Sources of Weapon

Systems Innovation in the

Department of Defense

The Role of In-House Research and Development, 1945—2000

By Thomas C. Lassman

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2008
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lassman, Thomas Charles.

 Sources of weapon systems innovation in the Department of Defense : the role of research 

and development, 1945-2000 / by Thomas C. Lassman.

 p. cm.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 1. Military research—United States—History—20th century. 2. Weapons systems—

United States—Research. I. Title. 

 U393.L378 2008

 355’.07097309045—dc22

 2008032909

CMH Pub 51–2–1
iii

Chapter Page

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

1. Introduction: The Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. Research and Development in the Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

 Changing Institutional Patterns of Army Research and 

 Development after World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

 The Content of Research and Development in the Arsenal System . . . 21

 Decline of the Arsenal System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3. Research and Development in the Navy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

 Bureau of Ordnance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

 Bureau of Aeronautics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

 Bureau of Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

 From Bureaus and Laboratories to System Commands and 

 Research Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

4. Research and Development in the Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

 From Army Air Corps to United States Air Force, 1907–1950 . . . . 72

 Growth and Diversification: The Air Research

 and Development Command, 1950–1961 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

 Reintegration: R&D in the Air Force Systems Command, 

 1961–1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

 Coming Full Circle: Patterns of Organizational Change 

 in Air Force R&D Since 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

5. Conclusion: Review and Retrospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Contents

v

Since the end of World War II, civilian and military policymakers have 

sought to understand and improve the institutional processes involved in the 

development of modern weapons systems. The persistent calls for institutional, 

managerial, and organizational reform suggest that such tasks have not always 

been easy nor clearly defined. This study is intended to bring some historical clarity 

to that problem by identifying and examining the patterns of organizational and 

institutional change that guided in-house weapons research and development 

(R&D) over the course of the past six decades. Specifically, it details the history 

of weapons R&D in the major laboratories owned and operated by the Army, 

the Navy, and the Air Force between 1945 and 2000. At the same time, the 

monograph complements a larger multivolume historical effort that is currently 

analyzing the policies, procedures, and institutions that guided the development, 

production, and procurement of major weapon systems during the same period. 

Together they constitute the on-going Defense Acquisition History Project.

The Department of Defense spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year 

to keep U.S. forces equipped with state-of-the-art weapon systems. Research and 

development is an essential component of this process. It is the foundation upon 

which all weapon systems are built once requirements have been set. Although 

they outsourced a significant share of their research requirements during the 

Cold War, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force also maintained extensive 

in-house R&D establishments whose laboratories turned out many products, 

ranging from fundamental knowledge in physics, chemistry, and other scientific 

disciplines to complete prototype weapon systems. What set the services apart 

from one another, however, was the extent to which they managed and organized 

their respective R&D programs.

In the Army, research, development, and production proceeded alongside 

one another in the manufacturing arsenals that had been in continuous 

operation since the beginning of the nineteenth century, despite actions taken by 

some Army leaders to separate these functions organizationally as a necessary 

prerequisite to the development of technologically advanced weapon systems. 

The Navy, by contrast, maintained a sharper organizational division of labor 

between R&D and production. Established in 1923, the Naval Research 

Laboratory operated independently of the Navy’s material bureaus, where, like 

the Army’s arsenals, technological innovation had historically depended on the 

close coordination of research, development, and production. Created in 1947, 

the Air Force relied more heavily than the Army and the Navy on the private 

sector for new knowledge and skills. But it also operated an extensive network of 

in-house laboratories, the management and organization of which periodically 

shifted between the extremes of independence from and subordination to the Air 

Force’s production and procurement functions. Throughout all three services, a 

disjunction sometimes existed between the formulation of R&D policies at the 

management level and the implementation of those policies in the laboratory. 

These relationships and other patterns of organizational change are highlighted 

Foreword
vi

in the study and should help DoD acquisition managers to understand the 

current acquisition environment and successfully navigate their way through 

it as they seek to make informed decisions about future weapons development 

across an increasingly broad spectrum of activities.

Washington, D.C. Jeffrey J. Clarke

August 15, 2008 Chief of Military History
vii

Thomas C. Lassman was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He 

received a B.A. degree in history from Washington University in 1991 and M.A. 

and Ph.D. degrees in the history of science from Johns Hopkins University in 

1996 and 2000, respectively. Before joining the U.S. Army Center of Military 

History as a contract historian in 2005, he worked at the Chemical Heritage 

Foundation in Philadelphia and the Center for History of Physics at the 

American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland.

The Author

ix

When I began working on this monograph as a contract historian for the 

Defense Acquisition History Project at the U.S. Army Center of Military History 

(CMH) in June 2005, I knew very little about American military history. My 

knowledge of the field was limited to a few periods and events directly relevant to 

the subject of my doctoral dissertation. That gap has since narrowed significantly, 

thanks in no small part to the input and expertise provided by my colleagues 

on the project. Glen Asner, Nancy Berlage, and Chris Dachi first introduced 

me to the Defense Acquisition History Project, and Jeffrey Clarke, then Chief 

Historian (now Chief of Military History), hired me to write this monograph. I 

am especially grateful to them and to Alfred Goldberg, Stuart Rochester, Richard 

Stewart, and Louis Galambos for their encouragement and guidance.

Dr. Clarke and Dr. Stewart, currently Chief Historian, carefully read 

and critiqued the entire manuscript. Elliott Converse, whose research and 

writing on the history of weapon systems acquisition in the Department of 

Defense during the early years of the Cold War has served as a model for my 

own work, also provided invaluable comments and support. He has been an 

outstanding colleague, friend, and mentor. I am equally indebted to J. Ronald 

Fox, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the weapons acquisition process and 

detailed critiques of my chapters improved the manuscript immeasurably. Alisa 

Robinson, Chief of CMH’s Editorial Branch, guided the final version through the 

editing and publication process. James McDonald, of the Office of the Deputy 

Undersecretary of Defense (Science and Technology), reviewed the manuscript 

for public release.

I must extend a very special thanks to my daily lunchtime companions at 

CMH—Walter Poole, Edgar Raines, Walton Moody, and Philip Shiman. Their 

friendship sustained me throughout the research and writing process, and I am 

also grateful to them for helping me learn the ins and outs of American military 

history. I also thank David Allen, Carolyn Halladay, and Shannon Brown for 

their assistance on the project.

I am grateful to the librarians and archivists in the Library and Archives Branch 

at CMH who helped me identify and locate source materials. I am especially 

indebted to Patricia Ames and Lenore Gardner, both of whom patiently tracked 

down many journal articles, books, and unpublished documents. Without their 

help, conducting the research for this study would have been a far more arduous 

process than it turned out to be. I rarely experienced problems with my office 

computer equipment, thanks to the technical support provided by Jeffrey Noone. 

Cheryl Eddens, CMH’s security manager, helped me obtain a security clearance 

and the required identification badges and building passes to work at CMH and 

other Defense Department installations in the Washington D.C. area.

Several outside reviewers generously gave their time to read and comment 

on the manuscript. Professor David Hounshell at Carnegie Mellon University, 

whose own work on the history of American industrial research frames much 

of the analysis in the pages that follow, provided an outstanding critique that 

encouraged me to rethink some of the major themes and arguments. So did Glen 

Preface
x

Asner, whose recent Ph.D. dissertation on the impact of military contracting 

on industrial R&D during the Cold War will likely set the standard for future 

scholarship in the field. Professor Robert Kargon, my graduate advisor at Johns 

Hopkins University, also read and critiqued the manuscript. Herbert Fusfeld 

joined the research staff of the Frankford Arsenal as a physicist in 1941. In April 

2005, just before I joined the acquisition history project, Dr. Fusfeld discussed 

with me his research at the arsenal during World War II, and he also reviewed 

an early draft of chapter 2. Jeffrey Barlow at the Naval Historical Center kindly 

reviewed chapter 3. Michael Neufeld at the Smithsonian Institution’s National 

Air and Space Museum recommended several important sources on the history 

of the Army’s rocket and missile programs. 

Finally, I am very grateful to my family and friends who have always supported 

me and my love of history. Research and writing can be a lonely experience. It 

was for me until the fall of 2005, when I met Rebecca Osthus. Her presence in 

my life has been nothing less than joyous.

Although this study is the result of a collective effort, I alone am fully 

responsible for any errors of fact and interpretation.

Washington, D.C. Thomas C. Lassman

August 24, 2008
Sources of Weapon

Systems Innovation in the

Department of Defense

The Role of In-House Research and Development, 1945--2000

Chapter One

Introduction: The Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation

This study of weapons research and development (R&D) in the Army, the 

Navy, and the Air Force complements a larger, multivolume history of weapons 

acquisition in the Department of Defense, covering the period 1945 to 2001. 

The series examines the policies, procedures, and institutional environment that 

guided the development and procurement of major weapon systems, such as 

tanks, artillery, strategic and tactical aircraft, ballistic missiles, surface ships, and 

nuclear submarines.1 Because of its brevity, imposed by a one-year contract with 

the U.S. Army Center of Military History, this monograph does not examine 

all of the in-house laboratories owned and operated by the military services. It 

concentrates instead on major facilities and programs that illustrate the scope 

and content of weapons R&D at specific points in time throughout the postwar 

period. The goal is not to be comprehensive but rather to provide a broad 

historical overview of the Defense Department’s internal R&D operations and 

highlight the patterns of organizational change that guided the development of 

major weapon systems.

Toward that goal, this study focuses on laboratory research in the physical 

sciences. It omits federally funded research and development centers, many of 

which did not support bench science in the laboratory. The Rand Corporation, the 

Mitre Corporation, and the Institute for Defense Analysis, for example, fit into this 

latter category. Also omitted are civilian government laboratories, even though they 

routinely provided technical services, and in some cases complete weapon systems, 

to the military departments. Representative examples of institutions in this category 

include the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the National Bureau of 

Standards, and the nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities owned by 

the Department of Energy and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission.2

1 The series, which was still in progress at the U.S. Army Center of Military History at the time this 

study was completed (fall 2006), comprises five narrative volumes and one documentary volume. 2 On the National Bureau of Standards, see Rexmond C. Cochrane, Measures for Progress: A History of 

the National Bureau of Standards (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1966); Elio Passaglia 

with Karma A. Beal, A Unique Institution: The National Bureau of Standards, 1950–1969 (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Department of Commerce, 1999); and James F. Schooley, Responding to National Needs: The National 

Bureau of Standards Becomes the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1969–1993 (Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2000). The history of the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics is examined in Alex Roland, Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 

1915–1958, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1985). On the 

Atomic Energy Commission, see the official three-volume history: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. 

Anderson, The New World, 1939–1946, vol. 1 of A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission

(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962); Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, 

Atomic Shield, 1947–1952, vol. 2 of A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University 

Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969); and Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for 

Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission, vol. 3 of A History of the United 
2 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Admittedly, these omissions are to some extent arbitrary, determined more by space 

and time constraints than by any comprehensive, theoretically informed argument 

that would necessitate the elimination of one type of research and development 

organization in favor of another. But the larger goal of understanding the historical 

evolution of the weapons acquisition process within the Department of Defense 

after World War II precludes coverage of the entire federal R&D establishment.

World War II marked the beginning of a massive and permanent restructuring 

of the institutional relationship between the civilian scientific establishment and 

the military services in the United States. Prior to 1940, with few exceptions, 

weapons research and development was concentrated in production facilities 

owned and operated by the Army and the Navy. The Army’s primary source 

of technological innovation and weapons acquisition had been, for more than 

a century, the system of manufacturing arsenals that developed and produced 

everything from rifles and small-arms ammunition to field guns and tanks. 

Similarly, the latest advances in shipbuilding technology originated in the Navy’s 

technical bureaus and an interconnected network of shipyards and docks. The 

Air Force, which did not achieve independent status from the Army until 1947, 

followed a somewhat different strategy, relying much more heavily than the 

Army and the Navy on private industry for new technical knowledge. In all 

cases, however, the end of World War II signaled the beginning of a protracted 

decline of the R&D laboratories attached to the manufacturing facilities owned 

and operated by the military services as the government began shifting more of 

its resources for the development and production of new weapons technologies 

to private-sector institutions.

To be sure, some service facilities, such as the Naval Research Laboratory, 

continued to thrive after the war, but the outsourcing of R&D continued 

unabated. Although technologically sophisticated in their own right, the inhouse laboratories managed by the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force were 

not equipped to handle the anticipated R&D requirements of new highspeed aircraft, nuclear submarines, and other weapon systems employing the 

latest advances in solid-state electronics, jet propulsion, and atomic energy. 

Industry and academia provided much of the requisite expertise to develop and 

manufacture these technologies for an expanding military establishment. This 

trend persisted throughout the Cold War.3

During World War II, the federal government relied on the private sector to 

develop and produce the massive quantities of weapons needed by the military 

services. The absence of a large peacetime military establishment, compounded 

by the debilitating effects of the Great Depression and policies favoring 

States Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Also useful are Peter 

J. Westwick, The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947–1974 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard 

University Press, 2003); and Robert W. Seidel, “A Home for Big Science: The Atomic Energy Commission’s 

Laboratory System,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 16 (1986): 135–75. 3 For a concise overview of the weapons production facilities operated by the Army, the Navy, and the 

Air Force during the Cold War, see Philip Shiman, Forging the Sword: Defense Production During the Cold 

War (Champaign, Ill.: Construction Engineering Research Laboratoriesa, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 

July 1997).
Introduction: The Sources of Weapons Innovation 3

isolationism in international affairs during the interwar period, had left the system 

of arsenals, shipyards, and in-house laboratories without sufficient resources 

to support the wartime mobilization. This gap was filled by new emergency 

agencies that coordinated the operational requirements of the military services 

and the research, development, and manufacturing capabilities of business and 

industry. The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), for 

example, distributed most of the federal funds allocated for R&D to industrial 

and university laboratories, where scientists and engineers collaborated with 

their government counterparts to produce the atomic bomb, microwave radar, 

the radio proximity fuse, and a host of other state-of-the-art weapons vital to 

the war effort. The Defense Plant Corporation and the War Production Board 

carried out similar functions, coordinating industrial R&D and allocating public 

funds to expand the production of steel, synthetic rubber, pharmaceuticals, 

aviation fuel, and other critical wartime materials.4 Although these and other 

emergency agencies were quickly dismantled after the war, their institutional 

legacies became permanent fixtures in a newly reconstituted, postwar scientific 

establishment in which the government had become the largest single source 

of funding for academic research in the physical sciences. Moreover, the end 

of World War II did not result in the complete demobilization of the armed 

forces and the scientific and industrial infrastructure that had been built by the 

government to develop and produce new weapons. Deteriorating relations with 

the Soviet Union and the subsequent onset of the Cold War after 1945 set the 

United States on a course toward permanent military preparedness that would 

last for nearly fifty years.5

The extent to which the government was expected to maintain its new function 

as a source of scientific progress, economic prosperity, and military security in 

peacetime became the centerpiece of a fierce political struggle between civilian 

and government science policymakers during the last days of World War II. A 

leading spokesman in this debate was Vannevar Bush, wartime director of the 

Office of Scientific Research and Development and one of the major architects 

of America’s postwar science policy. In his landmark report, Science—The Endless 

Frontier, Bush argued that scientific research of the type normally conducted in 

universities rather than government laboratories would be the principal source 

of industrial innovation, military security, and economic growth. In Bush’s mind, 

the government would simply make funds available for scientific study, and 

the recipient private-sector institutions would determine for themselves how 

those resources should be allocated. Bush and his allies in Congress favored 

4 See David M. Hart, Forged Consensus: Science, Technology, and Economic Policy in the United 

States, 1921–1953 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), chap. 5; and Peter Neushul, “Science, 

Technology, and the Arsenal of Democracy: Production Research and Development during World War II” 

(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1993). 5 On American-Soviet relations and the changing geopolitical environment during the Cold War, see 

Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold 

War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992); John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins 

of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972); and Gaddis, Strategies of 

Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2005).
4 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

the establishment of a new civilian agency—the National Research Foundation 

(later the National Science Foundation)—to distribute public funds for basic 

research to colleges and universities. Bitter debates in Congress, however, 

prevented passage of the foundation’s enabling legislation until 1950, thereby 

allowing the military services to fill the void left after OSRD had closed five years 

earlier.6 In 1946, for example, the Navy established the Office of Naval Research 

(ONR) as an independent organization separate from the technical bureaus to 

fund academic and industrial research in the physical sciences. By the end of the 

decade, ONR was a major source of government funding for basic research in 

the United States. The other services followed ONR’s lead, organizing their own 

contracting offices to support research in new fields of science and engineering 

recently opened up during the war.7

The impetus toward greater reliance on contracting rather than in-house 

government research and development after World War II was also driven by 

the tremendous growth and diversification of the scientific disciplines during 

the previous half century. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, the 

United States had been an intellectual backwater in such fields as theoretical 

physics and organic and physical chemistry; the major developments in these 

fields originated in Europe. By 1900, however, the United States boasted a 

6 On Bush, OSRD, and postwar research policy, see G. Pascal Zachary, Endless Frontier: Vannevar 

Bush, Engineer of the American Century (New York: Free Press, 1997); Nathan Reingold, “Vannevar 

Bush’s New Deal for Research: Or the Triumph of the Old Order,” Historical Studies in the Physical and 

Biological Sciences 17 (1987): 299–344; Reingold, “Choosing the Future: The U.S. Research Community, 

1944–46,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 25 (1995): 301–28; Larry Owens, “The 

Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World War: Vannevar Bush and the Office 

of Scientific Research and Development,” Business History Review 68 (Winter 1994): 515–76; Daniel J. 

Kevles, “The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942–1945: 

A Political Interpretation of Science—The Endless Frontier,” Isis 68 (March 1977): 5–26; Jessica Wang, 

“Liberals, the Progressive Left, and the Political Economy of Postwar American Science: The National 

Science Foundation Debate Revisited,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 26 (1995): 

139–66; and J. Merton England, A Patron for Pure Science: The National Science Foundation’s Formative 

Years, 1945–1957 (Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1982). 7 On the expansion of military funding for R&D and its impact on private-sector institutions during 

the Cold War, see, for example, Harvey M. Sapolsky, Science and the Navy: The History of the Office of Naval 

Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Nick A. Komons, Science and the Air Force: A History 

of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Arlington, Va.: Historical Division, Office of Information, Office 

of Aerospace Research, 1966); Paul K. Hoch, “The Crystallization of a Strategic Alliance: The American 

Physics Elite and the Military in the 1940s,” in vol. 1 of Science, Technology, and the Military, ed. Everett 

Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith, and Peter Weingart (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic 

Publishers, 1988); Robert W. Seidel, “Accelerators and National Security: The Evolution of Science Policy 

for High-Energy Physics, 1947–1967,” History and Technology 11 (1994): 361–91; Seidel, “Accelerating 

Science: The Postwar Transformation of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory,” Historical Studies in the 

Physical Sciences 13 (1983): 375–400; Thomas J. Misa, “Military Needs, Commercial Realities, and the 

Development of the Transistor, 1948–1958,” in Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives 

on the American Experience, ed. Merritt Roe Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985); Stuart W. Leslie, 

The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1993); John W. Servos, “Changing Partners: The Mellon Institute, Private 

Industry, and the Federal Patron,” Technology and Culture 35 (April 1994): 221–57; Paul Forman, “Behind 

Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940–1960,” 

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18 (1987): 149–229; Daniel J. Kevles, “Cold War 

and Hot Physics: Science, Security, and the American State, 1945–56,” Historical Studies in the Physical and 

Biological Sciences 20 (1990): 239–64; and Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly, eds., Big Science: The Growth of 

Large-Scale Research (Stanford: University Press, 1992).
Introduction: The Sources of Weapons Innovation 5

small but steadily growing network of research universities supported by the 

personal fortunes of wealthy industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie and John 

D. Rockefeller. From these humble beginnings emerged a domestic scientific 

community that, by 1940, had already assumed international standing in the 

physical sciences, especially in the new fields of atomic, nuclear, and solid-state 

physics. Similarly in the case of industry, many large manufacturing companies 

had established centralized research laboratories after 1900 to capitalize on the 

latest developments in these and other scientific and engineering disciplines.8

The military services aggressively tapped this diversified academic and industrial 

knowledge base during World War II, and they would continue to do so after the 

war was over, to meet evolving weapons requirements.

The rapid postwar growth of the civilian research infrastructure matched 

the continued diversification of key sectors of the industrial economy into 

the defense business. The huge demand for war materials had prompted 

businesses across the country to add manufacturing capacity (at government 

expense) for everything from aircraft parts and optical equipment to torpedoes 

and artillery shells. Although many companies jettisoned or closed their 

military operations after 1945 and prepared to re-enter civilian markets, 

others chose to remain in the defense business by purchasing governmentowned production facilities built during the war. The firms pursuing this 

latter strategy were as diverse as the defense markets they served. Some 

companies, such as the aircraft and electrical equipment manufacturers, had 

always provided hardware to the military services, even during peacetime, and 

they simply added more capabilities to these core businesses. In other cases, 

firms that had cut their teeth on military contracts during the war viewed 

the rapid growth potential in new defense markets as an effective means to 

offset cyclical behavior in existing civilian product lines. Typically, such firms 

diversified into defense-related fields through outside acquisitions or by 

expanding their internal R&D operations. The latter strategy was especially 

common in large, science-based corporations during the early years of the 

8 On the rise of research universities and the growth of the scientific and engineering communities in 

the United States, see, for example, Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community 

in Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Helge Kragh, Quantum 

Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); 

John W. Servos, Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling: The Making of a Science in America (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1990); Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 1965); Roger L. Geiger, To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American 

Research Universities, 1900–1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Robert E. Kohler, Partners 

in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900–1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); 

and Bruce Seely, “Research, Engineering, and Science in American Engineering Colleges, 1900–1960,” 

Technology and Culture 34 (April 1993): 344–86. On the growth of science-based industries and the 

corresponding expansion of corporate research and development, see Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Strategy and 

Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 

1962); Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass.: 

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977); David A. Hounshell, “The Evolution of Industrial 

Research in the United States,” in Engines of Innovation: U.S. Industrial Research at the End of an Era, ed. 

