: They Made it, but How?
By Captain Robert H. Gulmon,
U. S. Navy (Retired),
Kailua, Hawaii
When Captain James Cook and his contemporaries "discovered” the islands of Polynesia in the 18th century, they were frequently escorted to the beach by canoes filled with stalwart goldenskinned warriors who made it clear that their claim to the region was by right of prior discovery and not a negotiable issue. Even the smaller uninhabited atolls contained unmistakable evidence that some Polynesian "Kilroy” had already been there and left his mark. Still more puzzling was the fact that all of the people within the vast Polynesian triangle, whose vertices are Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island, were physi-
cally and culturally similar and spoke a common language—enough to baffle Englishmen whose own little polyglot island was a veritable Babel of unrelated tongues and local dialects. Whatever these first Europeans might have made of all this, one thing was clear—this Stone Age people had somehow sailed across awesome stretches of open sea to discover and colonize these flyspeck islands long before the more culturally advanced Europeans had stumbled onto the huge continental land masses of North and South America.
It naturally followed that the subject of these epic migrations would occupy
a host of ethnologists, archeologists and other scholars and that a controversy would arise over the nature of these migrations. One faction contends that the dispersal of the Polynesian race was largely the result of accidental or drift voyages and depicts the early Polynesians as the original "wrong-way” Corrigans of the Pacific, helplessly swept hither and yon by the vagaries of wind and sea to drift ashore on unknown islands where they set up housekeeping. The belief that the Polynesian migrations occurred over a span of two millenia enhances the statistical probability that many such voyages could have hap-
Professional Notes 107
pened, but an essential premise to a pure "accidental” voyage hypothesis is that the Polynesians couldn’t navigate for sour apples. At the other side of the argument are the traditionalists who claim that the islands of Polynesia were settled by a series of deliberate voyages of exploration and colonization—a thesis that seems to require the early Polynesians to have been hot-shot navigators. Otherwise, how did the explorers find their way home and subsequently lead colonizing expeditions back to the newly-discovered islands?
The migrational phases which brought the Polynesians from the Southeast Asian mainland through Indonesia to the eastern fringes of central Polynesia would seem to accommodate either theory, and more logically, a combination of both. The inter-island distances were not great, and the numerous island groups within this region would have provided abundant landfall opportunities for the Corrigans as well as the Lindberghs. It is only when we consider colonization of the remote outliers of Polynesia—Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island—that someone has to bite the bullet on the issue of Polynesian navigational skill. But what if these were one-way voyages and the discoverers never returned home? Columbus’ spectacular first landing on the island of San Salvador, half a world away from the Indies that he sought, could scarcely be hailed as a navigational triumph. It was his three round trips back to Spain that proved the old almirante really knew what he was doing. In support of their one-way voyage hypothesis, the "acci- dentalists” point to the absence of firm archeological or glotto-chronological evidence to indicate that any kind of tegular contact had been maintained by the inhabitants of these outliers with their cousins back in central Polynesia. It is also relevant that the central Polynesians queried by Cook, Georg Forster and others, proved remarkably well versed in the geography of their own region but were apparently unaware of the existence of Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island, suggesting any contact with these remote colonies could not have occurred during a span of several generations prior to Cook’s arrival late in the 18th century.
The traditionalists, however, can cite
any number of ancient legends and chants which recount numerous round- trip voyages, particularly between Tahiti and Hawaii, and even some recognizable if vague sailing directions for such voyages. Lending some credence to these legends is the fact that on modern navigational charts of the Hawaiian Islands the approach to Maui between Lanai and Kahoolawe is labelled Kealaikahiki Channel (Ke-Ala-i-Kahiki, the Way-to- Tahiti)—a name purportedly given by the legendary chief Moikeha to the place from which his son La’a departed for Tahiti. Somewhat more tangible evidence in support of a deliberate two-way voyage thesis is the widespread distribution of non-indigeneous flora and fauna throughout the tropical Pacific islands. It is particularly pertinent that the seedless breadfruit and banana could only have been propagated by transporting young, live plants to their new habitats. Being unsuitable for sea rations, these plants must have been brought along and tenderly nurtured during long voyages for the sole purpose of transplanting them elsewhere. The same is true for the livestock of Polynesia, the dog, pig and chicken. These mutually incompatible creatures would have created an infernal nuisance aboard a crowded canoe and must therefore have been tolerated for their value as breeding stock. Since women and children would also have been essential members of a colonizing expedition, there is logic, at least, in the theory that such thoroughly planned and provisioned expeditions normally followed successful voyages of discovery.
