“SPERRYSCOPE”

NAVY REXEARCH AA?D DEK!XOPIME2vT CHARTING T m UAKNOTW’V

ACRNOWLEDGMENT

“This article, by Vice Admiral John T. Hayward, USN, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Development) appeared in the first quarter 1960 issue of ‘Spenyscope’ and is reprinted therefrom”.

T m N A W s m L L develop aircraft, weapons, tactics. techniques, organization, and equipment of naval combat and service elements.”

“The Marine Corps shall develop, in cc+ordina- tion with the Army and the Air Force, those phasas of amphibious operations that pertain to tactics, techniques, and equipment used by landing forces.’’

With these words have the American people, speaking through the 84th Congress which enacted Public Law 1028 (more commonly known as Title 10, US. Code) charge their Navy and Marine Corps with responsibility for research and development. In response to these words, the Navy and the Marine Corps direct their thought and vision and imagination to the future. More concretely, the Navy’s approach to the

future through Research and Development activi- ties is part and parcel of the overall Navy planning process. In essence, this planning embraces three phases. These are the coming fiscal year, on which planning starts 18 months prior to its beginning; the midrange perid, those 5 years next beyond; and the long-range period, 5-15 years beyond the midrange period.

These plans produce, respectively, the Navy’s Annual Program Objectives, its Projected Program Objectives, and its LOag-Range Program Objectives.

The Navy R&D process is attuned to these ob-

jectives. It works on the 1 year, 2-5 year, 5-15 year objectives simultanmsly. Thus, since Navy plan- ning is a continuous process, plans stemming from these three phases are under constant scrutiny.

Navy R&D is nothing new. It has been a stan- dard practice for decades, now become centuries. It has always been, however, a matter of emphasis and P- ’ , reflecting the fact that, as world life and conduct becomes more detailed and techni- cal, so must an institution such as the Navy organize and conduct its R&D in a more farmalized, more de- tailed, and more technological manner.

The R&D of eras gone by produced such revolu- tionary and forward-looking equipment and doc- trines as the American Turtle, a pedal-aperated submersible with which David Bushnell pmposed that the Navy attack British ships blockading New York Harbor during the American RevoIution. The Navy accepted the Turtle, but it never quite made the grade. The USS Shark, dating from around 1903, helped further the ideas of Bushnell, and it is one ob the progenitors of the vessels Nautdw and Skipjack, which today are moving into the era of the true submersible. From the humble be- ginning of the USS Pennsylvania grew the collcept of the airrraft carrier, which, enlarged and carried to its logical extension in the Fast Camikr Task Force, played a major part in sweeping the Pacific

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clear of Japanese sea influence during World War 11.

Marine Corps R&D of the 1930’s, the lean era of skeleton forces and skeleton funds, nevertheless sought out, found, fastened upon, and refused to let go of the waterborne tractor that became the “Alligator,” which crawled out of watery depths at dozens of coral-choked beaches to project Ameri- can sea power deeper into the Japanese Empire.

ORGANIZATION OF RdrD

For the past several years, the Assistant Secret- ary of the Navy for Air was charged with the re- sponsibility for cognizance of research and develop- ment matters in addition to his other responsibili- ties. Incident to the recent reorganization of the Navy Department and in recognition of the growing importance of research and development, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Air was dimtab- lished and the Office of the Assistant Secretary ( R e search and Development) was established. Dr. James H. Wakelin was appointed and has assumed this position. He has been given the overall respon- sibility of Department of the Navy research, devel- opment, test and evaluation matters.

The present research and development organiza- tion within the office of the Chief of Naval Opera- tions (OPNAV) has undergone a metamorphosis over the past years that mirrors the increased com- plexity and technical aspects of naval readiness. The need for improved m-ordination is reflected in the expansion of the R&D effort and its rise to a major field of endeavor. Thus, where previous R&D in OPNAV was attended to as one of a number of functions of a Warfare, or Readiness, or Operations (staff) Division, it is now a major division and functional field of activity -equal with the oper- ating divisions.

Prior to World War 11, the Warfare (staff) Division of OPNAV stated its operating needs in fairly general terms to the various Navy Technical Bureaus, which then built the weapons and quip ment to do that task. This system provided the Navy with the best means in existence, but the inadequate co-ordination of the total effort and the resulting expense in men and material were not acceptable for World War II demands upon the Navy. As a consequence, the Warfare, the Readiness, and the Operations Divisions became responsible for specifying in considerable detail those equipments and material neceSSSuy to their efforts. To ensure that basic research was adequately maintained, the office of Naval Research was established, and co- ordination of the work of the Technical Bureaus which were, and are, the developing agencies was performed by ONR.