Richard S. Rosenbloom and William J. Spencer (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996); and John 

Kenly Smith Jr., “The Scientific Tradition in American Industrial Research,” Technology and Culture 31 

( January 1990): 121–31.
6 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Cold War, when research in cutting-edge fields, such as solid-state physics 

and semiconductor electronics, was expected to be a major source of new 

technologies, both civilian and military.9 Consequently, the growth of captured 

markets for military hardware in a broad range of manufacturing industries 

after World War II accelerated the shift in defense spending for R&D from 

the in-house laboratories operated by the military services to a wide variety 

of private-sector businesses that now had the technical capabilities to meet 

critical defense requirements.

At the end of World War II, it was by no means certain that the government 

arms industry would decline at the expense of the private sector, but there 

were clear signs that the business community was in a more favorable position 

to grow and expand than the old-line arsenals and shipyards operated by the 

Army and the Navy. During the depression years, the business community had 

been brought to its knees as the government struggled to revive an economy 

eviscerated by overproduction and anemic consumer demand.10 The onset of 

war, however, reversed this trend and helped revive the economy. Driven by 

huge infusions of capital from the government for new manufacturing capacity, 

the industrial sector experienced a spectacular recovery that continued into 

the postwar period. Given these institutional circumstances and the fact that 

the government found it increasingly difficult to compete against industry and 

academia for the best scientific and engineering talent, it is perhaps not surprising 

that the outsourcing of R&D functions to the private sector by the military 

services became increasingly pervasive as the Cold War progressed.11

In a similar fashion, organizational and policy changes within the military 

services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) favored, with varying 

degrees of success, the separation of R&D from the more common production 

functions handled by the arsenals and shipyards. This outcome reinforced the 

ongoing shift of in-house research and development functions from the services 

to industrial and academic contractors. In some cases, it spawned entirely new 

types of R&D organizations that provided technical expertise not otherwise 

available in the Department of Defense. Representative examples include the 

federally funded research and development centers, a new breed of private, notfor-profit institutions that performed operations research and systems analysis 

9 For a general historical overview of the growth and diversification of American manufacturing 

industries after World War II, see Alfred D. Chandler Jr., “The Competitive Performance of U.S. Industrial 

Enterprises since the Second World War,” Business History Review 68 (Spring 1994): 1–72. One need only 

page through the issues of business and industry trade journals, such as Aviation Week, Electronics, Fortune,

and Business Week, from the 1950s and 1960s to see how attractive the defense business had become to 

firms that manufactured commercial products for civilian markets. 10 Although industrial production declined during the depression, corporate investment in research 

and development increased. See David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg, Technology and the Pursuit of 

Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chap. 4. 11 See Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War 

Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Pres, 2000); Hart, Forged Consensus, chaps. 6–7. See also 

Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 

1995); and Paul A. C. Koistinen, Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 

1940–1945 (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2004).
Introduction: The Sources of Weapons Innovation 7

and engineering required for the integration of increasingly complex technologies 

employed in weapon systems.12

Meanwhile, a managerial revolution in the Department of Defense that 

began under the direction of defense secretary Robert McNamara in the early 

1960s further eroded the independence of the military services. Throughout 

the decade, the services gradually lost their ability to set policy as McNamara 

concentrated decision-making authority concerning all facets of weapons 

acquisition, including R&D, under civilian control in the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense. Increased outsourcing of research, development, and production was 

one consequence of McNamara’s specific brand of centralization. This trend was 

reversed somewhat in the 1970s as OSD delegated more responsibility back to 

the services, but the growth of R&D in the private sector continued, especially 

in the following decade as defense spending increased dramatically during the 

presidency of Ronald Reagan. A similar scenario played itself out in the 1990s. 

Although procurement levels declined to fit new policies that favored a smaller, 

more mobile force structure, federal investment in R&D remained steady to 

maintain the technological superiority of new weapon systems.13

R&D in the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force was conducted in a 

variety of institutional settings during the Cold War. Evaluation centers at 

several Air Force bases, for example, handled full-scale testing of airframes, 

jet engines, rocket motors, and aerial weapon systems, while the laboratories 

at the Army’s principal manufacturing arsenals developed stronger and 

more reliable metal alloys used in the production of field guns, projectiles, 

and armor. Meanwhile, large, centralized laboratories, such as the Naval 

Research Laboratory and the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, supported a broad 

range of technical activities, from fundamental studies in nuclear and solidstate physics to the development of mines, torpedoes, and other ordnance 

materials. The Naval Research Laboratory had no institutional equivalent in 

the Army and the Air Force. Still, all of these types of R&D organizations—

weapons testing facilities, factory laboratories, and centralized laboratories 

separate from production units—existed in each of the military services.

Chapter 2 of this study examines the content and scope of research and 

development in the United States Army after World War II. Because this study 

focuses on R&D programs that supported major weapon systems, however, 

emphasis is placed on the laboratories attached to the Army’s six largest 

12 For a general historical survey of the federally funded research and development centers, see A 

History of the Department of Defense Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (Washington, D.C.: 

Office of Technology Assessment, June 1995). 13 Roger R. Trask and Alfred Goldberg, The Department of Defense, 1947–1997: Organization and 

Leaders (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1997), 1–53. See also 

the essays by Elliott Converse, Walter Poole, Shannon Brown and Walton Moody, Andrew Butrica, and 

Philip Shiman in Shannon A. Brown, ed., Providing the Means of War: Historical Perspectives on Defense 

Acquisition, 1945–2000 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History and Industrial College 

of the Armed Forces, 2005). On industrial research in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, see 

Margaret B. W. Graham, “Corporate Research and Development: The Latest Transformation,” Technology 

and Society, no. 2/3 (1985): 179–95; and Robert Buderi, Engines of Tomorrow: How the World’s Best 

Companies Are Using Their Research Labs to Win the Future (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001).
8 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

manufacturing arsenals: Picatinny (New Jersey), Frankford (Pennsylvania), 

Watertown (Massachusetts), Watervliet (New York), Rock Island (Illinois), 

and Springfield (Massachusetts). To be sure, this narrow selection of facilities 

omits other laboratories owned and operated by the Army. The Signal Corps, 

for example, operated a large and diversified electronics R&D program based 

at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Although significant in its own right, work in 

this field focused primarily on the development of communications equipment 

incorporated into weapon systems produced either in the arsenals or in industry. 

Unlike the Ordnance Department, which managed the arsenal system, the Signal 

Corps did not manufacture complete weapon systems of its own. The Chemical 

Warfare Service, by contrast, operated extensive R&D and weapons production 

facilities, but a discussion of chemical weapons technologies remains outside the 

scope of this study.14

Although research and development in the Army arsenals typically focused 

on the solution of immediate problems encountered in the production of field 

guns, howitzers, ammunition, and other weapons, it also included studies in 

more speculative fields of science—such as solid-state physics—that, in some 

cases, emulated research underway in academic and industrial institutions. Even 

in such instances, research of this type remained closely tied to development 

and production, a defining feature of technological innovation in the arsenals, 

which sometimes contradicted policies handed down by the Army Staff to 

maintain a clear organizational separation between each of these functions. 

Similar conflicts involving management policy, the execution of R&D in the 

laboratory, and weapons production on the factory floor existed in the Navy and 

the Air Force during the same period. Meanwhile, after 1945, the arsenal system 

entered a period of protracted decline as the Army shifted more of its resources 

for weapons research and development from in-house facilities to private-sector 

industrial and academic contractors. The Army began scaling back its arsenal 

operations in the 1960s. Ordnance production ceased at Watertown Arsenal 

and Springfield Armory before the decade was out. Manufacturing operations at 

Frankford Arsenal shut down in 1977.

Like the Army, the Navy originally depended on its own in-house facilities and 

those of industry for technical expertise. The earliest source of such knowledge 

existed in the system of shipyards and docks that the federal government 

established at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the end of World War 

II, the Navy’s technical capabilities had expanded significantly. In addition to 

the shipyards, it owned and operated a network of research and development 

laboratories, most of which were assigned to the Navy’s three material bureaus: 

ordnance, aeronautics, and ships. Representative examples, discussed in Chapter 

3, include the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (Maryland), Naval Proving Ground 

(Virginia), Naval Ordnance Test Station and Naval Electronics Laboratory (both 

in California), David Taylor Model Basin (Maryland), Naval Aircraft Factory 

(Pennsylvania), and the Crane Naval Ammunition Depot (Indiana). These 

14 The multivolume history of weapons acquisition, of which this monograph is a part, does not 

examine chemical and biological weapons, either.
Introduction: The Sources of Weapons Innovation 9

facilities, working in collaboration with industrial contractors, played major roles 

in the development of nuclear-powered propulsion systems for submarines and 

surface ships, the Sidewinder air-to-air missile, and Polaris, the first submarinelaunched nuclear missile.

In 1923, the Navy established the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, 

D.C., to pursue a broader and more diversified R&D program independent of 

the immediate technical support functions handled by the bureaus. This type of 

institution was unique to the Navy; its equivalent did not exist in the Army and 

the Air Force. The Navy did, however, establish a contracting unit—the Office 

of Naval Research (ONR)—in 1946 to fund academic and industrial research 

unrelated to specific weapons requirements. Moreover, ONR served as the 

model for the Army and the Air Force, both of which set up similar contracting 

organizations—the Army Research Office and the Office of Air Research—to 

support long-term research in private-sector institutions. The founding of ONR 

(and its counterparts in the Army and the Air Force) also signaled the beginning 

of a larger shift of Defense Department resources for R&D from the in-house 

service laboratories to outside contractors.

Chapter 4 examines the growth and diversification of the Air Force’s inhouse R&D facilities after World War II. Because its primary technology 

of choice—the airplane—is a more recent innovation, the Air Force has a 

history of research and development that lacks the long, deep institutional 

legacies found in the Army and the Navy. Originally an organizational 

element of the Army, the Air Force did not achieve status as an independent 

service until 1947. Prior to separation, research and development had been 

dispersed among a diverse group of public and private-sector institutions: 

the domestic aircraft manufacturers, the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics, the National Bureau of Standards, and the air arm’s own 

in-house R&D facilities. Major internal R&D operations were located at 

Wright Field in Ohio. After the war, however, the scale of Air Force R&D 

grew rapidly to include new electronics and communications programs 

at Rome Air Development Center near Syracuse, New York, and the 

Cambridge Research Laboratories outside Boston. The Arnold Engineering 

Development Center in Tennessee handled testing and development of all 

types of aircraft engines and rocket motors, while the evaluation centers at 

Edwards (California), Kirtland (New Mexico), Holloman (New Mexico), and 

Patrick (Florida) Air Force bases supported similar functions on complete 

aircraft and ballistic missile delivery systems. In addition to supporting these 

ongoing technical activities, the Air Force laboratories also diversified—both 

internally and through external contracts—into more speculative fields of 

science and technology, such as artificial intelligence and laser and particlebeam weapons.

Finally, it is necessary to include a brief note on the source materials and the 

research methodology used to produce this monograph. There is no synthetic 

history of research and development in the Department of Defense or in the 

individual military services during the Cold War. The published secondary 

literature, most of which is cited in the chapters that follow, focuses on specific 
10 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

laboratories and contracting offices, R&D programs, or high-level management 

policies. This study has also drawn heavily on a wide variety of articles and 

reports published in weekly news magazines and military and industry trade 

journals. Time and space limitations precluded further historical research in 

relevant manuscript collections maintained by the armed services and public 

and private repositories. Only through rigorous analysis of pertinent archival 

materials—a time-consuming and costly process—would it have been possible 

to contextualize this study further and add historical depth to the information 

gleaned from published sources. Consequently, the arguments and conclusions 

presented in the pages that follow, while supported by the evidence cited in 

the footnotes, are more suggestive than definitive. This outcome should not 

discourage the reader but rather serve as a guide for additional historical 

research on an otherwise neglected, important topic in the history of science, 

technology, and the military in modern America. This study has only begun 

to explore the content, scope, organization, and management of the Army’s 

arsenal system and the sprawling network of laboratories and testing facilities 

operated by the Navy and the Air Force, which, taken together, constituted a 

substantial segment of the federal R&D establishment after 1945. Filling the 

gaps in the general framework presented here is a task left to other historians 

and future projects.
Research and Development in the Army

During World War II, the United States turned out unprecedented quantities 

of guns, ordnance, aircraft, and ships to equip American and allied combat forces 

fighting in Europe and Asia. Firms in the steel, automobile, aircraft, electrical, and 

other critical manufacturing industries suspended commercial operations to help 

the War Department meet the rapidly growing demand for all types of military 

hardware. Perhaps nowhere was the demand more acute and the transition 

from civilian to military production more difficult than in the Army. Like the 

other military services, the Army was responsible for the design, fabrication, 

and procurement of ordnance materials. The centerpiece of this effort was the 

Army’s arsenal system, which provided much of the technical knowledge and 

manufacturing expertise used by corporate America to mass-produce everything 

from small-arms ammunition and artillery shells to field guns and tanks. During 

the postwar period, however, the arsenal system played an important but steadily 

diminishing role as the Army and the other military services turned to academia 

and industry for the latest advances in science and technology to support ongoing 

production programs.1

The origins of the arsenal system in the United States can be traced back 

to the earliest days of the Republic, when the federal government established 

in-house production facilities to meet the expanding weapons requirements of 

the regular army and the state militias. The Springfield (Massachusetts) Armory 

was established in 1794.2 Watervliet Arsenal (New York) was founded in 

1813, and Watertown (Massachusetts) and Frankford (Pennsylvania) arsenals 

followed three years later. The two remaining arsenals, Rock Island (Illinois) 

and Picatinny (New Jersey), were established in 1862 and 1880, respectively. 

Springfield produced rifles and other small arms, whereas Watervliet pioneered 

the development and manufacture of large-caliber guns and artillery. Watertown 

produced howitzers and seacoast and antiaircraft guns. Frankford manufactured 

1

 On the arsenal system during World War II, see Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, 

and Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, in United States Army in World 

War II, The Technical Services (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1955); and 

Harry C. Thomson and Lida Mayo, The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply, in United States 

Army in World War II, The Technical Services (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 

1960). Also on wartime weapons production, see R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization,

in United States Army in World War II, The War Department (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of 

Military History, 1959). For a general overview of weapons production facilities owned and operated by 

the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force during the Cold War, see Philip Shiman, Forging the Sword: Defense 

Production during the Cold War (Champaign, Ill.: Construction Engineering Research Laboratoriesa, U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers, July 1997). 2

 Also founded in 1794, the Harpers Ferry Armory was destroyed during the Civil War. On the 

history of this armory, see Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge 

of Change (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977).

Chapter Two
12 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

small-arms ammunition, artillery projectiles, fuzes, gun cartridges, and optical and 

fire control instruments. Rock Island manufactured artillery recoil mechanisms, 

gun carriages, and combat vehicles. Picatinny Arsenal was the Army’s primary 

source of explosives, propellants, bombs, and other munitions. All six arsenals 

were assigned to the Ordnance Department, which had played a seminal role in 

the mechanization of arms production in the United States during the nineteenth 

century.3 Established by an act of Congress in 1812, the Ordnance Department 

was one of the seven independent technical services operated by the Army at the 

end of World War II.4

That the government routinely favored a policy of rapid postwar demobilization often left the arsenal system without the requisite institutional resources 

to maintain an extensive manufacturing capability on standby status. Taking its 

place was a more diversified in-house research and development function to help 

the industrial sector meet ordnance production requirements in time of war. 

The extent of this transformation was especially evident during World War I, 

when industrial firms converted their manufacturing operations to focus on the 

mass production of weapons developed in the arsenals.5 Even during World War 

II, following another significant expansion in manufacturing capacity, the arsenal system produced less than 10 percent of the Army’s total ordnance require3

 In addition to the six principal manufacturing arsenals, the Ordnance Department also owned 

and operated repair and storage facilities, typically referred to as arsenals or depots. Prior to 1940, major 

operations were located at Augusta Arsenal (Georgia), Benecia Arsenal (California), Ogden Arsenal 

(Utah), Raritan Arsenal (New Jersey), and San Antonio Arsenal (Texas). The Army also operated a 

network of proving grounds responsible for weapons testing and evaluation. See, for example, F. B. 

Pletcher, “Aberdeen Proving Ground,” Iron Trade Review 73 (18 October 1923): 1091–96; “Some Recent 

Advances in Ballistics,” Journal of Applied Physics 16 (December 1945): 773–80; “Metallurgical Activities 

at Aberdeen Proving Ground,” Metal Progress 59 (April 1951): 499–502; J. P. Hammill, “Research in 

Ballistics,” Ordnance 44 (September-October 1959): 235–38; W. D. Hodges, “New Role for Aberdeen,” 

Ordnance 56 (September-October 1971): 132–35; Levin H. Campbell Jr., The Industry-Ordnance Team 

(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946), 46–53; Herman H. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von 

Neumann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), part 2; and David H. Devorkin, Science with a 

Vengeance: How the Military Created the Space Sciences after World War II (New York: Springer-Verlag, 

1992), chap 7. 4

 Like the Ordnance Department, the Quartermaster Corps, Corps of Engineers, Signal Corps, 

Transportation Corps, Medical Department, and the Chemical Warfare Service operated their own 

research laboratories or maintained institutional connections to outside R&D organizations. For a 

discussion of the scope and content of these functions at the end of World War II, see the articles under 

the general title, “Mobilization of Scientific Resources—V: The U.S. Army,” in the April 1945 issue of 

the Journal of Applied Physics. See also the review articles and reports of research findings published in 

Army Research and Development News Magazine, a monthly periodical introduced by the Office of the Chief 

of Research and Development in December 1960. On the Ordnance Department and its contributions to 

the development of American manufacturing technology, see David A. Hounshell, From the American 

System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United 

States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); Merritt Roe Smith, “Army Ordnance and 

the ‘American System’ of Manufacturing, 1815–1861,” in Military Enterprise and Technological Change: 

Perspectives on the American Experience, ed.. Merritt Roe Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985); 

and Smith, “Military Arsenals and Industry before World War I,” in War, Business, and American Society: 

Historical Perspectives on the Military Industrial Complex, ed. Benjamin Cooling (Port Washington, N.Y.: 

Kennikat Press, 1977). 5

 Smith, “Military Arsenals and Industry before World War I,” esp. 35–41. The sharp rise in the 

outsourcing of weapons production to industry during the war was matched, albeit on a much smaller scale, 

by a major expansion of manufacturing capacity in the arsenals. See W. H. Tschappat, “The Manufacturing 

Arsenals and Their Equipment,” American Machinist 78 (14 February 1934): 141–44.
Research and Development in the Army 13

ments.6 After 1945, the six old-line arsenals, while still maintaining extensive 

production capabilities, were essentially repositories of an accumulated knowledge base that supported, on behalf of industry, the design and development of 

ordnance and associated weapons delivery systems.7 Of the $2 billion set aside 

for weapons production by the Ordnance Department in 1958, for example, 90 

percent of that amount was earmarked for distribution to industrial contractors 

through the arsenal system.8

Consequently, the manufacturing firms that had relied on the arsenals 

and other service laboratories to jump-start arms production during World 

War II rapidly built up their own in-house technical capabilities afterward to 

meet the anticipated demand for increasingly sophisticated military hardware. 

Expanding internal R&D functions also mitigated the likelihood of technological 

obsolescence inherent in arms production. This transformation was especially 

evident among those companies that moved aggressively into the electronics and 

guided missile fields. These state-of-the-art technologies, not the conventional 

weapons traditionally developed in the arsenals, were expected to play a leading 

role in a future war.9

6

 Wartime expenditures for the construction of additional production capacity in the old-line 

arsenals exceeded $300 million. The Ordnance Department and the other technical services also built new 

manufacturing facilities from scratch. The Detroit Arsenal, for example, was established by the Ordnance 

Department to manufacture tanks (a function previously assigned to the Rock Island Arsenal), and the 

Chemical Warfare Service built the Pine Bluff (Arkansas), Rocky Mountain (Colorado), and Huntsville 

and Redstone (Alabama) arsenals to produce chemical agents and explosives for artillery shells, bombs, and 

other types of ammunition. The government, largely through the Defense Plant Corporation, also financed 

the construction of weapons production facilities operated by industrial contractors. After the war, these 

government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) plants were either placed on standby status or continued 

operating at reduced production levels. In some cases, manufacturing facilities were purchased outright by the 

contractors. Throughout the postwar period, the military services gradually disposed of their GOCO plants 

and other in-house operations. Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, 497–98, 501. 7

 Post–World War II production levels at the arsenals varied according to the supply needs of the military 

services. The arsenals generally operated on standby status during peacetime, scaling back manufacturing 

functions and focusing instead on research and development. During wartime (Korea, Vietnam), however, 

production of conventional weapons in the arsenals rose sharply to match a much larger expansion of output 

by private industry. The manufacture of more specialized equipment in the arsenals, such as guided missile 

launchers, typically did not exceed the pilot production state. Shiman, Forging the Sword, 24, 39–43; C. M. 

