To download as a PDF click here - US Army Center Of Military History

More documents

Recommendations

Info

ReseaRch a n d developmenT In T h e aR m y 19 the execution of that function was still decentralized and controlled by the individual technical services under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics. The Ordnance Department retained control of its own laboratories and funds and determined how resources for R&D would be allocated to those in-house facilities and also to academic and industrial contractors through the Office of Ordnance Research. 25 Much of this institutional leverage was lost, however, in an Army-wide reorganization in the early 1960s, thereby weakening the ability of the arsenals to maintain a viable production base and a competitive scientific and technological infrastructure. Although the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics was responsible for integrating their functions into a unified weapons procurement system, the seven technical services essentially operated as separate supply organizations, each one responsible for specific components—armament, communications equipment, and so on. Efforts to reform and streamline this organizational structure had been attempted before, but it was not until the early 1960s that the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) acted decisively to implement permanent changes. Coordination and operational efficiency suffered, especially in cases where the development of new weapon systems, such as missiles and rockets, cut across the jurisdictional boundaries of two or more technical services. Prompted by these structural problems in the procurement process and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s predilection for centralized administrative control of weapons acquisition, the Pentagon deactivated the offices occupied by the Army’s technical service chiefs in 1962 and combined the functions under their control into a new organization—the Army Materiel Command (AMC). This massive restructuring eliminated the authority of the technical service chiefs and merged into a single unit all phases of the Army’s weapons acquisition process: R&D, testing and evaluation, procurement and production, inventory management, storage and distribution, and maintenance. Most of the installations previously assigned to the technical services were realigned into five major commodity commands that focused on hardware development: Weapons, Munitions, Missiles, Electronics, and Mobility. A separate Test and Evaluation Command conducted studies to certify operational readiness of the equipment developed in the commodity commands, while the Supply and Maintenance Command supervised field repairs and equipment distribution to the Army’s operating units. The reorganization intensified debates between advocates of the new materiel command and opponents, who believed that the merger of R&D with production and procurement would impede the longer term research needed to develop the most technologically advanced weapon systems. Partly in response to this ongoing conflict, the Army Staff created a two-tiered R&D organization within AMC. The five commodity commands assumed management control of most of the laboratories previously attached to the technical services. These laboratories conducted R&D to support each command’s assigned mission and 25 “Army Research Office,” Science 128 (19 September 1958): 645–46; “U.S. Army Research Office Schedules Move to New Location in June,” Army Research and Development News Magazine 3 (May 1962): 18.
20 so u R c e s o f we a p o n sy s T e m s In n o v a T Io n In T h e depaR TmenT o f defense commodity category. The new Weapons Command, for example, managed the laboratories and production facilities at Rock Island and Watervliet arsenals and Springfield Armory, while the Electronics Command supervised the old Signal Corps laboratories (renamed the Electronic Research and Development Laboratories) located at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The remaining laboratories, which conducted Army-wide research and development separate from the R&D underway in the commodity commands, reported directly to the AMC headquarters staff. 26 Space limitations and this chapter’s primary emphasis on the arsenal system preclude a detailed analysis of all the Army’s laboratories, as well as of the organizational permutations that recast their functions and missions in the decades following AMC’s establishment. 