In 1950, an Assistant Chief of Naval Operatinns ‘4CNO; Readiness) was established to mrdinate n e efforts of the R&D sections that were established in the Warfare, Readiness, and Operations Divisions

of OPNAV. The basic Navy tenet that new equip- ment must be called forth by those who ultimately man the ships and fight with the equipment thus was furthered.

Within the past few months, the present OPNAV Research and Development organization has evolved. The dispersed R&D sections of the War- fare, Readiness, and Operations Divisions have been centralized in one unit, DCNO (Development), the rank of the incumbent increased to Vice-Admid, and his task changed from one of “cmxdinating” the R&D effort to that of “directing” that effort within the areas of responsibility of the Chief of Naval Operations. At the same time, the organiza- tion has been expanded functionally to place ap- propriate emphasis upon guided missiles, atomic energy, and astronautics and space activities.

GETTING UNDER WAY

What starts the cycle which generates, through R&D, new equipment, or material, or doctrine for the Navy? It is a demand from the users which are the Navy or Marine Corps operating forces. Their statement of a need is translated by the OPNAV warfare staff division into a formal document known as an “Operational Requirement.” After g e ing through proper channels, this Operational Re- quirement is then served upon one of the Navy’s technical bureawBureau of Ships, Bureau of Naval Weapons, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, etc.-for study, analysis, and recommendation of a technical course of action. This course of action, formalized as a Technical Development Plan and containing such data as sequence of development, funds required, the development characteristics of the item or system proposed as the solution to the requirement. Ultimately it is approved by the DCNO (Deve-ent) and becomes a directive to the assigned Bureau. That Bureau may perfom the work itself or engage a Navy agency or laboratory to perform the work. This is a sc+called “in-house” approach. The Bureau may also contract with an outside concern to perform the work on a “com- mercial contract” basis. As work progresses, DCNO (Development)

monitors its movement, measures its success, feeds into it any modifications or new data or needs which develop subsequent to the inception of the project. DCNO also directs the series of tests and evalua- tions which measure the fitness of the finished products for adoption; and it alerts those other staff elements of OPNAV which must act to procure the item after it has been adopted. It introduces the item to the operating forces and remains alert to any possible refinements even after the equipment becomes standard.

The sum of these multiple and varied programs in any one year comprises the Navy Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation program for the given year. The proceedings described above are a

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portion of the overall process. Implicit in them are the actions which include progressive approvals of a proposed yew’s program by the Assistant Sec- retary of the Navy (Research and Development); the Secretary of the Navy; the Secretary of De- fense; the President of the United States; and tinally the Congress of the United States, which ex- presses its approval by passing laws appropriating money for the Navy RDT&E effort.

This may seem to be a cumbersome process, un- necessarily complicated and unwieldy for a field in which daring and experimentation are frequently a keynote. Such a supposition is more apparent than real. The work of R&D is related to the future of the Navy in the technical and operational sense. It costs money, lots of it, and so it also plays a part in the nation’s economic future. Seeming slowness is therefore often advisable in order to make haste wisely. At the same time, however, R&D retains its willingness to take a chance, to toss out a grubstake to a fervent dreamer whose inspiration seems worthy of nurture.

Independent proposals put forward to the Navy and the Marine Corps by private firms, institutions, and individuals responsive to stated and inferred requirements should not be overlooked. The Navy is quick to listen to such approaches, for after all, initiative and inventiveness have helped to make this nation and its Navy great. Among the more out- standing examples of this approach are the commer- cial developers of automatic and electronic data- processing equipment who envisaged military need and application of commercial practices then under dwelopment and came forward to the Services with p r o w l s .

SOME RESULTS

In the limelight now, or approaching it, are a number of outstanding produds of the Navy R&D process. Prominent among them is POLARIS, the Fleet Ballistic Missile, the missile with the moving launching base. This is the missile which any p tential enemy, once having started a war, must seek out and fhd in the millians of square miles of water- covered launching sites, if he would prevent con- trolled retaliation against his homeland.

POLARIS will be only as accurate as the naviga- tion of the submarine that carries the missile to the launching site and feeds it the basic data with which it navigates to its assigned target. Sperry is playing a vital role in the POLARIS missile system. It has developed the ship’s inertial navigation system, the NAVDAC (Naval Data Assimrla ’ tion Computer), and the system that will integrate the overall ship navigation components.