Wesson, “Adequate National Defense Requires Modernized Army Arsenals,” Machinery 45 ( July 1939): 737; 

Thomson and Mayo, The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply, 12. 8

 J. H. Hinrichs, “Army Ordnance Arsenals,” Ordnance 43 (September-October 1958): 211. 9

 Shiman, Forging the Sword, 53–54, 64–66. In a deliberate move to diversify its defense business in 

the 1950s, General Motors scaled back tank and gun production in favor of establishing new markets in 

military electronics. The large airframe manufacturers, such as North American Aviation, Chance Vought, 

Lockheed, Martin, Northrop, and Douglas Aircraft, adopted a similar strategy. These and other firms 

diversified into the electronics and missile fields. “[T]he best way to win a foothold among the top 100 

[defense contractors] is via the missile and electronics business: the big future contracts will be for rockets, 

electronic equipment, and other hardware of the nuclear-space age,” Business Week reported in 1958. “The 

Pentagon’s Top Hands,” Business Week (20 September 1958): 39; H. W. Barclay, “General Motors Defense 

Research Laboratories,” Automotive Industries 127 (1 December, 1962): 44. Many firms entered military 

markets for missiles and electronics through a combination of outside acquisitions and internal expansion 

of corporate R&D functions. See, for example, J. S. Butz, “United Has Proved Value of Research,” Aviation 

Week 66 (3 June 1957): 200–13; R. Hawkes, “Convair Seeks Lead Through Research,” Aviation Week 66 (3 

June 1957): 215–30; P. J. Klass, “Bell Advances Avionics on Wide Front,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 

235–51; E. Clark, “Martin’s Research Is Broad, Varied,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 252–65; and 

“Chance Vought Stakes Its Future on Research Push,” Business Week (23 July 1960): 104–08.
14 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Research and development in the arsenals covered many fields within 

the scientific and engineering disciplines. This work included routine testing, 

analysis, and standardization of critical components for guns and ammunition 

and fundamental studies of the behavior and properties of constituent ordnance 

materials, especially metals and alloys. Laboratory investigations typically covered 

a broad range of activities, from exploratory research to pilot assembly work on 

the shop floor. This close working relationship among different types of research, 

development, and production had been a defining feature of technological 

innovation in the arsenal system for more than a century, and it remained largely 

intact throughout the postwar period. Such a symbiotic relationship was not, 

however, unique to the Army or to the other military services. It had also been 

one of the defining features of technological innovation in industry. Like their 

counterparts in the arsenals, researchers in industrial laboratories had been 

equally successful at extending the frontiers of science while at the same time 

using that knowledge to improve existing goods and services and introduce new 

commercial products.10 Dividing research into distinct categories—for example, 

basic, fundamental, or applied—is exceedingly difficult in cases such as these where 

professional allegiances and disciplinary boundaries in science and engineering 

often overlapped. The fact that such definitional ambiguity imposes interpretive 

limits on the historian seeking to reconstruct the boundaries between different 

categories of knowledge within and across institutions further illustrates the 

extent to which research, development, and production were inextricably linked 

in the arsenal system.11

This chapter focuses on the multidirectional relationship among research , 

development, and production in the Army’s six old-line manufacturing arsenals, 

and how it responded to broader changes in Defense Department policy and 

evolving patterns of institutional growth in the federal scientific research 

establishment after World War II. Major emphasis is placed on the content and 

scope of laboratory research in metallurgy, solid-state physics, and high-energy 

X-ray research. Research in these fields led to the development of improved 

metals and alloys, which enabled workers at Watertown and Frankford 

arsenals and the Springfield Armory—and their counterparts in industry—to 

manufacture more reliable artillery shells, gun tubes, recoil mechanisms, and 

other conventional ordnance materials. The same research also contributed to 

the ongoing development of more recent wartime weapons, such as missiles and 

rockets. Although it shared jurisdiction over these new technologies with the 

Navy and the Air Force, the Army nevertheless maintained a significant program 

10 For an introduction to the historical literature on American industrial research, see John Kenly 

Smith Jr., “The Scientific Tradition in American Industrial Research,” Technology and Culture 31 ( January 

1990): 121–131; and David A. Hounshell, “The Evolution of Industrial Research in the United States,” In 

Engines of Innovation: U.S. Industrial Research at the End of an Era, ed. Richard S. Rosenbloom and William 

J. Spencer (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996). 11 For an insightful discussion of this methodological problem and how historians have struggled with 

it in studies of R&D in academic, industrial, and government institutions, see Ronald R. Kline, “Construing 

‘Technology’ as ‘Applied Science’: Public Rhetoric of Scientists and Engineers in the United States, 1880–

1945,” Isis 86 ( June 1995): 194–221. For a broader analysis, see Donald E. Stokes, Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic 

Science and Technological Innovation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997).
Research and Development in the Army 15

of rocket and missile development at Picatinny and Rock Island arsenals. In some 

cases, though rare, laboratory research in the arsenals extended the frontiers of 

knowledge in highly esoteric fields. In the early 1970s, for example, researchers 

at Watervliet Arsenal began studying superconductivity. Although it did not 

lead to any immediate practical results, this work produced new classes of stable 

superconducting materials that manifested superior electrical and magnetic 

properties.

Changing Institutional Patterns of Army Research and 

Development after World War II

That the arsenals maintained a close working relationship between R&D 

and production is understandable, given their mandate to provide the Army 

with the most technologically advanced ordnance and weapons delivery systems. 

What is perhaps more unusual, however, is the extent to which the arsenals 

maintained this culture of innovation during the postwar period, especially 

given the pressures exerted by the Army Staff and influential civilian scientists 

to separate research and development from production.12 Emphasis on the rapid 

development and mass production of weapons during the war had forced the 

arsenals to relinquish most long-range, undirected research to the private sector. 

Established in 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) 

spearheaded this readjustment. It coordinated and distributed to universities 

and industrial firms federal funds for research in the physical sciences. “[M]uch 

of our basic research,” wrote an Army officer stationed at Frankford Arsenal in 

1943, “has been abandoned for the time being, in favor of applied research that 

might be termed more precisely, industrial engineering. The Army is therefore, 

more dependent upon universities and industrial laboratories for amplification 

of the research aspects of its many problems.” OSRD managed more than two 

hundred research projects on behalf of the Ordnance Department during the 

war, including, among others, studies of the kinetics of nitration of chemicals 

12 The same trends also guided R&D policy in American industry after the war. Committed to the 

separation of research and development from production, corporate executives invested large sums of 

money in the construction and staffing of state-of-the-art laboratories located far away from manufacturing 

operations. Although such efforts typically produced a wealth of knowledge in diverse fields of science 

and technology, they contributed far less to the development of new products and commercial markets. 

In many cases, research in the engineering disciplines proved to be more valuable to the development of 

new products than even the most advanced basic research. See Hounshell, “The Evolution of Industrial 

Research in the United States,” 45–51. Useful case studies include David A. Hounshell and John Kenly 

Smith Jr., Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont R&D, 1902–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 1988); John W. Servos, “Changing Partners: The Mellon Institute, Private Industry, and the Federal 

Patron,” Technology and Culture 35 (April 1994): 221–57; Stuart W. Leslie, “Blue Collar Science: Bringing 

the Transistor to Life in the Lehigh Valley,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 32 

(2001): 71–113; Scott G. Knowles and Stuart W. Leslie, “‘Industrial Versailles’: Eero Saarinen’s Corporate 

Campuses for GM, IBM, and AT&T,” Isis 92 (March 2001): 1–33; and Margaret B. W. Graham and Alec 

T. Shuldiner, Corning and the Craft of Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). A similar 

strategy also guided R&D policy in science-based manufacturing firms that received weapons contracts 

from the Department of Defense. For an excellent analysis of the impact of military contracting on R&D 

in the defense industry after World War II, see Glen Ross Asner, “The Cold War and American Industrial 

Research” (Ph.D. diss., Carnegie Mellon University, 2006).
16 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

used in explosives, development of special fuels suitable for jet propulsion, and 

investigations of plastic deformation in metals.13

Although OSRD closed after the war, its institutional legacy continued to 

exert a profound influence on the institutions of science and technology in the 

military, including the Army arsenals. OSRD director Vannevar Bush, who 

had served as President Franklin Roosevelt’s de facto science adviser during 

the war, favored the organizational separation of research and development 

from production. In his view, research of the type normally conducted in the 

leading universities ought to be the primary source of technological innovation, 

military security, and economic growth. Moreover, Bush believed that inhouse government research was inferior to its academic equivalent. Relying on 

government laboratories for the advancement of science would only increase the 

likelihood of political and bureaucratic interference from the state.14 Bush also 

served in several capacities as a civilian consultant to the military services after 

the war, and his views were shared by General Dwight Eisenhower and other 

senior Army officers familiar with the contributions that science had made to 

the allied victory.15

Senior officers in the Ordnance Department, however, believed that separating 

the management of research and development from production would only lead 

to greater inefficiencies and waste in the weapons procurement process. While 

proclaiming that the “freedom [of R&D] from control of those responsible for 

mass production is a great spur to development,” one officer assigned to the 

Ordnance Department’s Research and Development Service also acknowledged 

that “new weapons must be designed with ultimate mass manufacture in mind.”16

The Davies Committee, appointed by the Secretary of the Army in September 

1953 to evaluate the organizational relationship between R&D and production, 

rendered a similar opinion. Composed primarily of former and current 

Ordnance Department personnel, the committee concluded that the separation 

of development from production and procurement would slow the pace of 

weapons innovation and also inhibit the necessary exchange of information 

between researchers working in the laboratory and weapons users operating 

in the field. In cases where specialized knowledge and expertise were needed, 

however, the committee recommended that the Ordnance Department contract 

13 L. S. Fletcher, “Research at a Government Arsenal in Cooperation with Universities,” Journal of 

Engineering Education 33 ( June 1943): 783; Green, Thomson, and Roots, The Ordnance Department: 

Planning Munitions for War, 217–19, 227; Campbell, The Industry-Ordnance Team, 154–55. 14 On Bush’s views, see his landmark report, Science—The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President 

on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945). 

See also Nathan Reingold, “Vannevar Bush’s New Deal for Research: Or the Triumph of the Old Order,” 

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 17 (1987): 299–344. 15 H. S. Aurand, “The Army’s Research Program,” Mechanical Engineering 68 (September 1946): 

785–86. Bush served as chairman of the Research and Development Board, which had been established in 

1947 to coordinate the research functions of the military services and advise the Secretary of Defense on 

scientific and technical matters. 16 D. W. Hoppock, “How Army Ordnance Develops Weapons for Its ‘Customers’,” Product Engineering

16 ( June 1945): 361–62.
Research and Development in the Army 17

directly with scientists working in civilian research institutions. Predictably, the 

Ordnance Department endorsed the committee’s recommendations.17

The growth and diversification of the postwar federal research establishment 

intensified the debates among senior Army officials and civilian experts about 

the relationship between R&D and weapons production. When OSRD and 

other temporary wartime agencies closed after 1945, the military services 

quickly filled the void by establishing new organizations to fund scientific 

research in universities and other private-sector institutions. The wartime 

success of OSRD and the likelihood of a larger postwar military establishment 

made the outsourcing of R&D especially appealing to key leaders in the 

military services. To be sure, the military leadership had already witnessed 

firsthand how effectively civilian science had been mobilized to develop the 

atomic bomb, microwave radar, the proximity fuse, and other critical wartime 

weapons. The establishment of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1946, 

and the founding of similar extramural funding organizations in the Army 

and the Air Force shortly thereafter, likely exerted greater influence on the 

long-term viability of R&D in the arsenal system than did the debates about 

its internal structure and organization immediately after the war.18 In 1946, 

for example, the Ordnance Department expected to allocate only one-third of 

the funds for research and development requested annually from Congress to 

the Army’s arsenals and proving grounds; the remaining two-thirds were to be 

used “in placing contracts with research institutions and with manufacturers 

having strong scientific and engineering research organizations and the facilities 

suitable for the development of new weapons.” Commenting specifically on the 

significance of this institutional division of labor, the Ordnance Department’s 

director of R&D, Maj. Gen. Gladeon Barnes wrote, “Our war experience has 

taught us that this is the best possible way in which to conduct research and 

development in ordnance for the War Department.”19

Back in the spring of 1946, General Eisenhower, who then served as Army 

chief of staff, announced the establishment of a new Research and Development 

Division assigned to the War Department General Staff. The purpose of this 

high-level staff organization was to coordinate the R&D operations of the Army 

and the Navy (an independent Air Force would not be established until 1947) 

with those of the civilian scientific and engineering communities.20 The Army 

alone maintained a research budget of $280 million that year, one quarter of 

which was earmarked for fundamental studies in colleges and universities.21 The 

17 James E. Hewes, From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 1900–1963

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1975), 227. 18 See Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), chap. 22; Harvey M. Sapolsky, Science and the Navy: 

The History of the Office of Naval Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Nick A. 

Komons, Science and the Air Force: A History of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Arlington, Va.: 

Historical Division, Office of Information, Office of Aerospace Research, 1966). 19 G. M. Barnes, “Research Needs for Weapons,” Mechanical Engineering 68 (March 1946): 197. 20 “War Department Research and Development Division,” Science 104 (18 October 1946): 369; 

“Army Puts Research, Development on Top General Staff Level,” Iron Age 158 (3 October 1946): 95. 21 “Science Dons a Uniform,” Business Week (14 September 1946): 22. In 1947, the Army distributed 
18 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Ordnance Department created a formal coordinating function to handle R&D 

contracting in 1951, when it established the Office of Ordnance Research (OOR) 

at Duke University. Staffed by civilian and military scientists, OOR supported 

academic research in the sciences that had no direct relation to specific ordnance 

problems, although OOR did on occasion fund some fundamental work in 

the arsenal laboratories. “[OOR] is interested in the sciences having ordnance 

relevancy,” wrote the director of OOR’s Metallurgical and Engineering Sciences 

Division, “but proposals pertaining to applied or technical research design and 

development are not within the mission of this office.”22

Similar attempts to create an Army-wide R&D organization had proved 

more problematic, primarily because the technical services did not want to lose 

operational control of functions that they had always managed themselves. They 

also resisted initiatives that sought to separate the management of research and 

development from production and procurement. The extent to which these 

bureaucratic customs prevailed had been clearly revealed in 1947, when the 

General Staff abolished the Research and Development Division and merged its 

functions into the Service, Supply, and Procurement Division (later the Logistics 

Division) under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics. Under 

mounting pressure from civilian scientists within and outside the Army, however, 

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics relinquished control of R&D to the new 

Office of the Chief of Research and Development, established on the Army 

Staff by the Secretary of the Army, in 1955.23 Organizationally equivalent to the 

position of deputy chief of staff, this new office expanded three years later when 

the Army Science Advisory Panel lobbied successfully for the establishment of 

the Army Research Office to plan and coordinate the research and development 

functions of the Ordnance Department and the other six technical services.24

Although the establishment of the Army Research Office and the Office of 

the Chief of Research and Development once again elevated the status of R&D 

and made centralized planning a key component of the Army’s R&D program, 

more than two-thirds of its funds for research and development to industrial firms, universities, and other 

private research organizations. In most cases, new contracts for basic research were awarded to institutions 

to continue work previously funded by OSRD. “Army Reveals Plans to Industry,” Chemical and Engineering 

News 25 (3 February 1947): 306.

22 P. R. Kosting, “Metallurgy Research Program of the U.S. Army Office of Ordnance Research,” 

Journal of Metals 9 (May 1957): 664 (quote); “Ordnance Research Program,” Army, Navy, Air Force Journal

88 (16 June 1951): 1165; P. N. Gillon, “Army Ordnance Research,” Army, Navy, Air Force Journal 92 (20 

November 1954): 337, 339. 23 For a detailed discussion of these events, see Hewes, From Root to McNamara, 217–58; and Elliott 

V. Converse, “The Army and Acquisition, 1945–1953,” March 2003 (unpublished manuscript), U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. I am indebted to Dr. Converse for 

sharing an early version of this manuscript with me. 24 “ARO Coaching Army Research,” Chemical and Engineering News 36 (15 September 1958): 38–39. 

Within a decade, ARO’s six technical divisions (physical and engineering sciences, environmental sciences, 

behavioral sciences, life sciences, studies and analysis, data management) coordinated and monitored R&D 

projects in 60 Army laboratories, 225 colleges and universities, 161 nonprofit research institutions, and 

more than 300 private firms. W. J. Lynch, “Combat Superiority Aim of Army Research Program,” Defense 

Industry Bulletin 5 ( July 1969): 14, 16. For a brief review of the Army Research Office’s programs and 

functions in the early 1990s, see W. A. Flood, “The Army Research Office,” IEEE Antennas and Propagation 

Magazine 33 (February 1991): 17.
Research and Development in the Army 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 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of 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 
Research and Development in the Army 21

arsenals had been permanently shuttered, and a third—Watertown Arsenal—

had closed its weapons manufacturing facilities.29

The Content of Research and Development in the 

Arsenal System

Rapid demobilization of the industrial economy at the end of World War 

II brought a sharp reduction in employment and a corresponding reorientation 

of technical activities in the arsenal system. As production levels dropped, The 

Army placed renewed emphasis on the expansion of research and development 

to maintain technological readiness in what was becoming an increasingly hostile geopolitical environment prompted by the onset of the Cold War. Much 

of this work continued to focus on short-term practical problems, such as the 

improvement of manufacturing methods and materials and the overhaul of precision machine tools. Arsenal administrators and their superiors on the Army 

Staff also strove to capture the latest developments in science and technology 

that had opened up during the war. Microwave radar, the atomic bomb, and the 

proximity fuse were among the most significant and decisive wartime weapons 

that the United States had developed. The Army leadership expected that the 

technologies on which they were based would achieve similar results in the event 

of another war.

To prepare for that possibility, American military leaders harnessed the scientific community’s expertise in many technical fields, especially the new and expanding disciplines of nuclear and solid-state physics. Research in nuclear physics, which had first taken American physicists by storm in the 1930s, experienced 

rapid growth after the war.30 The military’s interest in nuclear research during the 

postwar period was largely, but not completely, restricted to the development 

of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and atomic-powered propulsion systems for the Navy’s submarine fleet.31 Responsibility for R&D was split three 

ways—among the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in-house laboratories 

(11 November 1957): 42–26; P. A. Chadwell, “DOD and Service R&D Programs,” National Defense 66 

(October 1981): 44–47; A History of Watervliet Arsenal, 1813 to Modernization 1982, (Watervliet, N.Y.: 

Watervliet Arsenal, 1982): 174, 184; and A History of Rock Island and Rock Island Arsenal from Earliest 

Times to 1954, vol. 3 (1940–1954), (Rock Island, Ill.: Rock Island Arsenal, 1965), 597. 29 “Materiel Development and Readiness Command Replaces AMC,” Army Research and Development 

News Magazine 17 ( January-February 1976): 4–5; “Watertown Arsenal Slated for Elimination in DoD 

Move,” Army Research and Development News Magazine 5 ( June 1964): 20; “Springfield Museum, Institute 

Replace Armory after Phaseout,” Army Research and Development News Magazine 9 ( June 1968): 5; “DoD 

Announces Frankford Arsenal Closing, AMC Depot System Realignment,” Army Research and Development 

News Magazine 16 ( January-February 1975): 4. 30 See Kevles, The Physicists, esp. chaps. 14–15, 21–23. 31 One important exception was the academic research in nuclear physics sponsored by the Office of 

Naval Research. This work was, by and large, generally more fundamental in nature, unrelated to specific 

weapons requirements. See, for example, Sapolsky, Science and the Navy; and S. S. Schweber, “The Mutual 

Embrace of Science and the Military: ONR and the Growth of Physics in the United States after World 

War II”, in vol. 1 of Science, Technology, and the Military, ed. Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith, and 

Peter Weingart (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988).
22 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

and production facilities; the universities and industrial firms operating under 

AEC contracts; and the laboratories assigned to each of the military services.32

Nuclear research in the Army’s arsenals focused primarily on the effects of radiation on materials. Some related studies also were conducted to ensure effective 

mating of nuclear weapons to advanced missile-delivery systems. High-energy 

X-ray analysis of metal components used in gun and artillery assemblies is representative of the research done on materials, whereas the latter studies focused 

on the development, testing, and pilot production of launch vehicles for missiles 

and rockets capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads.33

Picatinny Arsenal, located in northern New Jersey, forty miles west of New 

York City, played an important role in the Army’s nuclear weapons program. Long 

known for the production of explosives, propellants, and other pyrotechnics, 

Picatinny embarked on a major diversification program after World War II. 

Starting with the 2.36-inch antitank rocket (known as the “bazooka”) introduced 

during the war, researchers at Picatinny developed the 4.5-inch Folding Fin Light 

Artillery Rocket (designated the M8) and, in the late 1940s, began work on 

rocket boosters and assisted take-off units that were subsequently incorporated 

into the Martin Matador, the United States’ first operational surface-to-surface 

cruise missile.

In 1950, the Army assigned the development of nuclear munitions to 

Picatinny Arsenal. Also that year, the arsenal, operating as a subcontractor to 

the Atomic Energy Commission, formally established the Atomic Applications 

Laboratory (AAL) to conduct R&D in this field, beginning with the development 

of a 280-millimeter atomic shell capable of being fired from a conventional 

artillery gun.34 During the remainder of the decade, laboratory personnel focused 

32 See Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Atomic Shield, 1947–1952, vol. 2 of A History of 

the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969); 

Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic 

Energy Commission, vol. 3 of A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University 

of California Press, 1989); and Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Nuclear Navy, 1946–1962

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). Also useful are the individual laboratory histories. See, 

for example, Leland Johnson and Daniel Schaffer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory: The First Fifty Years

(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994); and Jack M. Holl, Argonne National Laboratory, 1946–

1996 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997).

