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58 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
equipment—ranging from nuclear-powered propulsion systems to sophisticated
electronics technologies for communications and countermeasures. A broad and
diversified knowledge base in the scientific and engineering disciplines supported
these procurement functions. 69 Like the bureaus of Ordnance and Aeronautics,
R&D in the Bureau of Ships was institutionally and functionally specialized.
The Engineering Experiment Station in Annapolis inspected, tested, evaluated,
and set production and performance standards for equipment manufactured in
industry. Located just outside of Washington, D.C., the David Taylor Model
Basin, by contrast, focused on more fundamental studies in hydrodynamics,
nuclear propulsion, and other scientific fields to develop new and more efficient
hull and propeller designs for submarines and surface ships. The burgeoning
field of microwave electronics claimed equal institutional status in the Bureau
of Ships during this period. Developments in electronics heavily influenced ship
design, construction, and operation during the Cold War. In 1945, the bureau
assumed control of the antisubmarine warfare program (Division 6) established
by the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development. The bureau
centralized major R&D programs at the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San
Diego and at the Underwater Sound Laboratory in New London, Connecticut.
Wartime innovations in electronics, ranging from the vacuum tube amplifiers
that powered microwave radar sets to the attendant growth of semiconductor
science and technology, revolutionized the design and function of the computer,
communication, navigation, and fire control systems that came to have an
increasingly prevalent role in ship operation and performance during the Cold
War. By the 1960s, electronic systems accounted for more than one-third of
the cost of naval ship construction. 70 Through its in-house electronics R&D
programs, the Navy expanded its technical knowledge of ship navigation and
detection. Much of this work had originated during World War II, when the
Navy initiated a major effort to improve sonar technologies for antisubmarine
warfare. Essentially the underwater equivalent of radar, sonar employed sound
waves rather than electromagnetic radiation to detect enemy targets and map out
the ocean environment to improve navigation. To improve sonar technologies
required more detailed study of the properties and behavior of the transmission
medium itself—in this case, sea water. Thus a corresponding expansion of
oceanography research accompanied further work on sonar technology.
Although wartime research on sonar and antisubmarine warfare was
conducted in many different academic, industrial, and government institutions,
three coastal laboratories handled the bulk of the Navy’s in-house program. The
Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory in San Diego expanded under contract to the
University of California, while Columbia University operated a new laboratory
69 Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 7–8, 121.
70 Shiman, Forging the Sword, 61. On the history of the wartime microwave radar program and the
postwar electronics boom that followed it, see Henry E. Guerlac, Radar in World War II, vol. 8 of The History
of Modern Physics, 1900–1950 (New York: Tomash Publishers and the American Institute of Physics, 1987);
Robert Buderi, The Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won the Second
World War and Launched a Technological Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996); and Louis Brown,
A Radar History of World War II: Technical and Military Imperatives (London: Taylor and Francis, 1999).