Naval Guns .. 



143 



MARK 71 8-inch lightweight gun firing fr.om USS HULL. 



Guns versus missiles must have caused a great deal of controversy in. Navy policymaking 

 at one time. Can you identify any changes in naval warfare tactics that resulted from this 

 issue? 



The controversy didn't come until the guided projectile began to challenge 

 the missile because there was no controversy when the missile took over from 

 guns; that wasn't controversial at all. The gunners just simply went away and 

 crawled in their holes. The tactical change that was brought about by the 

 introductio.n of missiles was the change from an offensive to a defensive Navy. 

 That's when we began to be defensive in nature, and it almost completely 

 inundated the Navy. We lost almost any capability to conduct offensive strike 

 warfare. 



Can you tell us how the guided projectile concept was conceived and relate some of the 

 initial work in this area? 



As I rather implied before, the guided projectile really led to the reawaken- 

 ing of naval gunnery and was the leading effort in this Station's thrust into 

 weapons systems development. The concept, as we know it today, is vastly 

 different from the Angled Arrow concept so that you can call it a different 

 development entirely. The present concept was born here at Dahlgren in about 

 1967. It happened right down in Building 198, the old Machine Gun Battery. 

 In those days, that's where the Armament Officer resided, and the Chief 

 Engineer for the Armament Division had his office there with the Division 

 Head in that building. Jim Kirschke was the Armament Officer, and David 

 Sloan was the Chief Engineer. 