33 Redstone Arsenal in Alabama served as the headquarters for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency 

(ABMA). In 1959, the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) absorbed 

Redstone (which had merged with the nearby Huntsville Arsenal in 1950) and a significant portion of 

ABMA’s staff and support functions. This transfer effectively ended the Army’s role as a major participant 

in the Defense Department’s military space program. One year earlier, the Army had transferred the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory, operated under contract by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), to 

NASA. The transfer of ABMA, however, did not preclude ongoing development and production of launch 

vehicles and related equipment for the Army’s guided missile fleet. Much of this work, especially R&D and 

prototype production, was carried out in the manufacturing arsenals. On Army R&D at Caltech before 

the transfer to NASA, see I. Stone, “Caltech Eases Transfer of Air Research Burden,” Aviation Week 66 

(3 June 1957): 277–89. Also on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during this period, see Clayton R. Koppes, 

JPL and the American Space Program: A History of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 1982). The transfer of Redstone Arsenal to NASA is discussed in Michael J. Neufeld, “The End 

of the Army Space Program: Interservice Rivalry and the Transfer of the Von Braun Group to NASA, 

1958–1959,” Journal of Military History 69 ( July 2005): 737–58. 34 Picatinny’s atomic shell was successfully tested in 1952.
Research and Development in the Army 23

their efforts on mating nuclear warheads manufactured in the AEC’s production 

facilities to the launch and delivery vehicles assigned to the Army’s missile and 

rocket force. Researchers in AAL’s Tactical Atomic Weapons Laboratory, for 

example, developed, in collaboration with industrial contractors, the atomic 

payload units for the Honest John ground-based mobile rocket and the Corporal

surface-to-surface guided missile. AAL also conducted routine tests of atomic 

bomb-equipped rockets and missiles within a broad range of temperature, 

humidity, vibration, shock, and other environmental conditions to ensure proper 

operational performance of the fuse and detonation devices, electronic and 

propulsion systems, and other critical components.35

Wartime research and development in solid-state electronics and the 

invention of the transistor at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1947 prompted 

the military services to invest significant institutional resources in this rapidly 

expanding field of study.36 Prior to World War II, most research and development 

in the arsenals had focused on physical, chemical, and metallurgical studies of 

metals and alloys, the constituent materials of all types of ordnance. This work, 

in which metallurgical investigations typically predominated, drew upon the 

empirical, engineering-based origins of solid-state physics, a field of study that 

was just beginning to assume professional identity as an independent academic 

discipline after the war. “The single outstanding trend which has become 

paramount during the past few years,” wrote the head of ONR’s metallurgy 

branch in 1957, “is the tremendous impact exerted by solid-state physics upon 

metallurgical research.”37 Application-driven studies of metals, however, did 

not necessarily preclude arsenal researchers from exploring more theoretical 

topics within solid-state physics, though that brand of research was increasingly 

contracted out to the universities through the Office of Ordnance Research. 

Despite the institutional constraints imposed on it by the growth of R&D 

outsourcing and the acute competition for resources within the federal research 

35 M. W. Kresge, “Research and Development, Military Explosives and Propellants,” Journal of Applied 

Physics 16 (December 1945): 792–97; “Rockets at Picatinny Arsenal,” Jet Propulsion 26 (February 1956): 

114; P. P. Luellig Jr., “Arsenals,” Field Artillery Journal 42 (March–April 1974): 51–52; W. Beller, “Army 

Research and Development in Missiles, Aviation, and Avionics,” Aero Digest 73 (October 1956): 22–23; 

I. O. Drewry, “Army Ordnance Tackles Task of Marrying Atomics with Artillery,” Army Information Digest

13 (December 1958): 12–16; Drewry, “Atomic Applications Laboratory: Newest Addition to Picatinny 

Arsenal,” Sperryscope 14, no. 5 (1957): 20, 22–23. 36 See, for example, Paul W. Henriksen, “Solid-State Physics Research at Purdue,” Osiris, 2nd ser., 2 

(1986): 237–60; Lillian Hoddeson, “The Roots of Solid-State Research at Bell Labs,” Physics Today 30 

(March 1977): 23–30; Hoddeson, “Research on Crystal Rectifiers during World War II and the Invention 

of the Transistor,” History and Technology 11 (1994): 121–30; Hoddeson, “The Invention of the PointContact Transistor,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 12 (1981): 41–76; George Wise, “Science at 

General Electric,” Physics Today 37 (December 1984): 52–61; and Ross Knox Bassett, To the Digital Age: 

Research Labs, Start-Up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 2002). Also useful, but highly technical, is the exhaustive multivolume history of industrial research 

in the Bell System written by the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories. See A History of Engineering and 

Science in the Bell System, 7 vols. (Murray Hill, N.J.: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975–1985). 37 J. J. Harwood, “Some Aspects of Government-Sponsored Research in Metallurgy,” Journal of Metals 

9 (May 1957): 669. On the disciplinary origins of solid-state physics, see Lillian Hoddeson et al., Out of 

the Crystal Maze: Chapters in the History of Solid-State Physics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 

esp. chap. 9.
24 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

establishment, the arsenal system maintained a diversified research program on 

metals and alloys throughout the postwar period.

All of the arsenals conducted some research on metals, but the Watertown 

and Frankford arsenals stood out as the major sources of expertise in this field. 

Postwar metals research at these two arsenals generally focused on ferrous (ironrich) and nonferrous (iron-deficient) metallurgy. Researchers at Watertown 

explored the former while their colleagues at Frankford studied the latter. 

Established in 1880, the experimental and testing laboratory at Watertown 

Arsenal solved manufacturing problems related to the casting and forging of gun 

tubes. “The scientific staff of this laboratory,” observed Watertown’s commanding 

officer in 1940, “is constantly engaged in a search for cleaner metals, steels 

that will resist gun-firing erosion to the maximum degree, and tools that are 

capable of machining the tough steels produced.” During World War II, the 

arsenal applied the laboratory’s expertise in metalworking to the production of 

90-millimeter antiaircraft guns, 16-inch seacoast guns, 240-millimeter shells, 

recoil mechanisms for 8-inch howitzers, and other weapons. Improvement 

of casting and forging techniques used to manufacture gun tubes and routine 

testing of metals continued at Watertown after the war, but work along all three 

lines progressed in step with studies that explored the underlying scientific 

principles of metallic behavior.38 “The major problem in ferrous metallurgy,” 

wrote the Ordnance Department’s chief of research and development at the end 

of 1946, “is to develop an understanding of the plastic flow, rupture properties, 

and quench cracking susceptibility of steel, the alloying of steels, steel erosion, 

and the response of steels to complex thermal cycles and strains.”39 Increased 

understanding of solid-state materials aided Watertown’s efforts to tackle this 

problem.

Like their counterparts at Watertown, researchers in the laboratory division 

at Frankford Arsenal engaged in similar work to improve manufacturing processes and cut production costs of ordnance fabricated from copper, bronze, and 

brass alloys and new classes of lightweight materials. Frankford also devoted 

much time and effort during and after the war to problems of ammunition preservation and storage. Although this research was clearly practical in origin, focusing, for example, on methods of dehumidification and rust prevention, some 

38 W. G. Gude, “Foundry Research at Watertown Arsenal,” Foundry 73 (December 1945): 104–06, 

186, 188; R. W. Case, “Manufacturing Preparedness at Watertown Arsenal,” Machinery 46 (March 1940): 

100–01 (quote). In 1945, the research laboratory at Watertown Arsenal consisted of three operating 

divisions: research, metallurgical engineering, and testing. The research division was responsible for 

“developing new knowledge and assembling basic information as to the factors affecting the behavior of 

metals and structural components used in ordnance construction.” The metallurgical engineering division 

focused on more applied topics, such as welding and the melting and refining of steel. It was “largely 

occupied with development programs in connection with the improvements of standard weapons or the 

construction of new weapons and component items.” As its name implies, the testing division performed 

“testing functions required by the Research and Metallurgical Engineering Divisions of the Laboratory 

and the Arsenal as a whole in connection with its production and procurement.” N. A. Matthews, “Ferrous 

Metallurgical Research,” Journal of Applied Physics 16 (December 1945): 780–81. 39 A. Leggin, “Ordnance Department Research and Development,” Chemical and Engineering News 24 

(25 December 1946): 3351.
Research and Development in the Army 25

aspects of it emulated more speculative studies underway in universities and industrial laboratories on the fundamental behavior of crystalline materials.40

Among the many problems faced by researchers at the Frankford Arsenal 

was how to ensure with reasonable certainty that the small-arms ammunition 

and artillery shells turned out by the production lines would function properly 

on the battlefield. Maintaining high standards of quality control depended in 

part on a detailed understanding of the behavior of the metal components used 

in the manufacturing process. During World War II, laboratory research in this 

field focused on theoretical and experimental studies of the plastic deformation 

of metals. A metal changes shape when it is subjected to an external load, such 

as pressing, rolling, or forging. Depending on the arrangement of the atoms that 

make up its internal structure, the metal will either retain that new shape or return 

to its original dimensions. Plasticity is the mechanical property that determines 

the extent to which a metal maintains its shape following the application of an 

external force. Since the 1920s, physicists and metallurgists in the United States 

and Europe had constructed various theories to explain the mechanism by which 

metals deformed plastically. One explanation that gained acceptance during this 

period focused on the concept of the dislocation, a point defect or imperfection 

in the lattice structure of a metal. First introduced in 1934, dislocation theory 

suggested that atomic imperfections predisposed metals to deform and fracture 

at stress levels lower than those predicted for ideal crystals. It also provided 

some clues as to why plastically deformed metals exhibited increased resistance 

to further deformation, a phenomenon called work hardening. By the end of the 

decade, dislocation theory had emerged as one of the leading explanations of 

plastic deformation in metals, and it has continued to be an important subject of 

study in materials science.41 Dislocation theory and the experimental studies that 

supported it had a significant impact on the development of ordnance materials 

at Frankford Arsenal, and within the arsenal system in general, during and after 

World War II.

Even though the existence of dislocations was not verified experimentally 

until 1955, physicists working in industrial and academic laboratories in the late 

1930s had used dislocation theory to explain certain types of metallic behavior 

that turned out to be directly relevant to ordnance development and production 

in the arsenal system. Internal friction was one particularly important property 

that received widespread attention. The intensity of this phenomenon depends 

on the extent to which the vibrational energy absorbed by a metal from an 

external source is dissipated nonuniformly as it propagates from one atom to 

another in the crystal lattice. Energy loss is greatest where imperfections, or 

dislocations, exist in the atomic arrangement of the metal’s internal structure. 

Before the war, a small team of physicists at the Westinghouse Electric and 

Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh and the University of Pennsylvania in 

Philadelphia pioneered research on the internal friction of metals.

40 See C. H. Greenall, “Non-Ferrous Metallurgical Research at Frankford Arsenal,” Journal of Applied 

Physics 16 (December 1945): 787–92.

41 Hoddeson et al., Out of the Crystal Maze, 317–33. 
26 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Although based heavily on empirical investigations, the research conducted 

by this group also benefited from theoretical insights drawn from quantum 

mechanics. Conceived in Europe in the mid-1920s and introduced to physicists 

in the United States at the end of the decade, this highly mathematical 

interpretation of classical electrodynamics revolutionized the study of atomic 

and molecular structure. Moreover, solid materials, especially metals, were 

ideally suited to quantum theoretical analyses.42 In addition to publishing 

several seminal articles on internal friction that helped place the newly emerging 

discipline of solid-state physics on a firm theoretical footing, several members 

of the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia group transferred to the laboratory at Frankford 

Arsenal, where they continued their research on internal friction in metals to 

solve a very practical problem—season cracking in the brass casings of artillery 

shells and other ammunition.43 During the war, investigations of copper, one of 

the primary constituent materials of brass, constituted the single largest field of 

nonferrous metallurgical research at Frankford.

The powder packed into artillery shells and ammunition cartridges normally 

gives off gases, especially ammonia. When shells and cartridges are stored for 

extended periods of time, the ammonia causes tiny cracks to appear in the brass 

casings. If left untreated, artillery shells weakened by season cracking might 

42 On the origins of quantum theoretical physics in the United States and the application of research 

in this field to industrial problems, see, for example, Stanley Coben, “The Scientific Establishment and 

the Transmission of Quantum Mechanics to the United States, 1919–32,” American Historical Review 76 

(April 1971): 442–66; S. S. Schweber, “The Empiricist Temper Regnant: Theoretical Physics in the United 

States, 1920–1950,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 17 (1986): 55–98; Katherine 

R. Sopka, Quantum Physics in America, 1920–1935 (New York: Arno Press, 1980); Charles Weiner, 

“A New Site for the Seminar: The Refugees and American Physics in the Thirties,” in The Intellectual 

Migration: Europe and America, 1930–1960, ed. Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass.: 

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969); Spencer R. Weart, “The Physics Business in America, 

1919–1940: A Statistical Reconnaissance,” in The Sciences in the American Context: New Perspectives, ed. 

Nathan Reingold (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979); Lillian Hoddeson, “The Entry 

of the Quantum Theory of Solids into the Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1925–40: A Case-Study of the 

Industrial Application of Fundamental Science,” Minerva 18 (autumn 1980): 422–47; and Arturo Russo, 

“Fundamental Research at Bell Laboratories: The Discovery of Electron Diffraction,” Historical Studies in 

the Physical Sciences 12 (1981): 117–60. For a detailed technical history of quantum mechanics, see Max 

Jammer, The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966). 43 Physicists Thomas Read and Frederick Seitz spearheaded research on the internal friction of 

metals at Westinghouse Electric and the University of Pennsylvania. Read, who received his training in 

theoretical physics at Columbia University, joined the solid-state group at Westinghouse in 1939. Seitz, 

a Princeton-trained theoretician, was a close friend of Read’s boss, Edward Condon, associate director of 

the Westinghouse Research Laboratories and himself an accomplished and widely respected theoretical 

physicist. Seitz, who had been invited by Condon to Pittsburgh to work on solid-state problems, 

collaborated with Read to study the internal friction of metals during the summer of 1939 and again the 

following year. Their collaborative effort produced a series of four pioneering review articles on the plastic 

properties of solids published in the Journal of Applied Physics in 1941. These articles, Seitz later recalled, 

“attempted to describe, in a more or less systematic way, the roles that dislocations could play in affecting 

the various properties of crystalline materials.” Read left Westinghouse in 1941 for a permanent research 

position at Frankford Arsenal. Although he remained at the University of Pennsylvania, Seitz consulted 

regularly with Read and his staff at Frankford. Hoddeson et al., Out of the Crystal Maze, 337–38, 348; 

Frederick Seitz, On the Frontier: My Life in Science (New York: AIP Press, 1994), 106–7, 134–35 (quote on 

135). On solid-state research at Westinghouse during the 1930s, see Thomas C. Lassman, “From Quantum 

Revolution to Institutional Transformation: Edward U. Condon and the Dynamics of Pure Science in 

America, 1925–1951 (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2000), chaps. 2–3.
Research and Development in the Army 27

explode prematurely during firing, causing catastrophic injury to gun crews. 

Joined by new wartime recruits, mostly from academia, the solid-state physics 

group at Frankford Arsenal designed and built testing apparatus to measure the 

internal friction of brass shell casings for the purpose of identifying cracks and 

other structural imperfections. One advantage of this experimental method was 

that it did not require invasive procedures. Researchers merely had to measure 

how much energy was absorbed and dissipated in the brass metal—that is, 

calculate the internal friction—rather than cut the shell apart, one of the standard 

practices at the time, to identify potential weaknesses caused by season cracking. 

Moreover, the technique was sensitive enough that cracks could be spotted early, 

allowing investigators to study how they formed and grew over time. Taking 

advantage of this new technique, employing other analytical methods, and 

working closely with universities and several metals-producing companies, the 

arsenal’s manufacturing divisions quickly adjusted their production methods to 

turn out more reliable and structurally sound ordnance.44

Studies of plastic deformation and internal friction of metals continued 

at Frankford after the war. This research, like most of the other metallurgical 

investigations underway in the laboratory, remained focused, however, on 

the solution of problems related to ordnance production. In the early 1950s, 

metallurgical studies at Frankford were grouped into three categories: “basic 

metallurgical research,” “process research,” and “special problems.” Basic 

metallurgical research included further work on dislocation theory and its 

application to the development of new alloys. The search for alloys also drew on 

advances in foundry research, another topic covered within this general category. 

Begun at the arsenal in 1943, foundry work focused on the refinement of methods 

to cast titanium, magnesium, and aluminum for use in the next generation of 

high-performance materials. Fabrication, welding, corrosion, and heat treatment 

of alloys engaged the efforts of technical staff working on process research. 

Special problems covered topics found in both the basic metallurgical and process 

research categories. Work ranged from ongoing studies of season cracking in 

ammunition to the development of substitute alloys to offset lingering shortages 

of zinc and copper used in the manufacture of brass gun cartridge cases.45 That 

studies of dislocation theory and foundry processes were grouped together under 

the same category—“basic metallurgical research” suggests the extent to which 

they were directed toward the same goal—the solution of ordnance problems. 

44 Collaborating universities and industrial firms included the Case School of Applied Science in 

Cleveland, Lehigh University, the New Jersey Zinc Company, and the Aluminum Company of America. 

Greenall, “Non-Ferrous Metallurgical Research at Frankford Arsenal,” 787–89; interview with Herbert 

I. Fusfeld by Thomas C. Lassman, April 2–3, 2005 (unedited transcript), Niels Bohr Library, Center for 

History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, College Park, Md., 14–15, 17–19, 20. Fusfeld joined 

Read’s group at the Frankford Arsenal in December 1941, shortly after receiving his B.S. degree in physics 

from Brooklyn College. During the war, Fusfeld and Read collaborated on studies of internal friction in 

metals to find a solution to the problem of season cracking in artillery shell casings. Fusfeld received M.S. 

and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Pennsylvania before resigning from the arsenal in 1953 

to pursue an industrial career at the American Machine and Foundry Company. 45 D. J. Murphy, “Metallurgical Activities at Frankford Arsenal,” Metal Progress 62 (August 1952): 

67–72.
28 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Longer-term research unrelated to specific production needs, by contrast, was 

conducted in the universities and other private-sector institutions that received 

contracts from the Office of Ordnance Research.

A similar institutional strategy guided the innovation process at Watertown 

Arsenal, the other Army ordnance installation that supported an extensive 

metallurgical R&D program during the postwar period. Although the definitions 

assigned to different types of research at Watertown were not necessarily the same 

as those used at Frankford Arsenal, the content of the work was nevertheless 

directed toward the same outcome—the development of more effective and 

reliable weapons. Most of Watertown’s metallurgical work, what was termed 

“supporting” and “applied” research, focused on finding solutions to problems 

encountered during ordnance development. There were some exceptions, 

however. Scientists working in Watertown’s Materials Research Laboratory in 

the 1960s, for example, tackled problems known to their academic counterparts 

in the universities, such as research on interatomic bonding energies, electronic 

structures of materials, and impurities in solids. But most metallurgical studies 

along these lines, especially those that drew on recent advances in solid-state 

physics, were gradually transferred out of Watertown and the other arsenals. 

Funds for this work were distributed to civilian contractors by the Office of 

Ordnance Research.46 That trend persisted especially after the production 

facilities at Watertown Arsenal shut down in 1967, and Frankford Arsenal 

closed ten years later.

Metals research in the arsenal system relied on insights drawn from empirical 

and theoretical investigations in metallurgy and solid-state physics. It also 

benefited from the analytical capabilities of sophisticated instrumentation. Ever 

since its introduction as a diagnostic tool early in the twentieth century, the X-ray 

tube had enabled academic and industrial researchers to accumulate detailed 

knowledge of the internal structures of a wide variety of materials, ranging from 

bones and internal organs in living organisms to metallic compounds. In the latter 

the penetrating power of X-ray radiation provided researchers in the arsenals 

with critical information to identify and correct structural weaknesses in the 

metal components of ordnance delivery systems, such as howitzers, antiaircraft 

guns, and other weapons.

46 L. G. Klinker, “Metallurgical R&D in the Army,” Journal of Metals 13 (February 1961): 129–31; 

“AMRA Goal: New Materials to Transform Ideas into Materiel,” Army Research and Development News 

Magazine 6 (September 1965): 32–35. The contracts for metallurgical research awarded by the Office 

of Ordnance Research and other funding agencies in the military services were part of a much larger 

national materials research program established by the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (ARPA) in 1960. That year, ARPA awarded grants to Cornell University, Northwestern University, 

and the University of Pennsylvania to build laboratories for interdisciplinary research and instruction in 

physics, chemistry, metallurgy, and other materials-related subjects. Two years later, the program had to 

expand to include eleven laboratories located at universities throughout the United States. In addition to 

expanding the Defense Department’s contracting base for metallurgical research, this program also laid 

the institutional groundwork for the subsequent growth of materials science as an independent academic 

discipline. See C. F. Yost and E. C. Vicars, “Interdisciplinary Laboratory Program in Materials Science,” 

Journal of Metals 14 (September 1962): 666–70. On the origins of the program, see Richard J. Barber 

Associates, The Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1958–1974 (Washington, D.C.: Advanced research 

Projects Agency, December 1975).
Research and Development in the Army 29

X-rays consist of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation. They are 

produced when electrons are accelerated to high energies through a large voltage 

potential in an evacuated chamber. Until World War II, modified vacuum 

tubes were the most common X-ray sources, and they were widely used by 

medical practitioners in hospitals to diagnose and treat diseases. Operational 

ranges typically did not exceed two million electron volts. New types of particle 

accelerators capable of generating much higher voltages, both for scientific study 

and clinical use, began to appear in the 1930s, when nuclear physics began to 

capture the interest of the American scientific community. One of the first 

practical high-energy electron accelerators, known as the betatron, was invented 

at the University of Illinois in 1940, and it was transformed into a powerful 

X-ray source at the research laboratory of the General Electric Company during 

the war.47 Conventional X-ray tubes and the far more powerful betatrons were 

employed extensively in the Army’s arsenal system before and after the war. 

Unlike their counterparts in academia, who by and large used these instruments 

to study the structure and behavior of atoms and molecules, arsenal researchers 

conducted X-ray studies to solve urgent practical problems related to ordnance 

development and production.

Nestled on the upper Mississippi River between Iowa and Illinois, the 

Ordnance Department’s Rock Island Arsenal served as a major center for applied 

X-ray research dating back to the 1930s. After World War II, the arsenal’s primary 

products included mortars, light and medium artillery, gun carriages, and rocket 

and guided missile launchers. Rock Island also overhauled and rebuilt weapons 

already operating in the field. The research that supported these manufacturing 

and maintenance functions had always been and continued to be narrowly focused 

on production problems. Research for its own sake was not part of Rock Island’s 

mission officially, nor that of any of the other Army arsenals. Rock Island engineers, 

for example, drafted the initial plans and specifications for the 3.5-inch rocket 

launcher (also known as the “super bazooka”), and the arsenal also turned out the 

first prototypes scheduled for testing and debugging prior to mass production by 

industrial contractors.48 The first quantities of this new antitank weapon entered 

service with American combat forces shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in 

Korea. Similar procedures guided the development of other weapon systems, such 

as the Army’s first mobile, large-caliber launcher for the Honest John rocket and a 

helicopter-mounted, single-rail rocket launcher for the Little John rocket.49

During the immediate postwar period, the bulk of research and development 

at Rock Island was scattered throughout the arsenal’s manufacturing divisions. 

