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JTew of the thousands of ships built by and for the U. S. Navy during World War II have survived. Most of those still in the active U. S. fleet are auxiliaries: repair ships and destroyer and submarine tenders. Moored at ports here and abroad, these veterans still serve the fleet in their relatively mundane but important roles. But one of these grand old ladies is, in several respects, the most modern ship in the U. S. fleet. The USS Norton Sound (AVM-1, ex- AV-11) is currently serving as test ship for the Aegis combat system and Mark 26/Standard missile system. Since World War II, the Norton Sound has tested several advanced weapon and sensor “systems” for the Navy and has been involved in scientific activities as well.
The Norton Sound was built as one of the four large seaplane tenders of the Currituck (AV-7) class. Of cruiser size, these ships were designed to support squadrons of large flying boats that would provide long-range reconnaissance in advance of fleet operations. Despite the availability of carrier- and land- based aircraft, the endurance of the PBY Catalinas and the later PBM Mariners made these seaplanes invaluable for the long-range reconnaissance and surveillance. The tenders carried spare parts, weapons, and fuel for the flying boats, had accommodations for flight and maintenance crews, repair shops, and numerous small boats for servicing aircraft in the water and laying buoys to mark seadromes. The ships had clear fantails with 30-ton-capacity cranes to hoist seaplanes aboard for maintenance.
The Norton Sound was built at San Pedro, California, by the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. She was launched and christened on 28 November 1943 and commissioned on 8 January 1945. The ship conducted her shakedown cruise and then steamed westward for operational training. She arrived at Saipan on 1 April to service PBMs.
One month later, on 1 May, the Norton Sound dropped anchor in the small island group of Kerama Retto, 15 miles west of the southern coast of Okinawa. Shortly before the 1 April invasion of Okinawa, the islands had been assaulted and captured to provide a forward base to support the amphibious landings. When the Norton Sound arrived, the battle still raged ashore. There were 15 large and small seaplane tenders in the Kerama Retto islands during the Okinawa campaign to support six PBM squadrons and one squadron of four-engine PB2Y Coronado patrol planes. The Norton Sound serviced PBMs as Japanese suiciders periodically screamed down, sinking several ships in the area. While she was at Kerama Retto, kamikaze planes crashed the nearby tenders St. George (AV-16) and Curtiss (AV-4),
Less than a year and a half after her launching at San Pedro in late 1943, the Norton Sound was in the war zone. Her cranes were used to lift the PBM Mariners onto the broad fan- tail for servicing. It was the availability of that fantail area which later made the Norton Sound attractive for conversion to a guided-missile test ship. Antiaircraft armament in World War II days comprised 3-inch, 20-mm., and 40-mm. guns, a far cry from the missiles she can now fire. The camouflaged seaplane tender's size is apparent as she steams in company with the USS PC-777 in February 1943.
and another was shot down about 75 yards short of the Kenneth Whiting (AV-14).
After the Japanese surrender, the Norton Sound continued tending PBMs in the Western Pacific, visiting ports in Japan and China to support U. S. occupation forces. She returned to the United States in mid-1946. From February to August 1948, she was modified at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in order to become a guided missile test ship. A helicopter platform was fitted forward, much of her seaplane support capability was deleted, and provisions were provided for the fueling, servicing, and launching of rockets and missiles. One crane and the ship’s two forward 5-inch gun mounts were removed (two mounts atop the hangar were retained for several years as were eight of the ship’s original 20 40-mm. antiaircraft guns).
Several ships had been considered for conversion to the missile test role, including an aircraft carrier, an Alaska (CB-l)-class battle cruiser, and a seaplane tender. The last, which would be the least expensive to convert, offered good stability, extensive open deck space, heavy-lift cranes, and special aviation support facilities that would be most useful in the missile test role. The Norton Sound was selected on the basis of those reasons.
Upon arrival on the West Coast, the Norton Sound was home-ported at Port Hueneme, California. That base was close to the Pacific missile test areas and the shipyards at Long Beach and San Francisco. Except for a brief period in 1963-1964, when her home port was Baltimore, Port Hueneme has been the ship’s base since then.
The Norton Sound’s first experiments were launchings of Skyhook balloons in the Caribbean and off the coast of Southern California in October 1948. Next, in equatorial waters off South America, she launched two Aerobee missiles to obtain data on cosmic radiation. These were followed by the launching of 17 large Skyhook balloons and several smaller balloons to carry aloft scientific instrumentation. These tests, in July 1949, were conducted at the geomagnetic equator, some 1,500 miles south of Hawaii.
