142 Dahlgren 



The development of shipboard missiles must have had a retarding effect on gun work. 

 When did this occur and what was the impact, if any, at Dahlgren? 



The impact of it was that it almost put this place out of business. That was 

 really the reason for people seriously doubting whether or not they needed the 

 Station anymore. That started occurring, I would say, about the very early part 

 of the 1950's, and it was brought about by necessity. There was no design in 

 putting guns out of business, but it was just an evolution in technology that 

 produced threats which guns couldn't cope with anymore, and it was obvious 

 that there had to be some kind of weapon developed that had more intelligence 

 than bullets to cope with that threat. Electronics hadn't reached the stage of 

 development then so that we could guide projectiles. The projectiles were too 

 small for the space requirements of electronics. Electronics still came in large 

 packages, and they were still soft. They wouldn't survive the G loads that guns 

 put on guidance packages in those days. 



Could you explain that? 



Yes, I'm speaking of the setback force when the projectile is fired. It's like if 

 you were suddenly accelerated to 2600 feet per second, you'd feel bad. So 

 guidance packages felt bad. The only way electronics packages could survive 

 was by a soft or gentle launch. The only possibility of doing that was with 

 rockets, so the guided missile evolved from that, and that was the solution to the 

 problem in those days. Of course, as years went on, missiles began to get more 

 costly, and there was a period when money didn't enter into the picture and we 

 would have bought them at any cost. In fact, we did, but now we are very cost- 

 conscious, so that's caused a lot of reconsideration of the use of guided missiles. 



The advancement of solid-state electronics, which means you can package 

 them in very small packages, and their capability to survive large G forces 

 presented the opportunity for guiding projectiles. We had an attempt in the 

 early 1950's to guide projectiles. That's not very widely known and should 

 probably go into the historical account of the work at this Station. Our part in it 

 then was only testing. The Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak was the 

 developing activity for that program, and it was called the Angled Arrow, but 

 the weapon didn't use the guidance concepts that we're using now. We're using 

 missile concepts now. In fact, the guided projectile is really a gun-launched 

 guided missile, but the Angled Arrow was truly a guided projectile. Itjust didn't 

 present the Navy with the solution it was looking for. It could have worked. 

 Some of them did work, but the Navy came up with missiles, and they chal- 

 lenged the imagination of the decision makers to the point where they just 

 forgot about guns. That was essentially the end of guns, including the Angled 

 Arrow concept. It went down the tubes with everything else until the mid- 

 1960's when this Station really revived guns. 