47 See J. L. Heilbron and Robert W. Seidel, Lawrence and his Laboratory, vol. 1 of A History of the Lawrence 

Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). On the origins of the betatron, see D. W. 

Kerst, “Historical Development of the Betatron,” Nature 157 (26 January 1946): 90–95. 48 Engineers at Picatinny Arsenal also contributed to the development of the 3.5-inch rocket launcher. 

See “Rockets at Picatinny Arsenal,” 114. 49 Rock Island Arsenal began producing rocket launchers in 1942. W. W. Warner, “Arsenals in Action,” 

Army Information Digest 6 (September 1951): 39–40; M. S. Werngren, “Skills Spell Strength,” Army 

Information Digest 17 (September 1962): 62; Neil M. Johnson and Leonard C. Weston, Development and 

Production of Rocket Launchers at Rock Island Arsenal, 1945–1959 (Rock Island, Ill.: U.S. Army Weapons 

Command, 1962), 1, 8–9.
30 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

The Artillery Branch, for example, performed its own R&D on rocket launchers 

as well as conventional artillery. A separate laboratory division existed at the 

arsenal, but it provided technical support to the individual R&D operations in the 

manufacturing units. Management completed a major overhaul of the arsenal’s 

organizational structure in 1953, resulting in the consolidation of all of Rock 

Island’s scattered R&D functions into a new, centralized Office of Research and 

Engineering Activities. According to Rock Island’s official history, the purpose 

of this realignment was to “produce a closer, more effective relationship between 

basic and applied research activities.” Laboratories were built to accommodate 

new and expanded research programs on rust-preventive compounds, lubricants, 

finishes, packaging materials, all types of rubbers, and other nonmetallic materials 

used in the arsenal’s major products. New inspection facilities supported X-ray 

analyses of critical components used in gun assemblies, while an experimental 

production facility fabricated and tested prototype materials. Periodically 

throughout the 1950s and 1960s, management made additional organizational 

adjustments to maintain the institutional integrity of this strong connection 

among research, development, and production.50

The origins of X-ray research at Rock Island Arsenal can be traced back to 

1935, when a 500,000-volt X-ray machine was installed to inspect metal castings 

and other critical parts. During this period, arsenal researchers were particularly 

interested in detailed analysis of stressed points in gun carriages.51 A major 

expansion of this work came after the war, when the arsenal installed a betatron 

to inspect the internal parts of gun assemblies without taking them apart. In 

addition to its manufacturing operations, the arsenal served as a storage depot 

for artillery recoil mechanisms used by combat forces in the field. In many cases, 

recoil mechanisms arrived at the arsenal for refurbishment and storage without 

service records, making it practically impossible to determine their repair status 

without complete disassembly. Using the betatron made this cumbersome and 

time-consuming task unnecessary. Unlike the conventional X-ray equipment 

that it replaced, the Rock Island betatron produced X-ray energies nearly ten 

times more powerful than those previously employed to analyze the constituent 

materials of new and stored carriage assemblies. High-energy electrons striking 

a small platinum target could produce X-rays with energies reaching 22 million 

electron volts, thereby allowing radiographic analysis of metal components that 

contained substantial quantities of iron.

In addition to providing greater penetrating power than low-intensity 

X-rays, high-energy X-rays produced secondary emissions that minimized 

scattering effects. Researchers at Rock Island found that the secondary emissions 

generated by the collision of X-rays with atoms in metals proceeded in the 

same direction as the incident X-rays that produced them in the first place. 

Low-voltage X-rays did not produce the same result; secondary scattering was 

50 A History of Rock Island and Rock Island Arsenal from Earliest Times to 1954, vol. 3 (1940–1954), 

(Rock Island, Ill.: Rock Island Arsenal, 1965): 513–15, 561, 711–12, 729, 764 (quote on 514); Warner, 

“Arsenals in Action,” 43. 51 “X-Ray in an Arsenal,” American Machinist 84 (13 November 1940): 930–31.
Research and Development in the Army 31

a persistent problem that resulted in blurred or “foggy” images. The benefits of a 

high-energy source included fog-free radiographs, shorter exposure times, and 

improved ability to penetrate thicknesses of materials previously inaccessible 

to low-voltage X-rays. Given these advantages, the Rock Island betatron was 

able to detect very small defects in recoil assemblies and other metallic items 

stored and produced at the arsenal. Moreover, the efficiencies in operation 

prompted one observer to note that “betatron radiographs could be made in 

short periods of time, thus permitting production line inspection of sections 

of moderate thickness.”52

Initially confined to the analysis of steel, the primary material used in 

gun recoil mechanisms, the Rock Island betatron was quickly adapted for the 

inspection of both low-density materials, such as aluminum, and very highdensity “superalloys” used in the manufacture of jet engines, rockets, and other 

propulsion technologies that typically operated in extreme conditions.52 Highenergy X-ray analysis also spread to other arsenals. Researchers operating the 

betatron at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, for example, focused their efforts 

on the inspection of powder charges in large-caliber artillery shells exceeding 

240 millimeters in diameter. In this case, X-rays were used to identify cavities 

in the charge, the presence of which might cause a malfunction in the gun, or 

worse, a premature explosion during firing.53 Though the methods of analysis 

were different, the practical requirements driving X-ray research at Rock Island 

and Picatinny arsenals matched very closely the short-term goals that guided 

studies of internal friction of metals at Frankford Arsenal.

Given that research and development in the arsenal system focused broadly 

on solving practical, ordnance-related problems, it is perhaps fitting to examine, if 

only briefly, how the types of R&D projects undertaken individually at Frankford, 

Watertown, Rock Island, and Picatinny arsenals also existed collectively in one 

location, namely at the Army’s “big gun factory”—Watervliet Arsenal, situated 

on the Hudson River near Albany in upstate New York. After World War II, 

Watervliet gradually transformed itself from a large-scale production facility 

narrowly focused on a single technology—artillery—into a designer and builder 

of prototype weapon systems and components manufactured in large quantities 

by industrial contractors. By 1960, for example, a section of Watervliet’s “Big 

Gun Shop,” which had turned out the first 16-inch coastal cannon—the highly 

effective 155-millimeter artillery gun used in World War II—and more recently, 

the 280-millimeter atomic cannon, had been converted into a pilot production 

line that manufactured solid-propellant rocket motors for the Nike-Hercules

surface-to-air missile.54

52 G. Elwers, “Ordnance Using X-Rays to Inspect Complex Assemblies,” Iron Age 168 (25 October 

1951): 95–99 (quote on 97); 53 Elwers, “Ordnance Using X-Rays to Inspect Complex Assemblies,” 98–99; Harry E. Bawden, ed., 

The Achievement of Rock Island Arsenal in World War II (Davenport, Ia.: Bawden Brothers, 1948), 75. 54 W. M. D. Tisdale, “It’s Always Tomorrow,” Army Information Digest 15 (December 1960): 29. 

The Nike-Hercules surface-to-air missile was produced in quantity by the Western Electric Company, the 

manufacturing arm of the Bell Telephone System. 
32 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

This broad institutional transformation accompanied a major reorganization 

of the arsenal’s R&D operations. In 1959, management centralized R&D 

under a new administrative structure—the Research and Engineering Division. 

The division split into three separate units: the Research Branch, the Design 

Engineering Branch, and the Industrial Engineering Branch. The following 

year, wrote one historian of the aresnal, a new group of laboratories opened 

“to increase the arsenal’s ability to investigate the properties of metals, to seek 

new and improved coatings for gun tubes, and to study non-destructive testing 

techniques for all the U.S. arsenals and Ordnance Corps installations.” A new 

research program in solid-state physics occupied one of these laboratories to 

complement expanded work on the mechanical and physical testing of ordnance 

materials. The arsenal also acquired modern instrumentation for studies in 

electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.55 “Here [in the Research Branch],” 

wrote Watervliet’s commanding officer in 1960, “a hard core of ‘old pro’ ordnance 

experts combine the invaluable knowledge and craft of experience with the talents 

of scientific specialists imported from industry and educational institutions. 

Many of them—holders of Ph.D. and master’s degrees in metallurgy, mechanics, 

physics, chemistry—have joined the team. . . .”56 By 1962, the arsenal’s laboratories 

employed 11 Ph.D.s, 67 master’s degree holders, and 251 college graduates with 

bachelor’s degrees. Twelve years later, the number of Ph.D.s working in the 

Research and Engineering Division had quadrupled to forty-four.57

Like the other arsenals, Watervliet concentrated much of its R&D on the 

development and analysis of the materials used to produce cannon, howitzers, 

mortars, and recoilless rifles.58 In the late 1960s, for example, scientists and 

engineers tapped Watervliet’s long-standing tradition in metallurgical research 

to improve the firing life of the steel gun tube mounted on the 175-millimeter 

cannon, which at the time was one of the largest conventional field artillery 

pieces used by Army combat forces. As the firing ranges of large-diameter 

cannon like the 175 increased, the gun tubes had to withstand higher pressures, 

which resulted in a loss of a quality in the steel called “toughness.” To eliminate 

this problem, scientists at Watervliet pre-stressed the steel during fabrication. By 

applying pressures of approximately 100,000 pounds per square inch to specific 

locations on the walls of the gun tubes, higher yields of stress were recorded 

without a corresponding loss of the original toughness in the steel. Using this 

process, known as autofrettage, researchers tripled the operational life of the 

standard gun tube mounted on the 175-millimeter cannon.59

55 A History of Watervliet Arsenal, 1813 to Modernization 1982, 185–89 (quote on 189). 56 Tisdale, “It’s Always Tomorrow,” 30.

57 A History of Watervliet Arsenal, 1813 to Modernization 1982, 196; R. H. Sawyer, “Portrait of an 

Arsenal,” Army Logistician 7 ( January-February 1975): 25. 58 R&D on recoilless rifles was transferred from Frankford Arsenal to Watervliet in the early 1960s. A 

History of Watervliet Arsenal, 1813 to Modernization 1982, 194–95. 59 Ibid., 221. See also C. S. Maggio, “Since 1813, Watervliet Arsenal Has Pioneered the Logistics of 

Cannon Manufacture,” Army Logistician 5 (September-October 1973): 18–23. Autofrettage was not a new 

process. This method of pretreating the constituent materials of gun tubes and other critical components 

had been used in the manufacturing arsenals for decades. See, for example, “Technical Developments in 

Ordnance Department,” American Machinist 55 (22 December 1921): 1022a.
Research and Development in the Army 33

The continued diversification of Watervliet’s Research and Engineering 

Division complemented this problem-oriented research on gun fabrication and 

performance. In 1969, the laboratories were modernized, and new facilities were 

built for research in experimental mechanics and thermodynamics, solid-state 

physics, electrochemistry, and physical chemistry. Moreover, Watervliet scientists 

also won high praise from the scientific community for their work on the theory 

of the mechanics of solids. A new research program in superconductivity arose 

out of this broad knowledge base in solid materials. A highly speculative field of 

investigation in which practical applications lay far in the future, superconductivity 

research at the arsenal in the 1970s and 1980s focused on exotic materials that 

exhibited unique magnetic and electrical properties.

Studies of superconductivity at Watervliet Arsenal originated in the 

laboratory facilities dedicated to high-pressure testing, normally in the range of 

200 kilobars (200,000 times normal atmospheric pressure). In 1973, a separate 

research program was established, focusing on the production of significantly 

higher pressures, in the range of 500 to 1,000 kilobars. Using these extremely 

high pressures, arsenal scientists sought to create entirely new materials. Their 

efforts began to pay off by the end of the decade, when the laboratory produced 

two new phases of bismuth, exhibiting unusually high electrical conductivity. 

Metallic states of sodium chloride, gallium phosphide, and boron were also 

produced for the first time. The limited metastability of these materials—that 

is, the extent to which they remained structurally intact outside a high-pressure 

environment—was a recurring problem, however. Most specimens were too 

unstable, but one—cadmium sulfide—maintained its integrity as a metal under 

normal atmospheric conditions, and it also exhibited unique magnetic properties. 

Other work along this general line of investigation included a search for metallic 

hydrogen, which prompted further work on superconductivity.60 Speculative 

as it was, this research represented only a small fraction of the overall R&D 

effort at Watervliet Arsenal. In 1981, the arsenal’s research director confirmed 

the laboratory’s primary function: “We furnish the engineering for the arsenal[’s] 

products. . . . Our projects have led to better ways of making cannons.”61

Decline of the Arsenal System

By the time scientists and engineers at Watervliet Arsenal immersed 

themselves in research on superconducting materials, the arsenal system as a 

whole had already undergone a significant contraction that left only three of 

the original, old-line arsenals in operation by 1980. Springfield and Frankford 

arsenals were permanently closed; their research, development, and production 

functions were either phased out entirely, transferred to the remaining arsenals, 

or shifted to industrial contractors. Manufacturing facilities at Watertown 

60 A History of Watervliet Arsenal, 1813 to Modernization 1982, 231; “Watervliet Arsenal Improves 

Laboratory Facilities,” Army Research and Development News Magazine 10 (March 1969): 19. 61 L. D. Kozaryn, “Watervliet Arsenal: Birthplace of the Army’s Big Guns,” Soldiers 36 (February 

1981): 43.
34 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Arsenal had also been shuttered. This outcome was prompted by the continued 

outsourcing of weapons R&D and production throughout the postwar period.62

The sources of this trend were rooted in multiple and related causal events that 

evolved over time: the waning influence of the once-powerful and independent 

Army technical services; increasing centralization of weapons acquisition policies 

in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; steadily rising productivity of private 

industry after the war and the corresponding expansion and diversification 

of corporate research and development into weapons-related fields; and the 

establishment and growth of a permanent captured market for those defense 

industries that manufactured military technologies during the Cold War.

Perhaps the most significant causal event that signaled the demise of the 

arsenal system was the gradual centralization of decision-making authority 

within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a process that began in 1947 and 

culminated in the elimination of the independent status of the Army technical 

services nearly two decades later.63 Until that time, the Ordnance Department 

and the other six technical services operated as autonomous organizations under 

the direction of a relatively weak Army Staff. In 1962, however, institutional 

rigidity within the Army’s procurement system prompted Secretary of Defense 

Robert McNamara to wrest control of the weapons acquisition process from the 

technical services and place it within a new centralized unit—the Army Materiel 

Command. The establishment of AMC did result in some organizational division 

of labor between R&D and production and procurement at the laboratory level, 

but this outcome may not have met the expectations originally envisioned by 

the civilian scientists, such as Vannevar Bush, and like-minded Army leaders 

who favored a more complete separation of these functions. Research and 

development in the Army remained intimately connected to weapons production 

and procurement throughout the Cold War.

High-level disagreements among civilian and military policymakers about 

the structure, function, and organization of research and development did not 

necessarily capture the operational realities of weapons innovation in the arsenals. 

A disjunction sometimes existed between the policies designed to manage 

innovation and the actual workings of that process in the arsenal system. The 

embrace of research, development, and production within the same institutional 

setting—exemplified in the metals research programs at Frankford and 

Watertown arsenals—proved to be highly successful during the postwar period. 

To be sure, this outcome also depended on the Army’s established priorities and 

institutional patterns of funding and resource allocation. Much more historical 

62 In 1960, for example, the government financed nearly 60 percent of the research and development 

conducted in industry, largely through contracts awarded by the Department of Defense. Merton J. Peck 

and Frederic M. Scherer, The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (Boston: Division of 

Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1962), 215. For additional 

quantitative data on Defense Department funding of industrial research after World War II, see Nathan 

Rosenberg and David C. Mowery, Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1989), chap. 6. 63 See Roger R. Trask and Alfred Goldberg, The Department of Defense, 1947–1997: Organization 

and Leaders (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1997), 1–53, esp. 

31–34.
Research and Development in the Army 35

research on this subject is needed, but the evidence presented in this chapter 

suggests that the commitment to the organizational separation of R&D from 

production, partially grounded in views expressed by Bush and other civilian 

and military policymakers, may have precluded a more nuanced evaluation of 

the limits of technological innovation within the arsenal system.

Whether such an evaluation would have altered perceptions and policies 

leading to a more active role for the arsenals during the later years of the Cold 

War is questionable, given the continued shift of weapons procurement from 

public to private-sector institutions. Defense Secretary McNamara’s decision to 

centralize weapons acquisition policy within OSD was not based entirely on 

notions of administrative reform and institutional efficiency. To be sure, his prior 

experience as a senior executive at the Ford Motor Company had manifested 

itself in various policies to rationalize Defense Department operations along the 

lines adopted by business managers in large industrial corporations. Moreover, 

the controversy and embarrassment that surrounded the failure of the Springfield 

Armory to develop quickly a suitable replacement—the M14—for the existing 

M1 rifle then in service prompted a sequence of contemptuous responses from 

McNamara that ultimately resulted in the armory’s closure in 1968.64 Larger 

forces were also at work during this period. Big business had recovered much of 

its luster after languishing under the forces of economic instability during the 

1930s, when critics charged that the government should intervene to compensate 

for industry’s failings. The spectacular wartime success of the manufacturing 

sector and the corresponding postwar economic boom had helped to reverse 

this trend. So did a business-friendly political climate that favored private sector 

weapons procurement at the expense of those public-sector institutions—the 

arsenals—that had fulfilled that requirement for more than a century.65

The arsenal system’s demise as the primary source of weapons innovation 

in the Army after World War II should not, however, suggest that it was 

merely the victim of institutional circumstances beyond its control. To some 

extent, and perhaps ironically, the decline was prompted by the successful 

execution of the arsenal mandate. During and after World War II, the arsenals 

64 It is unclear to what extent the organizational relationship between R&D and production at the 

Springfield Armory contributed to the problems that plagued the M14 rifle program. Much more research 

on this subject is needed. According to Edward Clinton Ezell, The Great Rifle Controversy: Search for the 

Ultimate Infantry Weapon from World War II through Vietnam and Beyond (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole 

Books, 1984), which is considered to be the standard source on the subject, the program’s difficulties can 

be attributed to several factors: the inherent conservatism of the line officers in the Ordnance Department 

who determined weapons requirements, and the tendency of engineers at the armory to favor efficient 

production of existing small arms rather than wholesale adoption of new designs and manufacturing 

methods. These explanations are convincing and well-documented. Ezell also identifies another cause—the 

Ordnance Department’s failure to separate Springfield’s R&D from its production functions. “Ordnance 

leaders did not learn,” he writes, “that it was fatal to place a research department under a production-oriented 

organization” (p. xvi). Significantly, Ezell provides almost no evidence to show that the combination of 

R&D and production—which had persisted at Springfield Armory for more than a century—crippled the 

rifle program. 65 See Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold 

War Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 245–50, 265–77; and David M. Hart, 

Forged Consensus: Science, Technology, and Economic Policy in the United States, 1921–1953 (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1998), chaps. 6–7.
36 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

had, with some exceptions, met their mission requirements, transferring the 

technological know-how of weapons production to private industry. Over 

time, the continuous transmission of knowledge through this institutional 

connection and the ongoing expansion of America’s defense industries 

during the Cold War helped manufacturing firms develop a similar in-house 

capability, thereby reducing their long-term dependence on the arsenal system. 

That the Army also depended on a rapidly growing number of industrial firms, 

not just to fill production quotas but also to engage in the development of 

entirely new weapon systems, further contributed to the declining operational 

status of the arsenals. Many of the same institutional constraints guided the 

postwar evolution of in-house research and development in the Navy and the 

Air Force.
Chapter Three

Research and Development in the Navy 

At the end of World War II, the United States operated the largest and most 

technologically sophisticated navy in the world. A massive interlocking network 

of public and private shipyards drove the wartime expansion of the American 

submarine and surface fleets. During the war, the federal government had 

invested more than $1 billion in this sprawling complex, while employment in the 

shipbuilding industry peaked at 1.7 million workers, up from 102,000 in 1940.1

Like the Army’s manufacturing arsenals, the Navy’s shipyards handled all phases 

of ship construction, equipment installation, repair, overhaul, maintenance, 

and eventual retirement. A broad knowledge base in science and engineering 

supported these functions, which resided in the research and development 

(R&D) laboratories operated by the Navy’s technical bureaus. After the war, 

however, the Navy’s R&D and production infrastructure experienced many 

of the same institutional pressures that prompted the gradual decline of the 

Army’s arsenal system. The Department of Defense shifted ship construction 

from the Navy’s own plants to privately owned shipyards. A similar transition 

from public to private-sector institutions occurred within the Navy’s R&D 

establishment after 1945.2 This chapter examines how the evolution of the naval 

shore establishment during the Cold War altered the institutional landscape of 

the Navy’s major in-house research and development laboratories. 

What set the Navy apart from the Army in terms of their respective 

postwar R&D programs was the extent to which both services separated and 

institutionalized the categories of research, development, and production. Whereas 

the Army sought to disconnect R&D from production, the Navy had already 

taken an important step in that direction before the war. The origins of this 

strategy can be traced to the founding of the Naval Research Laboratory in 1923. 

Organizationally independent of the Navy’s technical bureaus, this laboratory 

had been established to conduct long-term fundamental research in the 

physical sciences broadly related to naval applications. Although product-driven 

investigations—in electronics, rocketry, and materials testing and analysis, for 

example—were not uncommon, especially during wartime, development work 

that focused on specific weapons requirements was not part of the laboratory’s 

mission; the technical bureaus handled that function.3

 The unique status accorded 

1

 Philip Shiman, Forging the Sword: Defense Production during the Cold War (Champaign, Ill.: 

Construction Engineering Research Laboratories, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, July 1997), 31. 2

 See Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War 

Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 250–64. 3

 A. H. Van Keuren, “The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 

1944): 221–26; B. M. Loring, “Nonferrous Foundry Research at the Naval Research Laboratory,” Foundry

74 (February 1946): 98–101, 247–49; “Navy Believes Cost of R&D Can Be Cut,” Aviation Week 66 (3 
38 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

the Naval Research Laboratory within the Naval R&D establishment suggests 

that the remaining bureau laboratories, like their counterparts in the Army’s 

arsenal system, maintained stronger institutional connections among research, 

development, and production.