Since their theory seems to demand it, the chief hang-up of the traditionalists is the necessity to produce ways and means by which the pre- European Polynesians could have performed rather remarkable feats of navigation. Unfortunately, ethnologists are rarely versed in celestial navigation and the results of their efforts to come up with "Polynesian” navigational methods have ranged from the occult to the downright impractical—and some that simply won’t work. A few researchers have copped out on the question by merely taking Polynesian navigational skills for granted or crediting the wily old kahunas with "secret” methods which have somehow eluded modern
navigators. Others have endowed the Polynesians with a vaguely described capacity to "read” the heavens like some kind of celestial road map, and even an uncanny sixth sense akin to the instinctive direction-finding abilities of the great whales and other migratory creatures of the sea. Still others have devised various ingenious methods by which the Polynesians might have navigated and presented these schemes in a manner often designed to obscure their hypothetical origins. Thus one encounters "Polynesian” navigational methods which owe their conception solely to the fertile minds of a few imaginative writers.
However they might have done it, the Polynesians were certainly there, and they could only have arrived by some kind of nautical conveyance. Both Dutton and Bowditch contain chapters on lifeboat navigation which pretty well cover the available options. By considering only the pure eyeball methods which do not require timepieces or ephemeral data, the remaining choices are few indeed—a fact which does not seem to have inhibited the innovators in their efforts to invent "Polynesian” systems of navigation.
The unsupported claim that the ancient Polynesians possessed an intuitive direction-finding ability can be summarily dismissed as superstitious nonsense. The "celestial road map” theory defies complete explanation since it is presumed that only the Polynesians understood it. Its essence seems to be that the Polynesians, not being versed in such abstractions as angular measurement or the precise reckoning of time, took in the entire celestial panorama and estimated their positions, not by altitudes and bearings of individual bodies, but by the appearance of the composite whole. No one has yet attempted to explain away the fact that the identical "screen of stars” is viewed in turn by all the inhabitants of the earth who dwell along the same parallel of latitude— that a Tahitian would feel right at home under the star patterns which can be seen above Madagascar.
Latitude sailing, because of its apparent simplicity, has also been pushed as a "Polynesian” navigational technique. Widely used by Western navigators in the pre-chronometer era, this method
involved sailing toward a point to the east or west of a destination whose latitude was known. Upon gaining the desired latitude, as determined by a Polaris altitude, the course was changed to the east or west, as appropriate, and the ship sailed along this parallel of latitude until the destination was reached. Since the Polynesians were not known to have possessed any means for measuring celestial altitudes, this method did not achieve popular acceptance until 1927 when Rodman, a retired Navy admiral, unveiled the "Sacred Calabash” as a device for determining the latitude of Hawaii by the Polaris altitude method. When this alleged Hawaiian "sextant” was later exposed as the profane and utilitarian travelling trunk of a Hawaiian chief, the method was quietly dropped by all except the few who didn’t get the word. Curiously, few raised the point that Polaris was displaced some five degrees from the celestial pole during the supposed era of Hawaii’s colonization and therefore could not have been a reliable indicator of latitude.
Although there is not a shred of evidence to indicate the Polynesians ever used the technique, or even understood the principle involved, the so-called "zenith star” method has emerged as a perennial front-runner. Since diurnal star paths are concentric circles whose planes are parallel to the earth’s equatorial plane, each star repeatedly circles the earth directly above a constant parallel of latitude. Thus it is reasonable to assume that some Polynesian Ptolemy could have noted a particular star passing nightly over his island which, for the brief interval of time it was directly overhead, would indicate the island’s position to a distant observer. If he had a means of accurately marking the time of this event, and predicting the times it would occur on future nights, our primitive stargazer could theoretically find his way home from distant places by setting course for the star during the periods that it was in the zenith position over his homeland. But this event occurs four minutes earlier each night and our ancient Polynesian seafarer had no timepiece, let alone any conception of time difference due to longitudinal separation.
But supposing our stargazer also
noted that the star passing overhead always followed an east-west path? He might then have concluded that if he were somewhere to the east or west of his destination and the star passed directly over his canoe, a change of course to the east (or west) would bring him home. In this way, he might have hit upon a form of latitude sailing based on zenith stars—a purely speculative hypothesis but one which appears to contain no insurmountable technical obstacles except for Catch-22—how accurately can an unaided observer in a pitching and rolling canoe estimate the zenith altitude of a star? An error of only two degrees would put the canoe 120 miles off the proper track—enough to miss a landfall on most Pacific islands.