More modifications followed at regular intervals. In late 1949, the ship test fired the Loon, the U. S. version of the German V-l “buzz bomb.” On 11 May 1950, she launched a five-ton Viking research rocket. The Viking carried cosmic radiation instruments to an altitude of 106.4 miles. Next, the Norton Sound was fitted with a Terrier missile launcher aft, with the associated handling, loading, and fire control installations. For this role she was reclassified
Following World War II, the ship was given a helicopter platform on the forecastle, and rocket-launching devices were installed on the fantail. Above left, being fired off the port side, is the Loon, the U. S. version of the German V-l. At left are 1950 tests of vertically launched rockets, the Viking and Aerohee. Note the unmanned movie cameras filming the Viking. Above, a Skyhook balloon floats skyward, carrying a package of scientific instruments.
on 8 August 1951 as a guided missile ship (AVM-1) and periodically conducted Terrier and Tartar missile tests through 1962. (During this period the two remaining 5-inch guns were removed.) In 1958, prior to the atmospheric test ban, the Norton Sound steamed south to the Falkland Islands where she launched three rockets carrying low-yield atomic warheads. These were detonated at altitudes of 300 miles, with observations of the explosions contributing to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.
The Norton Sound was decommissioned on 10 August 1962 at Norfolk and towed to Baltimore for installation of the Typhon antiair weapon system. The Typhon, officially described as having the capabilities “of an entirely different order of magnitude” than the existing three-T—Terrier, Talos, Tartar—missile systems, was being developed to defend carrier task forces against Soviet strike aircraft and their antiship missiles.
Like the Aegis system a decade and a half later, the heart of Typhon was an advanced radar that would be coupled with improved missiles. Although the total Typhon system would be exceedingly expensive, it was hoped that a single Typhon “frigate” (DLGN) could provide air defense for an entire carrier task force. The proposed Typhon DLGN would have been a nuclear-propelled ship with a full-load displacement of about 9,700 tons (compared with 8,400 tons for the first nuclear frigate, the USS Bain- bridge [DLGN-25], completed in 1962). The ship was to have a twin long-range Typhon missile launcher and two medium-range, single-arm Typhon launchers. The former missile, initially referred to as the Super Talos, was to have a range of perhaps 200 miles, thus capable of intercepting a Soviet bomber before it released an antiship missile. The medium- range weapon was a Super Tartar that, it was hoped, could intercept aircraft and possibly their missiles in flight.
The Norton Sound was to test the Typhon radar and then the missile systems. The radar system— designated SPG-59—consisted of a futuristic-looking tower mounting four spherical radar “lenses.” These spheres could focus the radar beams by electronic steering. Indeed, the SPG-59 was considered a “small ship” alternative to the large SPS-32/33 radars which were used in the carrier Enterprise (CVAN-65) and cruiser Long Beach (CGN-9) but were too large for destroyer-type ships. Two Typhon radar systems were being developed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, one with 3,400 radiating elements and one with 10,000. These figures translated into power requirements of two and one-half and five megawatts, respectively. These power requirements were
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During the 1950s, the Norton Sound snitched from scientific research to applied testing of V. S. Navy missiles. At top left is a test firing of the Regulus l surface-to-surface missile. Below that is a 1958 Terrier launching. At top center, on a rolling deck, is the Lockheed X-17A, being prepared for firing in 1958. The top right picture shows the Norton Sound rigged out in signal flags for a First Fleet review at Long Beach in September 1956. Above the bridge, the large square antenna is the SPQ-5, an early missile guidance radar. The ship still has the forecastle helo platform, but it was to be removed soon afterward. It is gone in the two 1959 pictures, above and above left. At left is the design for a ship that was never built: the projected DLGN to carry the Typhon antiair system.
comparable to that for missile control radars but much more than for standard search radars. The smaller size, 3,400-element SPG-59 was installed in the Norton Sound. That system required the ship to generate 3,300 horsepower to provide sufficient electricity for the radar. But while the radar was being installed in the Norton Sound, decisions were made that ended the program. Increasing system costs, difficulties with radar development, problems with the three-T missiles that demanded resources to correct, and other factors led Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to cancel the Typhon program on 7 January 1964. However, McNamara did permit initiation of the advanced surface missile system (ASMS) which would, it was hoped, employ more advanced technology to provide a smaller and less costly radar system that could deal with air and missile threats in the 1970s and beyond. The ASMS evolved into the present Aegis system. Carrying the only SPG-59 to go to sea, the Norton Sound was recommissioned on 20 June 1964. She retained a Terrier launcher aft, but all of her guns had been landed. She conducted tests with the Typhon radar until mid-1966, when the system was removed.