In 1946, Congress enacted legislation establishing the Office of Naval 

Research (ONR). In addition to its mandate to coordinate R&D in the technical 

bureaus and take over administrative control of the Naval Research Laboratory 

from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, ONR quickly emerged as one 

of the largest sources of government funding for academic research in the 

physical sciences.4

 ONR also provided substantial funds to the Naval Research 

Laboratory, thus securing the laboratory’s position as the Navy’s leading center 

for long-term exploratory research throughout the postwar period. Although the 

Army and the Air Force duplicated ONR’s programmatic function—through the 

establishment of the Army Research Office and The Applied Research Section 

(later the Office of Air Research)—no single organization comparable to the 

Naval Research Laboratory existed in the Army or the Air Force to complement 

and support the weapons-oriented R&D underway in their arsenals and 

laboratories. It is partially for this reason that the Navy was able to maintain a 

diversified in-house research and development infrastructure after World War 

II, even as other policies and administrative measures were put in place by the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to divest the naval shore establishment 

of its major production facilities in favor of private-sector contractors.

At the end of World War II, responsibility for the Navy’s research, 

development, and production functions resided in the Naval Research 

Laboratory and seven independent bureaus: ordnance, ships, aeronautics, 

supplies and accounts, naval personnel, medicine and surgery, and yards and 

docks. The bureaus of ordnance, ships, and aeronautics were collectively 

referred to as the “material bureaus,” because they carried out the bulk of the 

Navy’s R&D and provided the fleet with the vast majority of its weapons and 

associated delivery systems, either through direct manufacture or contracts 

with private industry.5

June 1957): 137; Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Review of Navy R&D Management, 1946–1973 (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Navy, June 1, 1976), 118. On the origins, growth, and diversification of the Naval 

Research Laboratory, see William M. McBride, “The ‘Greatest Patron of Science’?: The Navy-Academia 

Alliance and U.S. Naval Research, 1896–1923,” Journal of Military History 56 ( January 1992): 7–33; 

David K. Van Keuren, “Science, Progressivism, and Military Preparedness: The Case of the Naval Research 

Laboratory, 1915–1923,” Technology and Culture 33 (October 1992): 710–36; and Ivan Amato, Pushing 

the Horizon: Seventy-Five Years of High-Stakes Science at the Naval Research Laboratory (Washington, D.C.: 

Naval Research Laboratory, 1998). 4

 K. R. Spangenberg and W. E. Greene, “Basic Research Projects under ONR Contracts,” Electronics

22 ( June 1949): 66–69; “ONR Guides Navy Contract Research,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 351; 

Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge, 

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 355. On the history of ONR, see Harvey M. Sapolsky, Science 

and the Navy: The History of the Office of Naval Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); 

and S. S. Schweber, “The Mutual Embrace of Science and the Military: ONR and the Growth of Physics 

in the United States after World War II”, in vol. 1 of Science, Technology, and the Military, ed. Everett 

Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith, and Peter Weingart (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic 

Publishers, 1988). 5

 The four remaining bureaus also maintained in-house laboratories and, in some cases, R&D 
Research and Development in the Navy 39

The Navy fullfilled fleet requirements for equipment and supplies through a 

bilinear organization. The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) exercised military 

control over the fleet, while the civilian assistant and undersecretaries of the Navy 

managed the shore establishment. This division of labor separated consumer 

logistics, the responsibility of the CNO’s staff, from producer logistics, which 

resided in the bureaus. Although the CNO set the material requirements for the 

fleet, the bureaus controlled all phases of the procurement process. Bureau chiefs 

had direct access to the Secretary of the Navy, received their own appropriations 

from Congress, and maintained complete control over research, development, 

evaluation, procurement, and distribution of materials and facilities. The 

bureaus retained their independence throughout the immediate postwar period, 

but, by the late 1950s, the Secretary of the Navy and an expanded staff of 

assistant secretaries began to exercise more authority over their functions. In 

1959, for example, the bureaus relinquished their longstanding control of R&D 

appropriations and the budgeting process to the newly appointed Assistant 

Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development. Shortly thereafter, the 

bureaus lost their coveted access to the Secretary of the Navy. In 1966, the Navy 

abolished the technical bureaus and the bilinear organization.

This persistent drive toward centralization at the expense of bureau 

autonomy was, in part, a response to the more sweeping postwar consolidation 

of decision-making authority within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. 

No longer serving as a site of service coordination—exemplified by the shortlived and largely ineffective Research and Development Board (RDB)—OSD 

gradually replaced coordination with direct control of the military departments 

through an expanded staff of permanent assistant secretaries to minimize 

interservice rivalries and avoid functional duplication and waste in the weapon 

system acquisition process.6 At the same time, the introduction of new weapons 

technologies prompted Navy leaders to re-evaluate the roles and missions of the 

bureaus. In some cases, such as the development of guided missiles, the Navy 

established new organizations and R&D programs that cut across traditional 

bureau lines. Perhaps nowhere was the impact of this transformation more 

visible than in the material bureaus: ordnance, ships, and aeronautics.

Established in 1842, the Bureau of Ordnance had historically turned out 

a broad range of offensive and defensive weapons, including bombs, torpedoes, 

depth charges, mines, guns, rockets, projectiles, fuzes, armor, and fire control 

programs through contracts with private-sector institutions. See W. B. Young, “Research in the Bureau of 

Supplies and Accounts,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 278; H. W. Smith, “Research in the 

Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the U.S. Navy,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 279–88; 

L. E. Denfield, “Research Activities of the Bureau of Naval Personnel,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 

1944): 289–90; and W. C. Wagner, “Navy Yard Laboratories, Bureau of Ships,” Journal of Applied Physics

15 (March 1944): 243–48. 6

 “Mobilization of Scientific Resources—IV, the U.S. Navy,” Journal of Applied Physics 14 (March 

1944): 203–08; J. A. Furer, “Research in the Navy,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 209–13; 

Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 1–10, 35, 54–57, 75; David K. Allison, “U.S. Navy Research 

and Development since World War II,” in Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on the 

American Experience, ed. Merritt Roe Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), 290–312.
40 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

equipment.7 The bureau also handled the production of the assemblies and 

mechanisms—such as gun turrets and mounts, bomb racks, and power 

drives—that enabled weapon systems to function effectively in the field. 

The bureau’s Research and Development Division coordinated all technical 

work conducted in-house and in academic institutions and industrial firms. 

Before and during World War II, investigations of a long-term, fundamental 

nature were rarely conducted in the bureau’s laboratories. Instead, researchers 

focused their talents on more immediate problems related to development and 

production, such as the design and standardization of ordnance materials and 

the testing and evaluation of equipment procured from industrial contractors.8

After the war, however, many of the bureau’s laboratories diversified into newer 

fields of science and technology. This institutional transformation was driven 

in large part by wartime advancements in weapons technology. The bureau’s 

traditional output of guns and conventional ordnance gradually expanded to 

include missiles and rockets, nuclear power, and microwave electronics. These 

technological developments were exploited in myriad R&D organizations, 

ranging from large, centralized corporate laboratories to small engineering 

staffs assigned to the manufacturing operations of ammunition plants scattered 

throughout the United States. Representative examples to be discussed in this 

chapter include the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (White Oak, Maryland), 

Naval Proving Ground (Dahlgren, Virginia), Naval Ordnance Test Station 

(China Lake, California), and the Crane Naval Ammunition Depot (south 

central Indiana).

The Navy had established the Bureau of Construction and Repair in 1842 

and the Bureau of Steam Engineering (renamed the Bureau of Engineering 

in 1920) twenty years later. Both bureaus merged in 1940 to form the Bureau 

of Ships. This new bureau managed the network of shipyards that designed 

and built vessels for the surface and submarine fleets and coordinated similar 

activities of private-sector shipbuilders. The Navy yards also maintained 

research and development laboratories to provide technical support for their 

manufacturing divisions. Work in this field proceeded along two separate 

but related lines. Testing and standardization laboratories evaluated and 

inspected materials and equipment provided by industrial contractors. They 

also helped the in-house production units solve chemical and metallurgical 

problems and offered specialized expertise in the analysis and testing of 

rubber, paints, and other critical materials.9 Among the largest of these types 

of R&D facilities was the Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory located at 

the Philadelphia Navy Yard.10

7

 In 1862, the Navy transferred the bureau’s hydrography division (part of the original Bureau 

of Ordnance and Hydrography that had been established two decades earlier) to the new Bureau of 

Navigation. 8

 Buford Rowland and William D. Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II (Washington, 

D.C.: Bureau of Ordnance, Department of the Navy, 1953), 20–22. 9

 Wagner, “Navy Yard Laboratories, Bureau of Ships,” 243; H. A. Ingram, “Research in the Bureau of 

Ships,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 215–20. 10 The origins of the laboratory can be traced back to 1909, when the Bureau of Steam Engineering 
Research and Development in the Navy 41

Founded at the Washington Navy Yard in 1898, the David Taylor Model 

Basin moved to a larger, modern facility in nearby Carderock, Maryland, in 1940. 

Investigations at the model basin focused on the speed and powering of ships, 

launching stability, action in waves, maneuvering capabilities, propeller design, 

and resistance of ship structures to vibrations and shocks caused by explosions 

and other external forces.11 Although practical requirements drove the bulk of this 

work, it spawned nonetheless a wealth of knowledge in more abstract scientific 

fields, such as hydrodynamics.12 Long-term research in this and other related 

scientific disciplines constituted a significant share of the basin’s R&D program 

after World War II. Meanwhile, recent developments, especially in microwave 

electronics, prompted the Bureau of Ships to institutionalize a new program 

in antisubmarine warfare and underwater detection. In 1945, the Office of 

Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) transferred its wartime contracts 

in these fields to the bureau, which subsequently consolidated and incorporated 

them into the new Naval Electronics Laboratory, located in San Diego. Perhaps 

nowhere was the impact of wartime science and technology on ship design and 

construction more acutely manifest than in the development of nuclear reactors 

to replace conventional power generation equipment and propulsion systems 

in submarines and surface ships. Work on nuclear technology originated at 

the Naval Research Laboratory in 1939, rapidly spread to the bureau’s other 

in-house laboratories and shipyards after the war, and stimulated widespread 

participation among private contractors, especially the large electrical equipment 

manufacturers.

In 1921, the Navy established the Bureau of Aeronautics. The last of the 

three material bureaus to be examined in this chapter, it oversaw the design, 

production, and testing of aircraft and related equipment and materials (e.g., 

engines, communication devices, fuels, lubricants, and metal alloys). Because 

the domestic aircraft industry was in the early stages of its growth and already 

directed most of its limited output to the Army’s air arm, the Navy had earlier 

founded its own in-house aircraft development and production facility—the 

established the Fuel Oil Test Plant at the Philadelphia Navy Yard to mitigate the hazards of using fuel oil 

for steam generation in ships. The bureau added a refractory laboratory to the test plant in 1915, followed 

by a turbine testing laboratory in 1942. Expanded during the war, the newly named Naval Boiler and 

Turbine Laboratory served as the “sole source government agency in which full-sized boilers, turbines, and 

gears of marine designs are tested under simulated service conditions with the principle variables accurately 

controlled.” C. A. Bonvillian, “Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 

1944): 236–39; E. Kranzfelder, “Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory,” Marine Engineering and Shipping 

Review 52 ( June 1947): 66–75 (quote on 66).

11 H. S. Howard, “The David Taylor Model Basin,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 227. 12 The introduction of the steam engine and screw propeller into naval operations in the nineteenth 

century had raised critical problems in ship design and performance; for example understanding the 

relationship among the resistance, speed, and engine power of ships. In the United States, naval engineers 

conducted performance tests using completed vessels, whereas their French and British counterparts 

followed a more economical and theoretically informed strategy, instead using scale models to predict, with 

considerable accuracy, water resistance and other operating parameters. Out of this work, historian Rodney 

Carlisle writes, “the science of ship hydrodynamics was born.” See Rodney P. Carlisle, Where the Fleet 

Begins: A History of the David Taylor Research Center, 1898–1998 (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical 

Center, Department of the Navy, 1998), 24–25 (quote on 25).
42 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Naval Aircraft Factory—at Philadelphia in 1917. During World War II, as the 

domestic industry rapidly expanded its production capacity, the Naval Aircraft 

Factory (renamed the Naval Air Material Center in 1943) scaled back production 

of complete aircraft in favor of research and development on prototype models, 

engines, flight instruments, catapults and arresting gear, and related aviation 

equipment. Other major facilities engaged in aircraft R&D included the Naval 

Air Station at Patuxent, Maryland, and the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point 

Magu, California. This shift from production to research and development in the 

Bureau of Aeronautics persisted after the war as private airframe manufacturers 

expanded their internal R&D operations and assumed a greater role in military 

aircraft procurement. During the 1970s, in response to the continued growth 

and diversification of the aircraft industry and also as part of a general policy to 

streamline the Navy’s shore operations, the Philadelphia facility was gradually 

phased out of existence, its remaining research and development functions shut 

down or transferred to naval installations located elsewhere.

Bureau of Ordnance

At the end of World War II, all R&D in the Bureau of Ordnance was 

coordinated by a separate research and development division organized 

into sections by functional specialization and type of ordnance material: 

engineering, ammunition, armor, bombs and projectiles, fire control, guns 

and mounts, and underwater ordnance.13 The Bureau typically contracted 

out to academic institutions and industrial firms or conducted thwe work 

in-house.14 The Naval Ordnance Laboratory (located north of Washington, 

D.C., in the Maryland suburb of White Oak) and the Naval Proving Ground 

at Dahlgren, Virginia (situated halfway between Washington and Richmond) 

; carried out research, development, pilot production, inspection, testing, and 

evaluation of conventional ordnance materials. The Naval Ordnance Test 

Station at China Lake, located approximately 150 miles northeast of Los 

Angeles conducted the same type of work on missles and rockets. Ordnance 

production facilities built during the war were also included in this R&D 

network. Engineers at the Crane Naval Ammunition Depot in south central 

Indiana diversified their technical expertise beyond bombs, projectiles, and 

chemical agents to improve the operational performance of high-frequency 

13 The bureau included five other divisions, in addition to research and development, at the end of 

World War II: planning and progress, administrative, finance, production, and fleet maintenance. W. M. 

Moses, “Research in the Bureau of Ordnance,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 249–54. 14 The Bureau of Ordanance managed many external R&D contracts , such as the one for underwater 

ordnance research at Pennsylvania State College near Harrisburg. In 1945, the bureau assumed 

responsibility for the Underwater Sound Laboratory at Harvard University, which had been set up in 1941 

and managed by OSRD during the war. The bureau transfered the laboratory and its staff, along with two 

field testing stations in Rhode Island and Florida, from Harvard to Penn State and placed them under the 

direction of the School of Engineering. Continuing scientific studies in the laboratory focused on acoustics, 

electronics, applied mechanics, hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, and mathematics. See “Ordnance Research 

Laboratories at the Pennsylvania State College,” Science 102 (3 August, 1945): 112; and E. A. Walker, 

“Ordnance Research Laboratory,” Journal of Applied Physics 18 (March 1947): 263–67.
Research and Development in the Navy 43

electron tubes, semiconductor materials, and missile guidance systems. This 

postwar expansion into high-technology R&D at Crane matched similar 

lines of work at White Oak, Dahlgren, and China Lake.

The origins of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory can be traced back to World 

War I, when the Navy’s shipyards and other shore facilities experienced rapid 

expansion to meet urgent military requirements. Founded in 1800 as a major 

shipbuilding facility for the Continental Navy, the Navy Yard in Washington, 

D.C., gradually converted to gun production, and, in 1886, the Navy officially 

classified it as the primary manufacturer of heavy guns for the fleet.15 This shift 

from ship to ordnance production expanded during World War I, and, late in 

1917, the Navy erected a separate laboratory—called the Mine Building—at 

the yard and staffed it with a small group of engineers to develop mines for the 

North Atlantic sea blockade. Work on fuses was initiated at the Mine Building 

two years later, when a research group investigating new detonation methods 

moved to Washington from the nearby Naval Powder Factory at Indian Head, 

Maryland. The mine and fuse groups merged in 1929, and the new organization 

was formally designated the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. Ten years later, the 

laboratory was organizationally separated from the Navy Yard and reconstituted 

as an independent research and development facility within the Bureau of 

Ordnance. Although its primary wartime mission was to develop degaussing 

methods for ships to counter the recently introduced German magnetic mine, 

the laboratory also accumulated a diversified knowledge base in the scientific 

fields—terrestrial magnetism, underwater acoustics, and oceanography—

associated with ongoing work on depth charges, torpedoes, projectiles, fuses, 

and bombs.16

In 1944, the bureau leadership began preparing plans to move the Naval 

Ordnance Laboratory to a new location outside Washington. The old facilities 

at the Navy Yard were no longer sufficient to house the laboratory’s expanding 

technical programs.17 The Navy broke ground for a new $40 million research 

campus in White Oak, Maryland, two years later, and it was completed and 

fully operational in 1950.18 In addition to continuing work on bombs, torpedoes, 

15 In 1945, the Navy Yard was officially renamed the Naval Gun Factory. Paolo E. Coletta, ed., United 

States Navy and Marine Corps Bases, Domestic (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985), 183–87. 16 R. D. Bennett, “Wartime History of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,” Review of Scientific Instruments

17 (August 1946): 293–95; Albert B. Christman, Sailors, Scientists and Rockets: Origins of the Navy Rocket 

Program and of the Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, vol. 1 of History of the Naval Weapons Center, 

China Lake, California (Washington, D.C.: Naval History Division, 1971), 4, 59–60; Joseph P. Smaldone, 

History of the White Oak Laboratory, 1945–1975 (White Oak, Md.: Naval Surface Weapons Center, 1977), 

167–69. Also on the wartime work of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, especially the development of mines 

and countermeasures, see W. G. Schindler, “Research Activities of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,” Journal 

of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 255–61; and “NOL—Where the Arctic and Equator Meet,” All Hands,

no. 437 ( July 1953): 12–13. 17 Between January 1941 and July 1942, the size of the laboratory staff had increased more than 

tenfold, from sixty to eight hundred. By the end of the war, it had more than doubled again to nearly two 

thousand employees. The workforce continued to expand during the Cold War. Total employment reached 

three thousand by 1970. Schindler, “Research Activities of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,” 261; Bennett, 

“Wartime History of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,” 295–96; G. K. Hartmann, “Naval Ordnance 

Laboratory: From Concept to Hardware,” Defense Industry Bulletin 6 (December 1970): 9. 18 When completed, the White Oak campus comprised a total of sixty-nine laboratories, testing ranges, 
44 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

projectiles, and other conventional ordnance materials, new complementary 

R&D programs the bureau established that helped set the stage for the 

laboratory’s long-term growth. High-speed aerodynamic and ballistics studies, 

for example, were carried out in the captured and reconstructed supersonic wind 

tunnels used by German rocket engineers in Kochel, Bavaria, during the war 

to develop the V–1 flying bomb and the larger V–2 ballistic missile. Similarly, 

the persistent problems of detection, localization, and classification of airborne 

and underwater targets prompted ordnance researchers to push the frontiers of 

electronics technology to understand the generation, propagation, and processing 

of electromagnetic and acoustic signals. Research on semiconductors, alloys, 

ferrites, and other classes of magnetic materials proved vital to the development 

of more sensitive variable-time fuzes, homing torpedoes, and mine firing devices 

that were subsequently incorporated into fleet operations.19

Organizationally, the postwar Naval Ordnance Laboratory maintained 

an institutional division between R&D and production. Although laboratory 

personnel often manufactured “breadboard” models, or prototypes, for testing 

and inspection, mass production of new weapons was routinely turned over 

to industrial contractors.20 This functional separation guided work on the 

MK56 and MK57 mines, which at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory developed 

in 1947 but ultimately shifted to private industry for full-scale production. 

Similarly in 1958, the laboratory began developing a nuclear-armed 

submarine-to-submarine missile, designated SUBROC (from SUBmarine 

ROCket). Improved sonar (sound navigation and ranging) technology had 

enabled modern attack submarines to extend the detection range of enemy 

vessels far beyond the engagement range of conventional torpedoes. SUBROC 

was designed to redress this tactical disparity between undersea detection 

and engagement. Launched like a torpedo, SUBROC traveled at high speed 

through the air before re-entering the water to strike a submerged target. Early 

in the program, the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, the defense subsidiary 

of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, served as the prime contractor to 

handle system integration and large-scale production. The first generation of 

SUBROC missiles entered service in the submarine fleet in 1965.21

and support facilities. It was also the larger of two identically named ordnance R&D installations owned and 

managed by the Navy after the war. In 1951, the National Bureau of Standards transferred its wartime guided 

missile program to surplus Navy facilities in Corona, California. Also called the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 

the Corona site was formally transferred from the Bureau of Standards to the Navy in 1953. In 1967, the 

laboratory merged with the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake to form the Naval Weapons Center. 

Four years later, the Navy permanently closed Corona and relocated its personnel and functions were relocated 

to China Lake. “Naval Weapons Center,” Sea Technology 30 (November 1989): 66. 19 W. E. Scanlon and G. Lieberman, “Naval Ordnance and Electronics Research,” Proceedings of the IRE

47 (May 1959): 910; “The Naval Research Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland,” Science 104 (13 September 

1946): 237. 20 “Navy Research Helps Industrial Progress,” Business Week (30 October 1948): 48 (quote), 50, 

52, 54. 21 Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 349; Hartmann, “Naval Ordnance Laboratory: From 

Concept to Hardware,” 29; Norman Friedman, U.S. Naval Weapons: Every Gun, Missile, Mine, and Torpedo 

Used by the U.S. Navy from 1883 to the Present Day (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1982), 129–30; 

Bernard Blake, ed., Jane’s Weapon Systems, 1987–88, 18th ed. (London: Jane’s Publishing, 1987), 572.
Research and Development in the Navy 45

The separation of R&D from production—clearly delineated in the MK56, 

MK57, and SUBROC programs—mirrored a similar institutional division of 

labor between research and development, and testing. Separate departments for 

research, engineering, and testing had been established at the Naval Ordnance 

Laboratory before the new campus at White Oak opened in 1950. Sections 

in the research department, which “look[ed] into fundamental principles that 

might be applied,” were generally grouped by scientific discipline: electricity and 

magnetism, acoustics, mechanics, explosive phenomena, and physical optics. The 

engineering department, by contrast, was responsible for hardware development. 