We need not speculate whether the early Polynesians "steered by the stars.” This technique was noted by the first European visitors to Polynesia. Since it was widely used throughout the Pacific and has persisted in the more remote regions until recent times, it has been observed by contemporary researchers as well. It is therefore the only navigational system whose use by the Polynesians has been authenticated by actual observation. The method is based on the fact that from any given position on earth the stars (except circumpolar) will be seen to rise and set at precisely the same points, respectively, on the horizon. This logically led to the use of these "horizon stars” as directional beacons. When it had been established (probably by trial and error) that a particular island lay in the direction of a certain rising or setting star, the steersman would wait until that star was on or near the horizon and then take its bearing as a departure course for the island. When the star was no longer in this position, the course had to be maintained by other means until the star reappeared in the same place some 24 hours later. Often the initial steering star was followed by other stars of similar declination which rose or set on approximately the same or reciprocal bearings to provide interim guidance. Otherwise the steersman kept to his course as best he could by maintaining a constant heading relative to wind and sea, or by the pole star. Obviously, this is merely a directional system—an inferior substitute for the magnetic compass which the Stone Age
Polynesians could not have possessed. Like the compass, its most serious shortcoming lies in its inability to detect or correct for lateral displacement from the navigator’s intended track. If the canoe is so displaced by currents, leeway or helmsman’s error, the voyager will miss his destination by the cumulative amount of this displacement. Thus the method is reliable only to distances for which this cumulative lateral displacement can be kept small enough to allow an acceptable probability of making a landfall on one’s intended destination. In spite of its shortcomings, the system was a useful one. The Polynesians perfected it to a high degree by using literally dozens of stars, and apparently it served them well.
Based possibly on concern that such a primitive system would not support a deliberate voyage hypothesis, some writers have attempted to credit the defenseless Polynesians with a gimmick for eliminating the lateral drift problem. This has been termed the "fore-and-aft” star system and calls for the use of two horizon stars on reciprocal bearings— one rising and one setting. The theory is that if the steersman keeps the bow pointed at one star and the stern at the other, the canoe will remain on a line connecting the stars and that any deviation from this line could be detected and corrected for. Although these conditions would exist for only a few minutes each night, there would be similar opportunities on subsequent nights to check the position of the canoe and alter course, if necessary, to get back on the "line.” Now for the bad news—a horizon star is visible as such from anywhere on the dark side of the star’s maximum circle of equal altitude. Since the star’s altitude is zero, this is a great circle (e.g., to see Polaris on the horizon one must be on the equator). A second horizon star, on an opposite bearing from the first, shares this same great circle of equal altitude. Thus a canoe which is aligned between two horizon stars on opposite bearings could be anywhere on the dark side of this common great circle—just as Polaris and an imaginary south polar star would appear simultaneously as horizon stars from anywhere on the dark side of the equator. Thus a navigator should have no difficulty keeping to the line between these stars—he could sail sideways
Professional Notes 109
around the world and never get off it.
As much as we might like to believe the romantic notion that the ancient Polynesians were truly the "Vikings of the Sun” who navigated their great voyaging canoes unerringly across the vast reaches of the Pacific by some mysterious method known only to them, we appear to be stuck with the awkward conclusion that their methods were probably no better than could be achieved with the compass from a Cracker Jack box. But we are also stuck with the incontrovertible fact that the Polynesians are scattered all over the Pacific in well-established colonies which cannot all be accounted for by a pure "accidental” voyage hypothesis. Thus we must reconcile a crude and imprecise system of navigation with the probability that voyages of considerable length were deliberately undertaken and successfully completed. The hang-up
seems to be our insistence on a navigational system which more closely meets the precise point-to-point requirements of the merchant service than of primitive seafarers who only needed to get from here to there before their provisions ran out. Let us consider the longest of the colonizing voyages, Tahiti to Hawaii, a distance of 2,200 nautical miles. If we do not demand that the navigator make a precise landfall on Diamond Head, but settle instead for a landing on any island in the Hawaiian chain, the target has been broadened to a width of about 200 miles, plus another 200 for the combined theoretical ranges of visibility of Oahu and Hawaii which anchor each end of the chain. The return voyage to Tahiti requires even less precision if we will accept a landfall on any island from which the voyagers might reasonably be expected to find their way home. Given the broad geo
graphical knowledge of central Polynesia presumably possessed by the Society Islanders, a landing in any of the island groups from the Tuomotus in the east to the Cooks in the west should suffice. Considering their ranges of visibility, these islands overlap to form a target some 1,500 miles in width. Should the navigator become lost somewhere in this region, he spoke the universal language of Polynesia and could seek sailing directions at any island where the inhabitants were not likely to eat him first. A similar rationale could account for the colonization of New Zealand which is closer and whose North and South Islands also present a broad target. Only Easter Island, solitary and remote, doesn’t fit this pattern, and it is necessary to concede that luck and the laws of probability might have been the dominant factors in bringing Polynesians to its shores.