In 1965, the ship began tests of the Sea Sparrow missile, adapted from the Navy-developed Sparrow air-to-air missile to provide short-range or “point” defense for U. S. warships. Subsequently, the Norton Sound tested missile countermeasure, electronic warfare, and infrared search systems. In March 1968, she launched a Hydra-Iris test vehicle to an altitude of about 150 miles to take ultraviolet photographs of stellar constellations. The ship’s versatility was again demonstrated in 1968 when the lightweight Mark 45 5-inch gun was installed for evaluation along with the related Mark 86 gunfire control system.
In 1974, the Norton Sound was fitted with the Aegis weapons control systems, including one “face” of the SPY-1 phased-array radar. Aft a Mark 26 missile launcher and magazine were added, along with the associated control radars for tests of the Standard-series antiaircraft missiles. These systems will become the main battery of the new DDG-47- class guided-missile destroyers.1
On 16 May 1974, after emerging from the yard that spring with the Aegis system, the Norton Sound fired two Standard-MR missiles, without warheads, against a radio-controlled Firebee drone. The first missile intercepted the target and the second, fired 17 minutes later, intercepted the target and de- 'Todd Blades, “DDG-47: Aegis On Its Way to Sea,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1979, pp. 101-105.
As part of the great Typhon experiment of the early 1960s, the Norton Sound undergoes conversion to test ship in 1963, facing page, at the Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Baltimore. The ship steams in October 1964 with the Typhon installation complete. The huge cylindrical antenna was the only one of its kind ever to go to sea, because the program had already been cancelled by the Secretary of Defense. In a 1967 view, above, the Norton Sound has lost her Typhon antenna and gained a Sea Sparrow launcher on the stern. To the left is a 1966 photo of the Sea Mauler, shipboard version of an Army surface-to-air missile. The Sea Sparrow, tested at the same time, was selected instead for Navy use. During a visit to Long Beach, facing page, in 1970, the Norton Sound moored alongside the guided-missile frigate Trux- tun (DLGN-35). The frigate’s potency as an antiaircraft ship has stemmed in part from tests conducted by the former seaplane tender. The 1969 view of the Norton Sound, left, shows her configuration in the transition stage after Typhon was removed and before Aegis was installed. Note the 5-inch/54 lightweight gun on the forecastle and Sea Sparrow launcher on the fantail. The golfball-on-a-tee atop the bridge is the antenna for the SPQ-9, the radar component of the Mark 86 gunfire control system.
USS Norton Sound (AV-11) 1945
Displacement: | 14,000 tons standard 15,092 tons full load |
Length: | 520 feet waterline 540 feet, 5 inches overall |
Beam: | 69 feet, 3 inches |
Draft: | 22 feet, 3 inches |
Propulsion: | steam turbines (Allis Chalmers); 12,000 shaft horsepower; 2 shafts |
Boilers: | 4—400 pounds per square inch (Babcock & Wilcox) |
Speed: | 19.2 knots |
Complement: | 1,247 (162 officers; 1,085 enlisted men)* |
Guns: | 4 5-inch/38 cal DP Mk 30 (4x1) 20 40-mm. AA (3 x 4 Mk 1,4x2 Mk 2) 8 20-mm. AA Mk 24 (4 x 2) |
Radars: | SG surface search SK-2 air search |
•Total accommodations, including some provision for seaplane flight crews. | |
USS Norton Sound (AVM-1) 1979 | |
Displacement: | 9,106 tons standard 15,170 tons full load |
Length: | 540 feet, 3 inches |
Beam: | 7 1 feet, 7 inches |
Draft: | 2 I feet, 6 inches |
Propulsion: | steam turbines (Allis Chalmers); 12,000 shaft horsepower; 2 shafts |
Boilers: | 4—400 pounds per square inch (Babcock & Wilcox) |
Speed: | 19 knots |
Allowance: | 369 (19 officers; 350 enlisted) |
Guns: | None |
Missiles: | 1 twin Mk 26 Mod 0 launcher for Standard surface-to-air missiles |
Radars: | SPS-10 surface search SPS-40 air search SPS-52 three-dimensional search SPY-1A phased array (one face) |
**In addition, there are accommodations for 87 civilian technicians.
strayed it 15 miles from the Norton Sound. This was the first major missile firing from the ship since a Tartar RIM-24B was launched in May 1962.
