Weapons Program for the Western World
CAHN, ROBERT
By Robert Cahn WEAPONS PROGRAM SEVERAL YEARS ago a team of United States weapons specialists found that French scientists had developed a small wire-guided antitank missile called the SS-10....
...During the next four years, MWDP grants of $301,000 were added to $935,000 put up by the Norwegians for development of a weapons system called the Terne, and U.S...
...Competitive plane-design programs were sponsored in France and Italy...
...weapons men turned the problem over to the Mutual Weapons Development Program (MWDP)— an organization which helps our European Allies create new weapons especially suited to their needs...
...Months later, U.S...
...As a result there is now in production in Turin, Italy, a Fiat G-91 jet plane equipped with England's Bristol Orpheus engine and a French-designed landing gear...
...But to the amazement of workers on both sides of the Atlantic, funds from the new Mutual Weapons Program were allotted to a projected SS-11...
...But it is paying surprising dividends in advancing the free world's security, and it doesn't give away a single U.S...
...Navy test facilities at Key West, Florida, were placed at the disposal of the Oslo scientists...
...and the complicated systems being developed by England and the U.S...
...It also accepts responsibility for providing spare parts and maintenance personnel for the new weapons— items which have been enormously expensive to U.S...
...Then the ideas are reviewed by the research and development staff of the U.S...
...Italy's defense requires year-round troop movements in the Alps...
...the proximity fuse was the invention of a German refugee...
...Currently directing the team is Lieutenant General Thomas Lar-kin (U.S...
...England, France, Belgium, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands and, later, West Germany and Turkey, all agreed to coU.S...
...The French had little hope of receiving U.S...
...Herbert F. York, Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Department of Defense, "The program is one of our nation's best investments in the future of the free world...
...The U.S...
...By mid-1959 MWDP had cooperated with other nations on more than 200 projects...
...1960—Robert Cahn...
...plane, tank, ship or missile...
...MWDP, an imaginative, low-cost project now in its seventh year of operation as part of our military-air ROBERT CAHN, formerly a senior editor of Collier's, is a specialist in European and U.S...
...Unfortunately, the missile had a short range, needed further development to be effective, and the French were short of funds...
...Today French anti-tank missiles are being supplied to Allied forces in Europe...
...The electric torpedo was British...
...military representatives watched field tests in which the improved missile scored 80 per cent hits on tanks up to two miles away...
...The French missile looked so good that the Department of Defense canceled a $16 million contract for production of the Dart...
...In final tests in the summer of 1958 a small Norwegian frigate equipped with the Terne system located the "enemy" with search sonar, computed the range, direction and depth of the target and automatically fired six rocket-propelled depth charges set to explode when near the target...
...The country involved in a new weapons project agrees to manufacture the items and make them available to other Allied nations...
...Army...
...funds...
...it was guided to the target by moving a small joy-stick which transmitted control through two fine wires trailed by the missile in flight...
...A final screening is made by a group of prominent U.S...
...It is now being added to the air forces of West Germany, Italy, Turkey and Greece...
...The highly flexible MWDP setup has expanded its horizons several times to meet requirements of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization...
...Powerful enough to penetrate the armor of any tank, it could be launched by one man from the ground, a jeep or a helicopter...
...Weapons proposals are first submitted informally to U.S...
...In 1954 General Lauris Norstad...
...help in financing development of an improved, longer-range model, because the U.S...
...Says Dr...
...scientists, and their findings are passed on at the Pentagon by Charles S. Weaver, Director of the Office of Foreign Programs...
...commander of NATO forces, asked MWDP for a lightweight short-take-off aircraft that could operate from pastures and roads and be hidden in barns and woods...
...defense activities...
...military organization promotes defense exchanges FOR THE WESTERN WORLD operate, and in the fall of 1953 a team of U.S...
...Another project has been dubbed a Mechanical Mule—a light three-wheel vehicle which can carry a 1,000-pound load up 70 per cent grades...
...In accordance with MWDP procedures, Britain is allowing Italian, French and West German companies to manufacture the new engine, while Fiat has agreed to the manufacture of some of the complete planes by a West German company...
...military planners at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE...
...The plane was needed in case an enemy attack destroyed concrete runways and cut off air support for ground troops...
...Only about two per cent of our military-assistance appropriation is invested in the program...
...The program is also breaking down the traditional attitude that unless an invention comes from one's own country it can't be any good—an attitude known in the U.S...
...The Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, in working on the problem, was hampered by scanty funds and limited test facilities...
...Quarles and Voorhees recognized the possibilities of further important cooperative development, and Voorhees undertook to explain the proposed plan to our Allies...
...taxpayers wherever American weapons have been furnished overseas...
...Britain was given financial support for the development of a compact jet engine...
...program, operates with a minimum of U.S...
...They remembered that many decisive World War II weapons were developed from the ideas of Europeans...
...Army was working on its own wire-guided missile called the Dart...
...the A-bomb was based on research done by Albert Einstein in Germany, Enrico Fermi in Italy and Nils Bohr in Denmark...
...Navy and Air Force representatives was organized to survey military research in each of these countries...
...One MWDP-supported project is a portable ropeway for lifting troops and equipment up sheer cliffs and across canyons...
...The Royal Norwegian Navy's weapons systems were ineffective against modern, fast submarines...
...The rear wheels can be pulled in 20 inches to negotiate narrow trails and one of them can be locked, to spin the vehicle on its axis...
...Its effect has been to mobilize and utilize the scientific competence of our European Allies, add their inventive capabilities to ours and hasten the day when these nations will be able to supply most of their own military requirements...
...Department of Defense and by the three services...
...MWDP had paid 36 per cent and the other nations 64 per cent of the $538 million costs...
...The idea behind MWDP was hatched by three men directly concerned with getting the most out of our military-aid dollars—Harold Stassen, at the time Foreign Operations Administrator, the late Donald Quarles, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Development, and Tracy Voorhees, former Director of Offshore Procurement...
...Army, Ret...
...The Terne, now in production in Norway, can be mounted on ships as small as 500 tons, and can also convert small civilian craft to combat use...
...The lightweight (12,000-pound) plane can take off or land in a pasture, fly up to 600 miles per hour and carry small tactical nuclear bombs...
...The heart of the MWDP operation is a 20-man Army-Navy-Air Force team which roams Europe seeking new projects and monitoring old ones...
...were too large for most of Norway's ships...
...During their first European survey the Mutual Weapons team found Norway acutely conscious of the rapidly expanding Soviet submarine fleet based close to her shores...
...This year the Department of Defense hopes to extend MWDP to Australia and Japan and later to other nations, providing the countries have adequate security safeguards to protect the many secret MWDP projects...
...This is the first all-NATO weapons system and an international squadron of NATO Lightweight Tactical Strike Fighters is being organized...
...Basically like a ski lift and operated by hand or motor, the ropeway can carry 450 pounds and can stop at any point to lower its load...
...military as "NIH" (Not Invented Here...
Vol. 43 • May 1960 • No. 18