Sections in this department were, by and large, identified by specific ordnance 

items: ammunition, mines and depth charges, torpedoes, fuses, and plastics. The 

test department evaluated the electrical and mechanical performance of ordnance 

prototypes in controlled test facilities and in the field.22 While the laboratory 

divisions periodically created, abolished, and shifted between departments and 

new programs, this organizational division of labor remained essentially intact 

at White Oak well into the 1970s.23 Functional separation did not preclude 

collaboration among the laboratory’s staff of scientists and engineers. Nor did 

it prevent cross-fertilization between the laboratory and industrial contractors. 

The Naval Ordnance Laboratory, Business Week reported in 1948, “helps 

[contractors] set up the jobs and get the ‘bugs’ out of the mass-production line 

[and it] sends out researchers and engineers to lend a helping hand.”24

Unlike the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, which had been born and reared 

within the Navy establishment, the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake 

descended directly from of the wartime rocket development program, which the 

Army Air Corps (Army Air Forces after 1941) established under contract at 

the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in nearby Pasadena. Prior to 

1940, rocket technology had received scant attention from the military services. 

Most rocket R&D was centered in civilian institutions. During the war, however, 

physicist Charles Lauritsen, a respected expert in high-voltage nuclear physics, 

and his research group at Caltech laid much of the groundwork for the Navy’s 

wartime rocket program at China Lake.25

22 “Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland,” 237–38; R. B. Dittmar, “Development of 

Physical Facilities for Research,” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 37 (April 1949): 425–26; 

“Ordnance Test Facilities Greatly Expanded at NOL,” Product Engineering 21 (April 1950): 152; D. S. 

Muzzey, “How the Project Manager System Works at the Naval Ordnance Lab,” Armed Forces Management

4 (August 1958): 29. 23 In 1975, the Secretary of Defense directed the Navy and the Air Force to turn over to the Army all 

in-house procurement, production, and distribution of ammunition and related ordnance. Transfer of the 

Navy’s production facilities was completed in 1978. Shiman, Forging the Sword, 81. The Naval Ordnance 

Laboratory permanently closed in 1997. 24 “Navy Research Helps Industrial Progress,” 48, 50 (quote).

25Caltech’s rocket program was split between Lauritsen’s group, which coordinated testing and 

evaluation activities at China Lake, and the group headed by aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán. At 

the end of the war, the rocket work under von Kármán’s direction shifted to the newly established Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory, operated by Caltech under contract for the Army. J. D. Gerrard-Gough and Albert 

B. Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, vol. 2 of History of the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, 

California (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Division, 1978), 280; Clayton R. 

Koppes, JPL and the American Space Program: A History of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (New Haven: Yale 

University Press, 1982), chaps. 1–2.
46 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Lauritsen also played a major role in site selection and facilities planning at 

China Lake. This sprawling installation, which covered more than one thousand 

square miles by the mid-1950s, was conceived in 1943 to test and evaluate 

the aircraft rockets, propellants, and launchers produced by his staff back in 

Pasadena. Two years later, as rocket work rapidly shifted from development to 

mass production, Lauritsen and his military counterparts prepared to transfer 

the China Lake test facility from Caltech to the Navy and expand its mission 

to include a broad program of research and development.26 During the postwar 

period, the station operated as a full-service weapons development installation, 

turning out home-grown rockets, guided missiles, torpedoes, and aircraft firecontrol systems.27 A diverse R&D infrastructure with specialized expertise in 

many scientific and engineering disciplines—physics, chemistry, mathematics 

and computing, metallurgy, ceramics, electronics, optics, aerodynamics, ballistics, 

and chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering—supported these and 

other weapons programs. Taken together, this broad range of multidisciplinary 

activities made the Naval Ordnance Test Station the largest in-house R&D 

installation operated by the Navy after World War II. Its rapid growth also 

signaled the emergence of rockets and guided missiles as permanent additions to 

the Navy’s postwar arsenal.28

The centerpiece of the research and development effort at the Naval Ordnance 

Test Station was the Michelson Laboratory, a vast, six-wing building completed 

in 1948 at a cost of nearly $10 million.29 This state-of-the-art facility consolidated 

the station’s previously scattered R&D functions, and it also occupied a central 

role in rocket and missile development.30 Physically, it incorporated the latest 

features of modern laboratory design and function. While the laboratory was 

still on the drawing board, senior staff in the Bureau of Ordnance consulted 

leading industrial firms for advice and guidance during the planning stages. 

Ordnance officials visited both the venerable Bell Telephone Laboratories, 

which had recently moved from their original location in New York City to a 

state-of-the-art facility in Murray Hill, New Jersey, as well as the new research 

campus that electronics giant Radio Corporation of America had built in nearby 

Princeton. The tour also included such well-known private research institutions 

as the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and the laboratories of the Gulf 

26 “China Lake: Navy in the Desert Is Guided Missile Laboratory,” All Hands, no. 469 (March 1956): 

60–61; Christman, Sailors, Scientists, and Rockets, 243; Gerrard-Gough and Christman, The Grand 

Experiment at Inyokern, 2–3. 27 Like the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, the Naval Ordnance Test Station did not operate manufacturing 

facilities beyond the pilot production stage. After the war, industrial contractors, such as Philco and the 

General Tire and Rubber Company mass produced the missiles and rockets developed at China Lake. 28 The transition from conventional ordnance to missiles and rockets was already underway during 

the war. In 1944, for example, the Army spent more than $150 million on rocket procurement. The Navy’s 

expenditures were much higher, reaching $100 million per month in 1945. Gerrard-Gough and Christman, 

The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 194. 29 The laboratory was named after physicist Albert A. Michelson, a Naval Academy graduate and the 

first American to win the Nobel Prize for physics (1907). 30 When it opened, the laboratory had consumed approximately 10 percent of the $100 million 

investment in new facilities and staff made by the Bureau of Ordnance at China Lake. F. G. Sawyer, “Rocket 

Chemistry at Inyokern,” Chemical and Engineering News 27 (18 July 1949): 2067.
Research and Development in the Navy 47

Oil Corporation, both located in Pittsburgh, and the Battelle Memorial Institute 

in Columbus, Ohio.31

Researchers in the Michelson Laboratory gradually assumed control of the 

management, content, and scope of internal R&D programs.32 Special attention 

focused on pursuing a broad program of fundamental research to support the 

short-term work on weapons development underway in the engineering and 

testing laboratories. Concerned about the imbalance between these two categories 

of research, the laboratory’s research director told the station commander in 

1947, “It is considered of great importance that a certain amount of fundamental 

research which offers promise of support for development programs of the future, 

be sponsored by this station. . . . The benefits to be derived from close association 

with work of this kind are very great from the standpoint of the stimulation of 

the applied research and development programs.”33

One outcome of this dialogue between the civilian technical staff and the 

naval officers that managed the site on behalf of the Bureau of Ordnance was the 

establishment in 1948 of a special discretionary fund for undirected scientific 

research. This fund was to be distributed among the laboratory’s six major 

divisions (chemistry, metals, electronics, photography, aerodynamics, and physics 

and optics) as overhead on specific development projects. Initially set at 3 percent 

of the budget for each individual R&D project, the fund later increased to 5 

percent and became a permanent line item in the station’s annual appropriation. 

By the early 1950s, a similar discretionary research program had been set up at 

the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, as well as other Navy R&D facilities operated 

by the three material bureaus.34

The expansion of fundamental research under civilian rather than military 

control at China Lake and other Navy laboratories also aided efforts to recruit 

first-rate scientists and engineers who otherwise might have been tempted to 

pursue more lucrative—and in some cases intellectually challenging—careers 

in academia and industry. “The Research Department [at China Lake],” Civil 

Engineering reported in 1948, “pursues fundamental research studies, not only 

in the interests of scientific objectives, but also to attract and retain outstanding 

scientists . . . and to enhance the prestige of the station and the Navy in the 

scientific world.”35 Like the Army arsenals, the Navy laboratories experienced 

recruitment shortfalls and high attrition rates among its most talented 

31 Gerrard-Gough and Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 34–36. 32 Control of the R&D program at China Lake became a contentious issue between civilian scientists and 

engineers, who worked in the laboratory, and the military personnel, who managed the station for the Bureau 

of Ordnance. Civilian R&D managers maintained that the programmatic functions of the laboratory should 

be independent of the military command structure. Otherwise efforts to recruit first-rate scientists would 

suffer. See Gerrard-Gough and Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 255–64, 269. 33 Gerrard-Gough and Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 244–45, 305–6 (quote), 

305–06. 34 Ibid.,244–45, 305–6 (quote), 328–29.

35 “Navy Dedicates New Research Laboratory at Inyokern, Calif.,” Civil Engineering 18 ( June 1948): 

88. On the disparity between industrial and government pay scales, see, for example, “Federal Labs Lose 

Key Men,” Chemical and Engineering News 37 (11 May 1959): 42–43.
48 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

researchers.36 One important exception was the Naval Research Laboratory, the 

direct beneficiary of ample funding from ONR and a clear mission statement 

that emphasized fundamental research rather than weapons development.37

Other in-house laboratories, however, did not always share the same institutional 

advantages. Despite its growth as a major computing facility in the 1950s and 

1960s, the Naval Proving Ground at Dahlgren experienced difficulties hiring 

qualified technical personnel. Low salaries at the David Taylor Model Basin and 

the Naval Ordnance Laboratory had the same effect.38 In 1954, for example, 

Ralph Bennett, an accomplished electrical engineer and physicist and a former 

engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, resigned his 

position as director of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory to accept a more lucrative 

offer as manager of the technical department at General Electric’s (GE) Knolls 

Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. Already excited about “the 

chance to learn a new technology [at GE],” Bennett was especially attracted to 

the substantial increase in salary; it jumped nearly 70 percent, from $15,000 to 

$25,000.39

Just as it did at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Maryland, a clear 

organizational division existed between R&D and production at the Naval 

Ordnance Test Station. The station engaged in prototype assembly and pilot 

manufacturing of rockets and missiles, but weapon systems cleared for operational 

use after testing and evaluation were turned over to industrial contractors for 

quantity production. Similarly, research was, by and large, organizationally 

separate from engineering and other development activities. In 1957, for 

example, the bureau split into departments by functional specialization and 

type of ordnance: rockets and missiles, aviation ordnance, underwater ordnance, 

36 To help alleviate this chronic problem in the service laboratories, Congress passed Public Law 313 in 

1947. This law (and subsequent amendments) authorized the creation of special employment grades (and 

salaries) beyond the limits set by civil service requirements. The Salary Reform Act of 1962 established 

professional “supergrades” for personnel attached to RDT&E (Research, Development, Testing, and 

Evaluation) functions in the Department of Defense. Unlike previous legislation this act placed no limits 

on the number of supergrades available. Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 124–25, 143. 

Regarding civil service pay scales and recruitment difficulties in government laboratories after World War II, 

see also Margaret W. Rossiter, “Setting Federal Salaries in the Space Age,” Osiris 2, 2nd ser. (1992): 218–37; 

Clarence H. Danhof, Government Contracting and Technological Change (Washington, D.C.: Brookings 

Institution, 1968), 409–16; and Thomas C. Lassman, “Government Science in Postwar America: Henry A. 

Wallace, Edward U. Condon, and the Transformation of the National Bureau of Standards, 1945–1951,” 

Isis 96 (March 2005): 25–51. 37 In 1962, for example, the budget of the Naval Research Laboratory ($41,319,000) ranked second 

behind that of the Naval Ordnance Test Station ($54,659,000). Following in a distant third place was the 

budget of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak ($29,928,000). “The Far-Flung Navy Research 

Network,” Missiles and Rockets 10 (1 January 1962): 16. 38 Kenneth G. McCollum, ed., Dahlgren (Dahlgren, Va.: Naval Surface Weapons Center, 1977), 15, 

87–89; Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 312. 39 Bennett quoted in Smaldone, A History of the White Oak Laboratory, 23. Bennett’s experience was 

not unique. Similar problems hampered efforts to replace technical division heads who had retired from 

the laboratory after the war. As late as the 1950s, for example, the solid-state and physical properties of 

materials divisions were leaderless. The internal candidates identified to fill the vacant management positions 

preferred “to devote their full energies to research rather than administrative matters, [and] outsiders of 

caliber [were] unwilling to make the financial sacrifice entailed.” Prompted by this staffing shortage and 

the likelihood of ongoing recruitment shortfalls, the chief of the laboratory’s physics program merged both 

divisions into a single organizational unit in 1961. Ibid., 95 (quote), 169–70.
Research and Development in the Navy 49

explosives and propellants, research (including the Michelson Laboratory), 

engineering, testing, and weapons planning. Functional separation of research 

and engineering did not, in itself, prohibit collaboration across organizational 

boundaries. Interdepartmental cooperation was expected in cases when the 

station received weapons requirements from the Chief of Naval Operations. In 

a 1957 article reviewing the station’s weapons development process, Aviation 

Week reported that teams drawn from the functional departments “will assist 

[the rockets and missiles department] in design studies which ultimately lead 

to development of a finished prototype.” This cooperative strategy was perhaps 

most effectively institutionalized in the development of the Sidewinder, a highly 

successful air-to-air missile that entered fleet service in 1956. All phases of 

technical development incorporating the efforts of scientists and engineers—

structural design, aerodynamic configuration, infrared guidance, propulsion, 

launching arrangement—were completed at China Lake.40 A similar process 

guided in-house development of the Mighty Mouse, a small-caliber, air-tosurface missile that began rolling off assembly lines in 1951. Also during this 

period, the station turned out the first prototypes of the Shrike antiradar missile 

and the Walleye television-guided glide bomb, both of which entered service in 

the mid-1960s.41

In addition to developing new missiles and rockets from scratch, the Naval 

Ordnance Test Station also improved weapons that had been effectively used 

during World War II. First introduced into service in the Army Air Forces in 1944, 

the high-velocity aircraft rocket (HVAR), unofficially dubbed Holy Moses, was 

the first Caltech-designed aircraft rocket tested for operational performance at 

China Lake. Like other aircraft rockets, Holy Moses was fitted with fixed fins to 

maintain aerodynamic stability during flight. Meanwhile, researchers at Caltech 

had been experimenting with several designs and configurations to improve 

the performance of Holy Moses and other rockets. In the field of ballistics, for 

example, it was well established that projectile rotation during firing—in rifles 

and artillery, for example—improved stability and accuracy. Using the same 

principle for surface-to-air applications, Caltech researchers introduced a design 

for a finless, tube-launched rotating rocket that compared favorably with its finstabilized equivalent.

Launching a spinning rocket from the air rather than the ground, however, 

proved to be more problematic. The presence of fixed tubular launchers on the 

wings of high-performance aircraft, especially jet aircraft, reduced airspeed and 

impaired maneuverability. Moreover, the stability of a rocket fired during flight 

40 “NOTS Converts Ideas into Missiles,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 148. Philco, a diversified 

radio and electronics manufacturer based in Philadelphia, was selected by the Navy in 1954 to be the prime 

contractor for Sidewinder. Other firms, such as Raytheon and the Loral Corporation, joined Philco as 

major contractors as the program expanded and new versions of the missile were introduced into service. 

For an introduction to the history of the Sidewinder program, see Ron Strum, Sidewinder: Creative Missile 

Development at China Lake (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1999). 41 Gerrard-Gough and Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 296; K. F. Mordoff, “China 

Lake Facilities Dedicated to Diverse Weapons Tasks,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 124 (20 January 

1986): 56; D. B. Young, “Integrated Research,” Ordnance 40 ( July-August 1955): 56.
50 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

dropped sharply after it exited the launch tube (due to the large disparity between 

initial spinning and high aircraft velocity). Slow recovery of the rocket during 

flight typically resulted in wide variation in trajectory and poor tracking to the 

target. Researchers at China Lake adapted a folding-fin mechanism originally 

developed in the Army to improve the stability and accuracy of air-launched 

spinning rockets. The folding fins remained closed around the rocket during 

firing, but, once the rocket cleared the launch tube, they extended into a full, 

fixed-fin position through the operation of a pressure-actuated piston assembly. 

The improved folding-fin design developed at the Naval Ordnance Test Station 

was quickly adapted to the new, multipurpose, air-launched Zuni rocket, which 

replaced the original fixed-fin Holy Moses in the early 1950s.42

Throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s, China Lake continuously 

served as the Navy’s primary source of missile and rocket technology. By the 

1980s, however, the mission of the Naval Ordnance Test Station—renamed the 

Naval Weapons Center in 1967—had begun to change to reflect the realities of 

the Defense Department’s growing reliance on industrial contractors and other 

private-sector institutions for weapons R&D and production. “Weapons Center 

personnel,” observed Aviation Week and Space Technology in 1986, “now spend 

more time managing technology with defense contractors involved with the 

design and manufacture of a weapon system, rather than in earlier times, when a 

need would arise and the center would design, build, test, and deliver to the fleet 

a weapon to meet the requirement in record time.”43 China Lake still maintained 

extensive R&D, pilot production, and testing and evaluation facilities, but much 

of the work on weapons focused on system support, upgrades, and other services 

for industrial contractors.44 The propulsion laboratory, for example, operated 

R&D, pilot production, and test facilities to support work on explosives, solid 

and liquid propellants, warheads, and rocket motors. These facilities were also 

used “to study and find solutions to industry production problems and . . . serve 

as a production source to meet surge requirements for a few months during a 

crisis.” The center’s electronics manufacturing productivity laboratory carried out 

similar functions, with a mission to “upgrade production facilities in the [United 

States], reduce costs, improve product quality, and reduce production times.”45

As scientists and engineers at the Naval Ordnance Test Station evaluated 

the performance of missiles and rockets, their East Coast counterparts at 

the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, conducted similar testing 

work on conventional ordnance—bombs, guns, and projectiles—prior to 

full-scale industrial production. Unlike China Lake, however, Dahlgren did 

42 Gerrard-Gough and Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 84, 294–97. 43 D. M. North, “Navy Center Expands Mission to Include Technology Management,” Aviation Week 

and Space Technology 124 (20 January 1986): 46. 44 In the 1980s, the Michelson Laboratory maintained its long-standing tradition in fundamental 

research, but it also supported work on fuzes, guidance systems, propellants, and explosives. Researchers 

in other laboratories at the Naval Weapons Center studied lasers, optical systems, radar, electromagnetic 

interference, and microelectronics technology. See Mordoff, “China Lake Facilities Dedicated to Diverse 

Weapons Tasks,” 40. 45 Mordoff, “China Lake Facilities Dedicated to Diverse Weapons Tasks,” 55–56.
Research and Development in the Navy 51

not conceptualize and develop its own weapon systems but instead received 

materials for testing and evaluation from other service facilities, such as the 

Naval Ordnance Laboratory, or from industrial contractors. This tradition 

of ordnance proofing and testing can be traced back to 1872, when the Navy 

established its first proving ground in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1890, the proving 

ground transferred from Annapolis to Indian Head, Maryland, located next to 

the Naval Powder Factory on the shores of the Potomac River about twenty 

miles south of Washington, D.C.46 All types of naval guns, bombs, gunpowder, 

projectiles, armor, fuzes, and cartridge cases were tested at Indian Head until the 

end of World War I, when space limitations prompted the Bureau of Ordnance 

to search for a larger location. The testing requirements for newer long-range 

guns and the continuous expansion of the powder factory made such a move 

especially urgent. Construction of facilities at Dahlgren began in the spring of 

1918, and, by 1923, the new proving ground was in full operation.

Shortly after Dahlgren opened, management established an experimental 

department, headed by a civilian Ph.D. physicist, to conduct routine testing of 

ordnance materials.47 Tight budgets during the interwar period precluded a major 

expansion of the department, but diversification of the testing program continued, 

albeit slowly. In 1936, the experimental department became the experimental 

laboratory, and its major functions focused on bomb calibration, exterior ballistics, 

velocity measurements, and armament tests. Four years later, Dahlgren set up a 

separate armor and projectile laboratory to support additional testing functions 

and also to conduct metallurgical research. Technical investigations expanded 

at both laboratories during World War II along two separate but related lines: 

(1) routine acceptance testing of materials and development of new testing and 

evaluation procedures, and (2) prosecution of R&D to improve the performance 

of weapons and armor.48

After World War II, Dahlgren’s traditional testing and proofing activities 

continued, often expanding during major conflicts, such as the Korean and 

Vietnam wars, and then contracting in peacetime. Although this cyclical 

behavior often caused anxiety among administrators, who feared that closure of 

the installation was imminent, a crucial reprieve came in the 1950s in the form 

of a major expansion into electronics and high-speed computing to support the 

Navy’s new fleet ballistic missile program. The aggressive move into electronic 

computing was by no means arbitrary. Rather, it complemented Dahlgren’s longstanding expertise in ballistics testing and evaluation, and it also tracked the 

larger postwar transformation of naval weapons technology from conventional 

ordnance to missiles and rockets, jet aircraft, and nuclear weapons. The transition 

from proofing to R&D manifested itself in the establishment of new programs to 

explore the latest developments in fire control, electronics, optics, ballistics, and 

46 On the Naval Powder Factory, see Rodney P. Carlisle, Powder and Propellants: Energetic Materials at 

Indian Head, Maryland, 1890–2001, 2d ed. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2002). 47 The first director of the experimental department was Louis Thompson, a ballistics expert who had 

received his Ph.D. in physics from Clark University in 1917. 48 D. I. Hedrick, “Research and Experimental Activities of the U.S. Naval Proving Ground,” Journal of 

Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 262; Christman, Sailors, Scientists, and Rockets, 4–5, 55, 63–64.
52 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

guidance. In 1967, for example, researchers at Dahlgren began experimenting 

with guided projectiles fired from naval guns. This work continued into the 

1970s, when the first laser-guided projectiles were introduced into the fleet.

