World Naval Developments

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’ ¹¹ 's more significant than the radar development. It may, for *>"■ ^{P e}’ Presage a Soviet shift toward operating ships in concentrated

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TOatively, it is possible that the carrier, with her good radar

^°^viet Aegis-like Radar Unveiled

j_uJ^{he S}°viet Kiev-class carrier Baku emerged from the Turkish Straits in ^rada ^etlUipP^{ed wit}h a new radar suite, including a phased-array search ^ai>no ^antenna’ ^the NATO reporting name of which has not been fiv_e ^Unced> consists of four rectangular panels, each about five meters by enters (i.e._; slightly larger than those of the U. S. Aegis SPY-1), l_0ri ^{ed bac}k at an angle of about 15°. This system replaces the Top Pair of_th^ran8^e> three-dimensional air-search radar in the three earlier ships ejrij^{6 c}'^ass- It is the first Soviet fixed-array search radar to go to sea. The ^er Kiev-class ships’ Top Dome radar, which is generally described as

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def_Pri°^n,Ca^y scanned, is a fire-control device for the SA-N-6 area-

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tttissil ^{e earlier} Kiev-class ships, the Baku has no long-range antiaircraft sii_e ®' Instead, she has only a vertically launched point-defense mis- arejJ _ai^{e Sa}-N-9 (which replaces the earlier SA-N-4). That suggests that Pe_rj,_a '^{r def}cnse may be entrusted instead to the fighters the ship carries, the _Ca ^SUccessors to the current daylight-only Yak-38 Forger. If that is

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and-and-control facilities, is considered by the Soviets to be an ^carri_e'_r'^v;, ^extensi°n ^of their land-centered air-defense system, and that the not be^therefore will control land-based fighters. In that case, she would '^dentif P^rovided with a long-range surface-to-air missile, because any fighter^1Calion~^friend-^or-f°e errors on her part would tend to destroy those •he (j ^S„ ^{11 is} likely that the Soviet Navy will operate the ship much like ^ship j_n| ^Navy operates its carriers, but the Soviets have explained the °f l_a ,^ernaHy (within the Soviet defense establishment) as an extension Eli_m.^or‘^ented systems.

mi_Ssile^lnating the SA-N-3 launchers increases space for SS-N-12 cruise- ^CVer, _n^{tU,3eS 3nc}* P^errn>^ts the ship to carry larger aircraft. There is, how- Tbil'ij,w ^likehhood that the Baku (or her successor, the much larger ^has a catapult and thus can launch anything other than vertical/

short takeoff and landing aircraft.

The absence of a long-range missile suggests that the Baku phased array is not precise enough for fire control, i.e., it is not capable of Aegis’s SPY-1A precision performance. The Soviet system probably operates at a lower frequency (Top Pair certainly does), i.e., at longer wavelength, which means a broader beam for the same antenna size. It is probably more comparable to the SPS-32/33 combination formerly in the missile cruiser USS Long Beach (CGN-9) and the carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65). Lower frequency would be attractive for its longer maximum range (owing to lower attenuation) and because it is easier to generate very high power at lower frequency. Aegis cruisers supplement their SPY-ls with a conventional lower-frequency radar, the SPS-49.

Collision Raises Japanese Ire

The Japanese Navy has come under considerable fire after the Japa­nese submarine Nadashio collided with and sank the fishing boat Fuji Maru No. I off Yokosuka. The fishing boat was carrying businessmen and their families on a holiday trip, and the submarine sank her while trying to avoid a yacht on her other side. The fishing boat reportedly was in violation of the rules of the road when she was struck. However, the Japanese press blamed the commander of the submarine, which did not remain in the area to give assistance. Tsutomu Kawara, the equivalent of the U. S. Secretary of Defense, had to resign.

The incident is an interesting measure of current Japanese attitudes. Many observers claim Japan is dominated by its major corporations and relatively uninterested in military force as a means of self-protection. The media’s handling of the submarine incident reinforces that view: the military was killing not merely civilians, but businessmen on holiday. That the captain of the fishing boat had violated the rules of the road (and thus had been responsible, according to those rules) apparently was not relevant.

The treatment of the incident may also reflect tension in Japan as military spending increases, and as conservatives press for more tradi­tional expressions of nationalism. For example, the Ministry of Educa­tion is requiring special "moral training,” which many observers see as training in nationalism as well as in discipline. This move is bitterly resented by those who equate such instruction to pre-World War II indoc­trination. Attempts to rewrite Japanese school textbooks to present Japa­nese wartime and prewar operations in a favorable light have been at­tacked domestically and by countries such as China, which was the target of many operations. These tensions help explain the significance of offi­cial Japanese visits to the Yasukuni Shrine—the military memorial in Tokyo—on 15 August, the day commemorating the end of the Pacific war. The ashes of the war criminals—all senior Japanese officers and administrators—hanged by the United States are enshrined there.

The Japanese government is still far from arming on a level commen­surate with its income. In addition, many Japanese still blame the mili­tary for the disasters of World War II, and even an attempt to send minesweepers to the Persian Gulf was rejected. However, the revision of the textbooks and the changes in curriculum indicate an opposite trend— a rejection of postwar guilt and a newly felt national strength. The anger over the sinking of the fishing boat probably stems from the collision between those two trends.