TECHNOLOGICAL OFFENSIVE 



of value, or should tliey be left fully equipped ? Econ- 

 omy-minded persons favored removing much of the 

 valuable equipment such as guns, rangefinders, radar 

 equipment ; but others pointed out that the equipment 

 must be left on the ships if the tests were to yield the 

 maximum information. The final decision was as fol- 

 lows : Items of historical interest and all items actually 

 needed for our active fleet, except for sample items, 

 should be removed; other equipment should be left 

 aboard. 



How much repair work should be done was another 

 puzzle. For results to be fully significant, the target 

 ships should resemble normal, fighting ships; that is, 

 they should be in good shape. But a number of the 

 ships were in fact not in good shape. A few had serious 

 war wounds, patched only in makeshift manner; it 

 was clear that the old wounds might be re-opened with 

 misleading ease. Similar questions arose as to ships' 

 machinery, ordnance equipment, etc., which suffered 

 damage during the war. The decision was made that the 

 ships and their equipment should, wherever feasible, 

 be put in first class condition. The amount of repair 

 work entailed was very great; but had this work not 

 been done, it would have been almost impossible to tell 

 after each explosion what damage was really caused by 

 the explosion, and what damage should be attributed to 

 prior circumstances. 



An unusual ''must" — not normally applicable to 

 manned ships — was making the ships almost perfectly 



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