Rapid Development 155 



sions and waking up to the way it's going to be. One of them was the change in 

 the approach to fire control. There was the need for new sensors that would 

 give us an advantage and the need — this was recognized at Dahlgren, I think, 

 more than anyplace else — of constantly having to change the approaches to 

 ordnance in order to insure military surprises, never really having to say you 

 have the only way. I've always felt we had to watch out for changes because, if 

 we get prepared to fight in one way that preempts all other ways, the enemy 

 would choose to fight the other way so that our real strength was in (a) a quiet 

 willingness to accept change; and (b) in making the change revolutionary, if 

 necessary, without becoming addicted to that change because you made it. The 

 strength of the naval resource at Dahlgren is the understanding — it isn't under- 

 stood by all the employees — that the way to keep ahead in military technology is 

 to constantly generate new additions, new combinations of things, at such a 

 high rate that the enemy can never catch up with you, even if you have no 

 secrecy or any restrictions. You just open up all the doors and let them come in 

 and give them all the drawings and everything else; but always stay ahead of 

 them so fast that they're kept busy trying to catch up but never really doing it. 

 Now let them make those mistakes thinking they've got the way; then they're in 

 a trap. That, I think, is the most important change that took place; even more 

 important than the new pieces of hardware that were being generated. To get 

 down to specifics, we knew we had to make bullets smarter. Trying to do this 

 almost sounded impossible — putting guidance in a bullet and a number of 

 other things, some of which are classified and can't be in this history. 



Dahlgren is heading more and more in the direction of systems work now. Did you 

 anticipate this in the late I960' si 



Oh, yes. I knew that we had to get ready for it. There were very few places in 

 the Navy where this was actually being accomplished. In Washington, there 

 were headquarters groups that thought they were doing it, mainly because they 

 were told it was in their position descriptions and their organization charters. 

 That didn't automatically make them equal to the job. It takes a lot of hard 

 work, a lot of experience, a lot of education, and a lot of equipment to have that 

 competence; and if you don't do it for a year, you're dead on the vine. Those 

 people in Washington hadn't been doing it for many, many years, but it was 

 hard for them to believe they weren't capable because they had the official 

 assignment. There was some of it being generated at China Lake, some systems 

 capability, and I think at White Oak, and a few other places in the Navy. I think 

 we've gone farthest at Dahlgren in recognizing what it really takes. It's not only 

 the breadth of the techniques — the mechanical, the electronic, the electrolytic, 

 the optical — all those techniques have to be put together. But it's also the ability 

 to generate the concepts and take them through the early feasibility stages, 