In October 1967, an Egyptian Komar-class fast patrol boat (FPB) fired four Styx (SS-N-2) guided missiles at her much larger enemy, the Israeli destroyer Eilat (ex-HMS Zealous). Three out of the four surface-to-surface missiles slammed into the 1,710-ton destroyer and sank her. The world of automatic naval guns has not been the same since.
Today, modern Soviet warships mount the quadruple, automatic, radar- controlled 57-mm. (2.2-inch), 47-mm. (1.8-inch), and 37-mm. (1.5-inch) antiaircraft (AA) guns. They are just as capable of exploding enemy missiles in mid-air before they hit the ship as the German flak cannon were in shooting down dozens of 400-mph Allied fighter- bombers in 1944-45.
At war’s end, the eager Soviets grabbed German flak and pak (antitank) guns for design study. This included single and quadruple 20-mm. Flakvierling 38s on both wheeled
ground and semi-track chassis mounts, single and dual 37-mm. Flak 43s, and 50-mm. Pak 38s and Flak 4 Is.
All these guns were war-proven, had muzzle velocities of 2,600-2,800 feet per second (fps), semiautomatic or fully- automatic ammunition feed, fine sights, and were capable of effective ranges from 5,240 feet for the 20-mm. Flak 38 to 13,565 yards for the 50-mm. Flak 41.
The Soviets also had their own basic M-1939 37-mm. AA gun. This was the standard Soviet light ack-ack weapon for a long time. Its characteristics: muzzle velocity, 2,794 fps; barrel length, 259 mm.; total weight, 2,100 kilograms; rate of fire, 160-180 rounds per minute; maximum altitude, 6,000 yards; maximum horizontal range, 8,400 yards. Photographs indicate its similarity to the shipboard weapon.
Twenty years ago the era of the naval guns seemed to be nearing its end as antiship missiles of increasing speed and
complexity were developed. In this very keen competition, the naval cannon came back strong. It has become progressively more effective.
Few small nations can afford the vastly expensive, highly-developed, and complex surface-to-surface missiles. For them the naval cannon is still highly effective. Today’s AA cannon are reliable, have a very high rate of fire, high muzzle velocity, flat trajectory, long effective ranges, and low overall costs. They must deal with low-flying jet attackers, swift antiship missiles and enemy patrol boats.
There is no direct competition between automatic cannon and air or sea missiles. Different systems are intended for different purposes. In some cases, rather than being a choice between gun and missile, both systems have been incorporated, as in the Komar and Osa FPBs.
In World War II 400-mph enemy
aircraft armed with rockets, bombs and torpedoes comprised the main aerial threat to ships. Today various missiles predominate. Of these, the low-flying missiles are the most difficult to combat. Missiles like the Styx streak across the water, a few feet above the waves, at 700 mph. They are so difficult to aim at that target tracking with fire-control radar is nearly useless. The cautious Russians equip their arrays of 47-mm. and 57-mm. AA guns with magnifying optical sights as well as Tellerform-1 and 2 radar directors.
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A
Trying to hit an eight-ton SS-2 missile-shaped like a tiny stub-wing airplane-approaching at 700-mph with a stream of small-caliber automatic cannon projectiles is exceedingly difficult. To strike and hit the 800 pounds of high explosive in the missile and explode it before it hits a warship requires a great number of shells. Actually the task today is more difficult than that faced by the American Fleet in the Pacific 30 years ago. Warships then were covered with AA gun tubs—visually aimed 20-mm. Oerlikons, 40-mm. Bofors
quads, and proximity-fuzed 5-inch semiautomatic guns that shot down dozens of Japanese suicide planes.
Everything is drastically speeded up today. Instead of 400-mph planes with 45-foot wingspans, we now have 700- to 1,500-mph missiles just 2.9-4.9 feet in diameter. A way to deal with the incoming missile is for near-miss projectiles to burst via proximity fuzes so fragmentation can explode the warhead. Instead of trying to hit the nose of a flying bomb only 16 inches in diameter, proximity-fuzed projectile bursts from 47-mm. and 57-mm. automatic guns increase the target area and probability of a hit by more than a hundred times.