At top of the facing page, a crane prepares to lift the aluminum Aegis antenna-supporting structure atop the bridge during conversion. To the right of that, riggers lower a power amplifier in through the antenna structure. On the forecastle, Norton Sound crewmen prepare to launch a weather balloon. Note wooden deck, a holdover from seaplane tender days. Above left, crewman monitor radar consoles heloudecks in order to track firings from the Mark 26 launcher, left. In the nearly bow-on view, the SPY-1 antenna is to starboard. The port array is a dummy. Above, the Norton Sound steams out of her home port of Port Hueneme, California.
During the past five years, the Norton Sound has operated as a test ship for the Aegis system, an evaluation platform for Aegis tactics, and a training ship for Navymen who will man future Aegis warships.2 The ship provides a seagoing platform that can simulate Aegis warships during tests and exercises, generally operating against land-launched missiles and drones as she steams off the southern California coast on the Pacific Missile Range.
The ship’s record in missile firings with the Aegis system, the most easily measured aspect of her operations, is impressive. During 1975, for example, the Norton Sound achieved 11 straight successful Standard-MR (SM-1) missile firings. The targets consisted of Firebee drones, QF-86 Sabre and QT-33 Shooting Star aircraft configured as target drones, a modified Talos missile, and a modified Bomarc antiaircraft missile. The Aegis target list increased the following year when the ship fired against a Septar target boat simulating an enemy missile craft.
Tests with the Aegis system have continued, with new variants of the Standard missile being added to the Norton Sound’s repertoire. After 34 years of service, the Norton Sound continues to make a valuable contribution to the U. S. Navy. She will be used in tests of the vertical-launch missile concept, a scheme to reduce the space and weight of missile systems and alleviate the time needed to load launchers by combining the magazine and launcher.3 Consideration is being given to other advanced-technology weapons and sensors that may be tested in the Norton Sound.
Aegis, the Mark 26 missile launcher, possibly vertical launch tubes, and other systems tested in the Norton Sound will be in the U. S. fleet in the year 2000 and beyond. And, although unlikely, there is a chance that the Norton Sound may still be in the fleet as well, testing systems for the next generation of warships.
2See Wayne E. Meyer and Bart Dalla Mura, “Aegis,” Proceedings. February 1977, pp. 93-97.
3See Rodney P. Rempt, “Vertical Missile Launchers: Part I,” Proceedings, October 1977, pp. 86-89; “Part II,” December 1977, pp. 105-107.
Mr. Polmar was graduated from the American University in 1965. He subsequently established a reputation as an author, historian, and analyst in the naval and aviation fields. He was assistant editor of the Proceedings from 1963 to 1967, and for ten years he was editor of the U.S. sections of Janes Fighting Ships, the only American ever to hold an editorship with that annual. He left Jane's in part to edit the 11th edition of The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet and Guide to the Soviet Navy, both published by the Naval Institute. In addition, since November 1978 he has written a regular column for the Proceedings entitled “The U.S. Navy.”
JOHNS HOPKINS APPLIED PHYSICS LAB—WILBUR FULLEN
JOHNS HOPKINS APPLIED PHYSICS LAB
JOHNS HOPKINS APPLIED PHYSICS LAB
At the top on the opposite page, a seagull casts its shadow on the Aegis antenna. Because there is only one working face, the radar scope presentation covers only 90°. And, even though she has some of the most sophisticated equipment in the fleet, there are still routine functions as when seamen and Sea Cadets handle mooring lines. Above left, Commander Thomas J. Loftus, the Norton Sound’r commanding officer, welcomes Ensign Charlene Albright and Ensign Cindra Browne. They reported in November 1978, the ship’s first two women officers. Above is a Soviet vessel maintaining surveillance of the Norton Sound during missile-firing tests. At left the Standard missile is test fired, including several bursts close to the ship to test rapid-fire capability.