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ReseaRch a n d developmenT In T h e na v y 53
In 1955, the Secretary of the Navy set up the Special Projects Office outside
bureau jurisdiction to develop Polaris, the Navy’s first submarine-launched
ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to a distant target. The
Quality Evaluation Laboratory diversified its technological capabilities even
further through this organizational unit.
Crane did not simply graft a new R&D program onto its testing and
evaluation functions. Nor did it replace altogether the engineering staff with
newly minted Ph.D. scientists. Rather, the technological shift from conventional
ordnance to advanced missile systems like Polaris was a complementary
process in which diversification remained grounded in Crane’s long-standing
engineering tradition. Semiconductors, for example, were used in the fire
control, navigation, guidance, and other subsystems on Polaris. Crane engineers
and the new cadre of academically trained scientists that joined them during
this period acquired extensive expertise in solid-state electronics to develop
new testing, screening, and evaluation procedures to ensure peak operational
performance of semiconductors, microwave tubes, and other precision electronic
devices. In response to this technological shift, Crane management set up the
Fleet Logistics Support Department (separate from the Quality Evaluation
Laboratory) in 1970 to handle electronics work on the Polaris and Terrier
missile systems. 51 Functional specialization at Crane continued throughout the
remainder of the Cold War as more advanced ballistic missiles—Poseidon and
Trident—were introduced into fleet service. By the early 1990s, what began as
the Quality Evaluation Laboratory had evolved into the following individual
product divisions: microelectronics technology, electronic module test and repair,
microwave components, electromechanical power systems, electronic warfare,
conventional ammunition engineering, small arms, and acoustic sensors. Work
in these fields combined a broad knowledge base in electronics technology with
a continuing focus on product testing and evaluation and technical oversight of
manufacturing processes carried out in industry. 52
Bureau of Aeronautics
Like the Bureau of Ordnance, the Bureau of Aeronautics owned and operated
an institutionally diverse technological infrastructure that included research
and development laboratories, testing and inspection facilities, and aircraft
manufacturing plants. This network of laboratories and factories remained
largely intact until the early years of the Cold War, when the military services
began shifting the bulk of their resources for aircraft R&D and procurement
to private-sector contractors. 53 Rapid demobilization of the armed forces after
World War II had precipitated a massive restructuring of the domestic aircraft
51 The Quality Evaluation Laboratory continued “to concentrate on munitions testing.” Robert L.
Reid and Thomas E. Rodgers, A Good Neighbor: The First Fifty Years at Crane, 1941–1991 (Evansville:
Historic Southern Indiana Project, University of Southern Indiana, 1991), 88.
52 Ibid., 51, 81, 85 –91, 103–5.
53 Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 122; Christman, Sailors, Scientists, and Rockets, 176.