TEEPEE, the new system which envisages meas- uring the de@-ee to which the earth’s plasma has been disturbed by the launching of unfriendly bal- listic missiles and the issuing of warnings and counter missiles, is a Navy project moving through

Navy R&D toward operational status in the years to come. Ground effects machines, suspended and di- rected by downblasts of compressed air, along with advanced helicopters and vertical takeoff and land- ing aircraft, bid fair to free the Marines of the beach and help them project sea power by amphib- ious means yet further inland.

Navy submarine developments in the field of nuclear propulsion and hull design are presently representative products of Navy M D with great future implications. The nearly indefinite pericd of submersibility and greatly prolonged period of fuel effectiveness created by the application of nuclear power, as in the Nautilus and Skate, have en- hanced the mobility and flexibility of our nation’s undersea power. Coupled with this breakthrough was the development of the truly revolutionary Al- bacore hull, which, featured in the Skip jwk class of submarine, bids well to give this country the first true submersibles-vessels created to use water as their natural element, not as an obstacle to be sur- mounted.

It should not appear, however, that the Navy R&D program is totally oriented to usable end products, to “hardware.” The Navy is alert to and shares the belief of the scientific community that an R&D effort so directed and conducted is digging its own grave. Basic research, research which prc+ duces nothing more tangible than the extension of the body of knowledge about a field of i n q m is not, and must not be, neglected. Basic research is the deck upon which Navy R&D in the long haul must be based, and a sturdy one it is and shall be. The office of Naval Research thus conducts the Navy’s basic research program, distributing its ef- forts into such fundamental and broad fields of interkt as Earth Sciences (Geology, M i n ~ d w , etc.) , Psychological Sciences (Human Behavior, Human Ehgineering, etc.), and the like. A more spectacular manifestatiom of this unglamorous, but vital, pursuit of knowledge is the recent ascent of a Navy balloon many thousands of feet to make ob- servations of Venus.

FUTURE

The Navy looks confidently to the future, con- vinced that matters naval will become even more vital to the nation’s welfare, progress, and continued fl-eedom.

Navy R&D is active in the field of Astronautics and Space, attending to their naval implicatian~ and w e r a t i n g in such projects as the forthcoming Mecury Astronaut, our country’s first manned fbght into space.

Control of the seas remains critical to world peace and this nation’s defense. To this end, Navy R&D continues such developments as the nuclear- pawered aircraft carrier Enterprise, the nuclear- p ~ ~ m d Long B e i ~ h , missile carrying cruiser of the

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future; the surface-bair, air-to-air, and air-to- power in control of the seas and ready to project surface missiles which will continue to keep naval that naval power landward if the need arises.

Testing of an undersea liquid storage system developed for the Navy by the United States Rubber Company has begun in the Gulf of Mexico.

Test of the proposed storage system will be conducted by the builder, demonstrating a flexible I200-barrel prototype underwater tank devel- oped on a contract with the Office of Naval Research under the tech- nical direction of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.

The prototype tank consists of a 50,000 gallon rubber container towed today to a point in the Bay Marchand oil fields off the Louisiana coast and submerged approximately 52 feet on the Gulf's seabed. While the prototype container is one of the largest ever fabricated, it is regarded as only a segment of an undersea fuel system capable of sewing as an emergency cache for fleet ships. Full scale storage containers would be in the range of 25,000 barrels and several would be interconnected to a a common header in actual operation.

Under the plan being evaluated by the Navy, the future below-the- waves warehouses would hold more than a million gallons of fuel, enough to supply several destroyers and smaller vessels.

The 50,000-gallon container tested today i s 22 feet wide and 70 feet long when empty. When filled it becomes 20 feet in width, 68 feet in depth. Equipped t o receive and discharge liquids and capable of being joined with similar containers, the tank is held to the ocean floor by a tubular steel frame and nylon harness forming a rig of over 80 feet in length and 33 feet in width.

The prototype storage cache was built at the Mishawaka, Indiana, plant of the United States Rubber's Footwear and General Products Di- vision and hardware for the test installation was designed by the Hanns Construction Com any of Houston, Texas, under a sub-contract with the

If the underwater storage system proves feasible, the concept could be adapted by the Navy to establish fueling stations at various points for fleet ships, submarines and aircraft. The undersea containers could also be used for the storage of gasoline, lubricating oil, crude oil at offshore oil operations and possibly fresh water and other liquids.

United States Rub t er Company.

-from US. NAVY NEWS RELEASE June 21, 1960

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