27 Some general patterns are discernable, however, and they help frame the more detailed examination of R&D in the arsenal system that follows in the section below. Despite the controversy that permeated the debates among civilian scientists, the Army Staff, and the technical service chiefs about the extent to which R&D should be divorced from production and procurement, a robust relationship between these functions remained intact in the arsenal system throughout the postwar period. At the same time, it is also true that the fading influence of the technical services hastened the decline of the arsenal system. No longer protected by the once-powerful and independent Ordnance Department, the arsenals lost some of their institutional flexibility and, as a result, were more vulnerable to the persistent drive toward government contracting that came to dominate the weapons acquisition process during the Cold War. This reality left fewer alternatives available to those arsenals already weakened by an increasingly competitive labor market for technical expertise and declining budgets for research, development, and production. 28 By 1980, Springfield and Frankford 26 Arsenal for the Brave: A History of the United States Army Materiel Command, 1962–1968 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Materiel Command, 30 September 1969), chaps. 1, 4. Also on the formation of AMC, see Hewes, From Root to McNamara, chaps. 8–10. 27 The following historical materials may be consulted for additional information on the content, scope, and restructuring of Army research and development outside the arsenal system. Institutional changes are covered in detail in Army Research and Development News Magazine and in the annual histories produced by the Army Materiel Command. Copies of the AMC annual histories are preserved at the Army Materiel Command Historical Office at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Arsenal for the Brave also provides broad coverage of the Army’s laboratory system as it evolved during the 1960s. On the latest major transformation of Army R&D—events culminating in the formation of the Army Research Laboratory at Adelphi, Maryland, in 1992—see the AMC annual histories mentioned above and also A History of the Army Research Laboratory (Adelphi, Md.: Army Research Laboratory, August 2003). Additional studies of Army R&D in some of the major AMC subordinate commands during the Cold War may be identified in Edgar F. Raines Jr., “U.S. Army Historical Publications Related to the U.S. Army in the Cold War Era: A Preliminary Bibliography,” 22 July 1994 (unpublished manuscript), Histories Division, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Lesley McNair, Washington, D.C. 28 Even before the establishment of the Army Materiel Command in 1962, the Army faced institutional competition for qualified scientists and engineers to staff the arsenal laboratories. Employment patterns varied by technical field, but industrial firms generally paid higher salaries than government laboratories for qualified scientists and engineers. Watervliet and Rock Island arsenals, for example, experienced staffing shortfalls through the post–World War II period. In some cases, shortages forced the arsenals to contract out work previously conducted internally. See “Industry-Military Link Forged,” Business Week (16 November 1946): 20–26; “Keeping Federal Labs Staffed,” Chemical and Engineering News 11
Page 2 and 3: Sou r c e S of We a p o n Sy S t e
Page 4: Chapter Page Foreword..............
Page 7 and 8: in the study and should help DoD ac
Page 10 and 11: When I began working on this monogr
Page 12: Sou r c e S of We a p o n Sy S t e
Page 15 and 16: 2 so u R c e s o f we a p o n sy s
Page 31: 18 so u R c e s o f we a p o n sy s
Page 83 and 84:
70 so u R c e s o f we a p o n sy s
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
100 so u R c e s o f we a p o n sy
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 122 and 123:
Conclusion: Review and Retrospect c
Page 124 and 125:
co n c l u sIo n : RevIew a n d ReT
Page 126 and 127:
Unpublished Documents Converse, Ell
Page 128 and 129:
BIBlIogRaphy 115 A History of Rock
Page 130 and 131:
BIBlIogRaphy 117 ———. Install
Page 132 and 133:
BIBlIogRaphy 119 ———. “Stev
Page 134 and 135:
BIBlIogRaphy 121 Hammond, P. H. “
Page 136 and 137:
BIBlIogRaphy 123 Meader, J. W. “T
Page 138 and 139:
BIBlIogRaphy 125 “Research Lab St
Page 140 and 141:
BIBlIogRaphy 127 “Weapon Center,
Page 142 and 143:
BIBlIogRaphy 129 Dyer, Davis. TRW:
Page 144 and 145:
BIBlIogRaphy 131 ———. “Cold
Page 146 and 147:
BIBlIogRaphy 133 ———.“A Hom
Page 148 and 149:
In d e x AAF. See Army Air Forces.
Page 150 and 151:
In d e x 137 percent of R&D funds a
Page 152 and 153:
In d e x 139 primary source of tech
Page 154 and 155:
In d e x 141 organizational structu
Page 156 and 157:
In d e x 143 internal friction of m
Page 158 and 159:
In d e x 145 superalloy research, 6
Page 160 and 161:
In d e x 147 Naval Ship Research an
Page 162 and 163:
In d e x 149 Matador missile develo
Page 164 and 165:
In d e x 151 Sidewinder missile, 9,
Page 166:
In d e x 153 Army arsenal system fu
show all

To download as a PDF click here - US Army Center Of Military History

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?