Modern 30-mm. (1.2-inch) to 57-mm. (2.2-inch) cannon shells are turned out from high tensile strength steel and packed with heavy steel balls cast into the body of the shell. The nose is loaded with high explosive and capped with tiny proximity fuzes to explode against surface-to-surface and air-to- surface cruise missiles as well as low- flying jet aircraft.
The Soviet 47-mm. and 57-mm. quadruple mounts have long barrels. These long tubes are needed to burn completely the heavier powder charges for velocities above 3,000 fps. Muzzle velocities have shot upwards from
2,750-2,900 fps of 1945-51 to 3,200- 3,600 today. The flatter projectile trajectory leads to a longer effective range. Gun designers have given the automatic cannon cooler burning powders, bottlenecked brass-case fixed cartridges or even fully consumable "caseless” ammunition and plated bores for longer barrel life. Automatic ammunition load and feed mechanisms increase the gun’s rate of fire.
For aiming and firing upon the swift, fleeting missiles, there are now laser beam gunsights, magnifying telescopic sights and radar fire-control directors. The rates of fire have gone up from 100-125 rounds per minute to 200-300.
The Soviet 57-mm. naval cannon of 1958-59 can fire 70 rounds per minute. It has an effective range of six miles, a maximum elevation of 85°, a muzzle velocity of 2,750 fps, and a maximum effective altitude of 20,500 feet against jet aircraft.
Single-mounted 57-mm. M-1959
guns, without gun shields, are seen on Sasha-class minesweepers and, with gun- shields, replace the older 37-mm. on rebuilt Skoryy-class destroyers. Dual M-1959 57-mm. naval cannon are found on minesweepers and other Soviet fleet auxiliaries. Each of the dual guns can hammer out 140-150 rounds per min
ute, which makes them dangerous even at 12,000 yards. Quadruple 57-mm. AA gun mounts are found on the Kildin and Krupnyy-class guided-missile destroyers.
Another new 57-mm. antiaircraft gun mount came out around 1964-65. Dual mounted, it appeared on the new Moskva-class helicopter carriers and on the Krupnyy and Kresta-class missile ships. These new dual 57-mm. AA guns have been mounted on Poti-class submarine chasers and Ugra and Don-class depot and submarine repair ships. Projections on the top of the gun house indicate that fire-control radar equipment is built-in.
Soviet Naval Antiaircraft Cannon:
| Year |
|
|
| Shell | Muzzle | Maximum |
| entered | Rate of Fire | Range | Maximum | weight | velocity | elevation |
Gun | service | {rounds per minute) | {miles) | altitude | {pounds) | {feet per second) | {degrees) |
57-mm. | 1964-65 | 60 | 6.5 | 22,000 | 3.5 | 3,200 (approx.) | 85 |
57-mm. | 1958-59 | 70 | 6 | 20,000 | 4.0 | 2,750 (approx.) | 85 |
47-mm. | 1953 | 50 | 5.5 | 11,460 | .4.8 | 2,755 (approx.) | 85 |
37-mm./1960 | 1944 | 150 | 5.0 | 18,500 | 1.5 | 2,900 (approx.) | 85 |
30-mm. | 1960-62 | 130 | 4.5 | 16,520 | 1.2 | 3,100 (approx.) | 80 |
25-mm. | 1950-52 | 110 | 1.25 | 10,140 | 0.75 | 2,950 (approx.) | 85 |
Gun |
| Operation | Mounting |
| Ship types so | armed | |
57-mm./l965 |
| Fully automatic | Quad, | twin & single |
| Helicopter carriers |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| new cruisers, destroyers | |
57-mm./l959 |
| Fully automatic | Quad, | twin & single |
| Guided missile cruisers | |
47-mm. |
| Fully automatic | Quad |
|
| Newer destroyers |
|
37-mm./l960 |
| Semiautomatic | Single |
|
| Small warships |
|
30-mm./1969 |
| Fully automatic | Twin |
|
| Osa-class FPBs |
|
25-mm. |
| Semiautomatic | Twin |
|
| Komar, P-6; |
|
P-8/P-10 fast patrol boats, SCs.
111
Professional Notes
An earlier postwar AA gun mount is the quadruple 47-mm. on the Tallin and Kotlin-class destroyers. These 47-mm. guns are mounted in pairs, one above the other, as are the guns of the later long-barrel 57-mm. AA mounts. The two calibers, 47-mm. and 57-mm., can be distinguished by the relative positions of each pair of barrels at zero elevation. On the 47-mm. mount, the muzzles are vertical above one another, whereas on the 57-mm. quads, the lower pair of gun muzzles projects beyond the upper pair. In addition, the 57-mm. naval guns usually do not have muzzle flash funnels, whereas the 47-mm. do.