Until the mid-1950s, Dahlgren’s computing capabilities relied on the 

punched-card machines that the staff had installed during World War II to 

produce bombing, rocket, and projectile tables. In 1955, Dahlgren acquired the 

Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORAC). Designed and built under 

contract by the International Business Machines Corporation, NORAC was 

more than one hundred times faster than the computing equipment already in 

operation at the proving ground. In addition to carrying out routine ballistics 

calculations, NORAC was also used for war gaming exercises, and, in 1959, it 

was put to work computing trajectories and other operational parameters for 

the Navy’s new fleet ballistic missile program. Three years later, a $2 million 

computation facility was added to supplement NORAC’s work on missile and 

space systems. This expansion in computational analysis and the continued 

diversification of Dahlgren’s mission prompted the Navy leadership to rename 

the proving ground the Naval Weapons Laboratory in 1959. In 1974, Dahlgren 

merged with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak to form the Naval 

Surface Weapons Center.49

Dahlgren’s diversification beyond proofing and evaluation of ordnance into 

electronics and computers matched a similar institutional transformation within 

the ammunition manufacturing plants owned and operated by the Bureau of 

Ordnance. Like Dahlgren and the bureau’s other large corporate laboratories, the 

engineering support functions attached to the Navy’s ordnance factories tackled 

and solved major technical problems in electronics, optics, and missile guidance 

and fire control. One important source of this effort outside the perimeter of the 

Navy’s laboratory establishment was the Crane Naval Weapons Support Center, 

located in south central Indiana.50 Founded as a weapons depot in 1940 to help 

meet the Navy’s rapidly growing wartime material needs, Crane stored smokeless 

powder and poison gas, loaded gun projectiles and ammunition cartridges for 

small arms, and manufactured all sizes of shells, bombs, depth charges, and other 

ordnance materials. After 1945, Crane continued to function as a storage and 

production facility, but it also moved into technical fields beyond those directly 

relevant to its wartime mission.

During the war, Crane engineers tested and evaluated the ordnance materials 

produced by the depot’s own manufacturing divisions and industrial contractors. 

In 1947, this testing function was centralized in a new department called the 

Quality Evaluation Laboratory. The laboratory also set standards for munitions 

safety and quality control. Within a decade, however, the laboratory’s technical 

capabilities had expanded to provide evaluation protocols for the new electronics 

technologies that were rapidly replacing mechanical assemblies in firing 

mechanisms, guidance controls, fuzes, and other critical ordnance components. 

49 McCollum, Dahlgren, 13–17, 123, 128–29; Coletta, United States Navy and Marine Corps Bases, 164. 50 The depot was named after Commodore William Montgomery Crane, the first chief of the Navy’s 

Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography (renamed the Bureau of Ordnance in 1862).
Research and Development in the Navy 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.
54 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

industry. Manufacturers shed excess capacity to offset sharp declines in military 

procurement. The establishment of an independent air force in 1947 and the 

subsequent onset of the Cold War, however, helped reverse this trend as the firms 

that survived the immediate postwar shakeout acquired lucrative development 

and production contracts from the newest military service. Significantly, this 

institutional relationship helped the largest planemakers turn out, in close 

collaboration with the military services, successive generations of advanced 

tactical and strategic aircraft and the sophisticated electronics technologies that 

maintained their operational superiority during the Cold War.54 In addition 

to encountering competition from private airframe manufacturers, the Bureau 

of Aeronautics also continued to lose institutional stability as it engaged in a 

fierce struggle with the Bureau of Ordnance over control of the Navy’s rapidly 

expanding rocket and guided missile programs. Despite the imposition of 

temporary measures designed to alleviate this jurisdictional conflict—for 

example, the establishment of the Special Projects Office in 1955 to manage 

and coordinate the Polaris ballistic missile program and the creation of the Lead 

Bureau Concept two years later the ongoing battle over missile cognizance and 

the growing significance of weapon systems integration prompted the Navy 

leadership to merge the bureaus of Aeronautics and Ordnance into the new 

Bureau of Naval Weapons in 1959.55

The Bureau of Aeronautics and its successor organization—the Bureau of 

Naval Weapons—did not simply relinquish control of the large in-house R&D 

infrastructure that had served the Navy’s aeronautical interests since World War I. 

The process was gradual and varied. Some facilities closed, whereas others merged 

into new organizations. The Navy’s experience with aircraft development began 

in 1915, when Congress enacted legislation establishing the National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to support and coordinate a broad program 

of research on behalf of both civilian and military aviation. Subsequently, NACA 

established a network of in-house laboratories and testing facilities to develop 

a diverse knowledge base in the aeronautical sciences.56 The Navy adopted a 

similar strategy to connect NACA’s research capabilities to military aircraft 

requirements. This strategic mission was effectively institutionalized in the new 

54 In 1948, the Air Force controlled half of the $300 million allocated by all federal agencies for 

aeronautical research and development. R. McLarren, “Largest Aero Research Program,” Aviation Week 48 

(23 February 1948): 42. 55 On the Polaris program, see Harvey M. Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development: Bureaucratic and 

Programmatic Success in Government (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972). The Lead Bureau 

Concept institutionalized the mechanisms used by the Special Projects Office to develop the Polaris missile 

system. In exceptional cases and depending on the weapon requirement, one bureau would be selected to 

manage the technical prosecution of a designated project. It would also coordinate the activities of other 

participating bureaus. Although it tended to dilute the authority and independence of the individual 

bureaus and cut across organizational lines, the Lead Bureau Concept helped solve the immediate problem 

of cognizance that had caused territorial skirmishes and inflamed relations between the former bureaus of 

Ordnance and Aeronautics. Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 46. 56 L. C. Stevens, “Research in the Bureau of Aeronautics,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 

271–72; McLarren, “Largest Aero Research Program,” 44–46. On the history of NACA, see Alex Roland, 

Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915–1958, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1985).
Research and Development in the Navy 55

Naval Aircraft Factory, established at Philadelphia in 1917. Initially set up for 

the sole purpose of producing aircraft, such as seaplanes (flying boats) for patrol 

and reconnaissance operations, the factory also manufactured engines, catapult 

and arresting gear, parachutes, and other aviation equipment.57 R&D functions 

were subsequently added to carry out studies of engines, electronic equipment, 

flight instruments, fuels, lubricants, and structural materials for airframes. 

Diversification of R&D along these lines continued after the Navy established 

the Bureau of Aeronautics in 1921. Perhaps most important, the Naval Aircraft 

Factory set the limits of technological innovation within the Navy’s in-house 

aviation program during the post–World War II period.

When the factory first opened, research—at least to the extent that it 

supported the manufacturing operations—focused primarily on inspection and 

quality control of completed aircraft and modification of existing designs that 

originated in industry. Related studies of the physical properties of constituent 

materials—primarily wood, fabrics, and metals—were carried out as well. 

In 1920, all materials work was consolidated into the new Physical Testing 

Laboratory. Eight years later, as aircraft manufacturers shifted from wood to 

metal construction, the laboratory diversified and split into two divisions: one 

concentrating on materials, the other on airframe structures. Researchers in the 

structural division conducted static and dynamic studies of wings, tail surfaces, 

and fuselages, as well as investigations of vibration effects. Their counterparts 

in the materials division worked on corrosion resistance and protection and 

developed improved paints, finishes, and other coatings. Division personnel 

drafted and published reports based on this work, which they then distributed 

to civilian airframe manufacturers. In the aeronautical engineering laboratory, 

which moved to Philadelphia from the Washington Navy Yard in 1924, similar 

studies took place on liquid- and air-cooled aircraft engines, fuels, lubricants, 

carburetion and electrical systems, and other power plant components. This 

type of R&D, ranging from materials research on plastics and metal alloys to 

reliability testing of aircraft engines in simulated flight conditions, continued at 

the Naval Aircraft Factory during the 1920s and 1930s and throughout World 

War II.58

In 1943, the factory, laboratories, and all other support functions at 

Philadelphia the bureau into four separate commands under an umbrella 

organization called the Naval Air Material Center (NAMC). Although it 

was still an important production facility, the Naval Aircraft Factory began to 

concentrate more of its resources on prototype development and small-scale 

manufacturing of improved airframe models. The Naval Aircraft Modification 

Unit adapted standard Navy aircraft currently in service for special functions, 

while the Naval Air Experiment Station coordinated all in-house R&D on 

materials, radio and electronic equipment, engines and accessories, and flight 

57 J. W. Meader, “The Naval Air Material Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” Journal of Applied Physics

15 (March 1944): 273. 58 William F. Trimble, Wings for the Navy: A History of the Naval Aircraft Factory, 1917–1956

(Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 105–06.
56 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

instruments.59 The Naval Auxiliary Air Station conducted local flight operations 

and tested aircraft arresting gear for flight deck operations aboard the Navy’s 

aircraft carriers. “The Naval Air Material Center,” wrote an NAMC technical 

consultant in 1944, “functions as a completely self-contained development 

group, intimately associated with the design and development of experimental 

aircraft.”60

In 1946, the Bureau of Aeronautics established new testing and evaluation 

facilities to support the development of jet aircraft and guided missiles—two 

wartime technologies already poised to replace piston-engine airplanes and 

conventional ordnance in fleet operations. Complete testing of Navy jets was 

located at the Naval Air Test Station on the Patuxent River in Maryland. The 

laboratories, ground facilities, and sea range at the Naval Air Missile Test Center 

at Point Magu, California, supported testing and evaluation of missiles, launchers, 

and auxiliary equipment. In 1955, engine development work, which had originated 

at Philadelphia, expanded into new facilities at Trenton, New Jersey. The Naval 

Air Turbine Test Station and the Aeronautical Turbine Laboratory tested and 

evaluated gas turbines, turbojets, ramjets, and other types of advanced aircraft 

power plants designed and built by commercial engine manufacturers, such as 

Westinghouse Electric, Pratt & Whitney, Curtiss-Wright, General Electric, 

and the Allison Division of General Motors.61 In 1967, the Navy transferred all 

engine R&D underway at Philadelphia to Trenton and merged it into the Naval 

Air Propulsion Test Center, successor organization to the Naval Air Turbine 

Test Station and the Aeronautical Turbine Laboratory.62

Several major innovations emerged from the Naval Air Material Center 

after World War II. Since the late 1930s, engineers in the Naval Aircraft Factory 

had been working on the development, manufacture, and installation of aircraft 

catapults and arresting gear for aircraft carriers. By the late 1940s, conventional 

hydraulic catapults had reached their operational limits, especially as jet aircraft 

replaced their piston-engine counterparts. Inefficient at low speeds, jet aircraft 

required more powerful catapults for carrier-based launches. The solution was 

the steam catapult, introduced into service aboard the fleet’s Essex-class aircraft 

carriers in 1954.63 Four years earlier, the Aeronautical Instruments Laboratory, 

a division of the Naval Air Experiment Station, developed and tested the first 

helicopter autopilot. Meanwhile, in 1946, the station’s aeronautical materials 

laboratory began investigating the properties and behavior of titanium, a 

lightweight, heat-resistant alloy that manifested many of the same strength, 

59 The Naval Experiment Station originally included four laboratories: Aeronautical Materials 

Laboratory, Radio and Electrical Laboratory, Aeronautical Engine Laboratory, and the Instrument 

Development Laboratory. Other laboratories were established, merged, renamed, and dismantled in 

subsequent years. In 1948, for example, the station set up the Aeronautical Medical Equipment Laboratory 

was set up to study the effects of altitude, temperature, vibration, and acceleration on humans. Ibid., 322. 60 Meader, “The Naval Air Material Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” 273–74 (quote on 274).

61 I. Stone, “Air Test Center Speeds Navy’s Missiles to Fleet Use,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 

140–45; G. L. Christian, “NATTS Is World’s Top Jet Test Facility,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 16–62. 62 Trimble, Wings for the Navy, xiii, 326, 329. 63 Work on the steam catapult began in Britain before further improvements were completed at the 

Naval Air Material Center. Ibid., 318–19.
Research and Development in the Navy 57

corrosion-resistant, and tensile-strength properties of heavier metals, such as 

stainless steel.64 Like aluminum and other lightweight metal alloys, titanium also 

showed promise as a component material in turbojet engines. The laboratory 

also established a polymers division in 1952 to study and develop high-strength 

synthetic rubber, plastics, and textiles for use in cockpit canopies, windows, and 

other aircraft components.65

Research and development in these and other fields continued throughout 

the postwar period until the 1970s, when a series of major reorganizations at 

the local and regional levels and within the Bureau of Aeronautics culminated in 

the rapid decline of naval aviation at Philadelphia. In 1956, the Naval Aircraft 

Factory became the Naval Air Engineering Facility (NAEF), and its major 

functions officially shifted from aircraft production to research, development, 

prototyping, and maintenance of aircraft and guided-missile launching and 

recovery equipment.66 The following year, the bureau granted independent status 

to the laboratories previously assigned to the wartime Naval Air Experiment 

Station. In 1962, NAEF adopted a new name—the Naval Air Engineering 

Center (NAEC)—and the Naval Aircraft Factory became the Naval Air 

Engineering Laboratory, bringing to five the total number of R&D laboratories 

operating alongside NAEC.67 By the mid-1970s, however, efforts underway since 

the 1950s to streamline the Navy’s shore establishment and shift more in-house 

R&D operations to private-sector contractors prompted a sharp reduction of 

aviation activities in Philadelphia as facilities were closed, merged, or transferred 

to other Navy installations.68

Bureau of Ships

At the end of the World War II, the Bureau of Ships relied on private 

shipyards and its own shipyards to design, fabricate, and assemble the hulls and 

superstructures required for destroyers, cruisers, battleships, aircraft carriers, and 

submarines. The Bureau of Ordnance supplied guns, depth charges, torpedoes, 

and other weapons, while industrial contractors typically provided operating 

64 Research on high-strength alloys was also supported by ONR, which established and coordinated 

with the material bureaus a major titanium R&D program in 1952. See J. J. Harwood, “Metallurgy 

Research Program of the Office of Naval Research,” Journal of Metals 9 (May 1957): 673. 65 Trimble, Wings for the Navy, 321–22, 329–30. 66 When the Naval Aircraft Factory officially lost its production status in 1956, the Navy was 

already in the process of reorganizing its aviation programs in the Philadelphia area. Two years earlier, the 

Naval Air Development and Material Center had been established at Johnsville, Pennsylvania. This new 

organizational unit administered the Naval Air Development Center at Johnsville, the Naval Air Material 

Center at Philadelphia, the Naval Air Turbine Test Center (moved from Philadelphia to Trenton in 1955), 

and the Naval Air Test Facility at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. In 1959, the Naval Air 

Development and Material Center became the headquarters organization for the Naval Air Research and 

Development Activities Command. 67 The other laboratories (Aeronautical Engine Laboratory, Aeronautical Structures Laboratory, 

Aeronautical Materials Laboratory, and the Air Crew Equipment Laboratory) were the direct 

organizational descendents of the four laboratories grouped together in the Naval Experiment Station 

in 1943. 68 Trimble, Wings for the Navy, 323–324, 329–30.
58 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of 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).
Research and Development in the Navy 59

located in New London, Connecticut.71 Late in 1941, the Bureau of Ordnance 

set up a third R&D facility—the Underwater Sound Laboratory—at Harvard 

University. At the San Diego laboratory, scientists and engineers in the sonar data 

division conducted fundamental research on acoustic propagation phenomena, 

while their counterparts in the sonar devices division built prototype devices for 

specific combat requirements handed down by the Navy. The technical staff at 

San Diego also handled a third function, personnel training in sonar technology 

and operation. Similar R&D programs were set up at New London and 

Harvard. In 1944, when OSRD began preparing to shut down its operations, 

the Navy agreed to take over the wartime antisubmarine warfare program. On 

1 March 1945, the Bureau of Ships assumed control of the San Diego facility 

and renamed it the Naval Electronics Laboratory. The New London facility also 

reverted to the bureau, but the Harvard laboratory was transferred to the School 

of Engineering at Pennsylvania State College.72 Two years later, the University 

of California, under contract with the Office of Naval Research, established the 

Marine Physics Laboratory at San Diego to study ocean acoustics and related 

geophysical phenomena.

By the 1960s, academic institutions and contractor-operated facilities, such 

as the Marine Physics Laboratory conducted most of the oceanography research 

for the Navy. The Navy also closely coordinated this work with studies underway 

at the Naval Electronics Laboratory. Unlike their diesel-powered predecessors, 

nuclear submarinescould travel much longer distances at greater depths. , which 

prompted the Navy to expand deep-sea research and ongoing development of 

sonar and other antisubmarine warfare technologies. “Development of such 

systems,” wrote the Chief of Naval Research in 1963, “is enormously complicated 

by the fact that sound transmission is distorted, reflected, scattered, and absorbed 

not only by temperature differences but also by the chemical properties of the sea, 

marine life ranging from whales to microscopic plankton, sea surface conditions, 

and the nature of the sea floor. In order to overcome and bypass these obstacles, 

naval research is attempting to learn about ocean currents from the surface to 

the bottom, the daily variations in the temperature structure of the ocean, the 

formation and breakup of polar ice, and gravity and magnetic conditions at sea.” 

To understand these complex ocean environments, scientists and engineers at 

the Naval Electronics Laboratory had initiated in the late 1950s a new program 

to develop, build, and operate a series of manned research vehicles for deep-sea 

studies.73 Meanwhile, the laboratory developed and produced many prototype 

71 H. C. Mason, “Navy’s Electronics Laboratory,” Sperryscope 16, no. 6, (1963): 11; P. H. Hammond, 

“The U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory,” Journal of Applied Physics 15 (March 1944): 240–42. 72 On the transfer of the Harvard laboratory to the Pennsylvania State College, see footnote 14, above.

73 F. N. D. Kurie and G. P. Harnwell, “The Wartime Activities of the San Diego Laboratory of the University 

of California Division of War Research,” Review of Scientific Instruments 18 (April 1947): 207–12, 218; L. D. 

Coates, “Chief of Naval Research Details Program,” Data 8 (September 1963): 10. Also on the Navy’s role in 

oceanography research during the Cold War, see Jacob Darwin Hamblin, “The Navy’s ‘Sophisticated’ Pursuit 

of Science: Undersea Warfare, the Limits of Internationalism, and the Utility of Basic Research, 1945–1956,” 

Isis 93 (March 2002): 1–27; Hamblin, Oceanographers and the Cold War: Disciples of Marine Science (Seattle: 

University of Washington Press, 2005); and Gary E. Weir, An Ocean in Common: American Naval Officers, 

Scientists, and the Ocean Environment (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001).
60 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

sonar devices, including huge, shipboard units installed on submarines for 

precision navigation through polar ice regions. Laboratory researchers also 

refined radar-detection techniques, pushed the frontiers of communication 

engineering with new antenna designs, and developed shipboard command 

and control systems. The first all-purpose digital computer system—the Naval 

Tactical Data System—entered fleet service in 1962.74

The advances in submarine design, construction, and propulsion that helped 

drive sonar development at the Naval Electronics Laboratory after World War 

II were concentrated in two major R&D institutions owned and operated by 

the Navy—the Engineering Experiment Station and the David Taylor Model 

Basin. Founded at the turn of the century to assist in the adaptation of the 

steam engine and the screw propeller to modern naval tactics and strategy, the 

experiment station and the model basin developed, tested, and evaluated the 

superstructures of submarines and surface ships, improved industrial designs of 

conventional and nuclear-powered propulsion systems and related equipment, 

and extended the Navy’s knowledge base in hydrodynamics and materials science 

and engineering.

The Engineering Experiment Station opened in Annapolis, Maryland, 

in 1908 under the direction of the Bureau of Steam Engineering. Originally 

set up to improve and develop commercially manufactured ship engines, the 

station shifted to more routine testing and inspection of engines and other 

shipboard equipment to meet the Navy’s growing requirements for material and 

equipment specifications and production and performance standards. Engineers 

analyzed a broad range of machinery components and materials, including 

heat transmission apparatus; boiler, pump, engine, and pipe fittings; lubricants; 

packings and gaskets; metals; and coal. Tonnage restrictions imposed on the 

Navy by a series of treaties after World War I prompted the station to augment 

its testing functions with organized R&D on lightweight diesel engines as ships 

exchanged structural weight for increased firepower. This type of development 

work, in which incremental improvements and new innovations were sometimes 

forthcoming, remained subordinate to testing throughout the interwar period 

and during World War II. 

After 1945, the station gradually assumed a more active role in organized 

research and development, though much of its work remained focused on 

commodity testing of aviation gasoline, greases, bearings, pressure gauges, 

underwater cutting tools, welding and packing materials, boiler compounds, and 

polishes. In 1959, the Bureau of Ships officially extended the station’s mission 

“from testing and determination of the suitability of certain steam machinery 

for use in naval vessels” to the “conduct of applied research, development, 

investigations, evaluations, and tests in the fields of physics, chemistry, metallurgy, 

and electricity.”75 Station managers had anticipated this change of goals the 

previous year when they reorganized the operating units along disciplinary 

74 Mason, “Navy’s Electronics Laboratory,” 12–13. See also, H. C. Mason, “Navy Electronics Lab 

Serves BuShips,” Data 8 (September 1963): 54–59. 75 Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 61–62, 66, 70–73, 89–90, 106–08, 178–79, 488 (quote).
Research and Development in the Navy 61

rather than product lines: chemistry, mechanical engineering, applied physics, 

and metallurgy. By the 1970s, for example, the station (renamed the Marine 

Engineering Laboratory in 1963) had introduced, in collaboration with 

commercial engine manufacturers, a new generation of nickel- and cobalt-based 

superalloys for use in the blade assemblies of marine gas turbines operating in 

corrosive saltwater environments, and it had also compiled an impressive record 

of achievement in the fields of machinery silencing and vibration dampening. 

In the atomic power field, station engineers had made significant contributions 

to the improvement of shaft bearings, auxiliary diesel engines, reactor piping, 

and fire-resistant hydraulic fluids used in the propulsion systems of nuclear 

submarines.76

The Engineering Experiment Station cultivated a broad and diversified 

knowledge base in ship propulsion technology that supported rather than fulfilled 

the Navy’s ambitions for shipboard atomic power. The David Taylor Model Basin, 

by contrast, played a larger and more direct role in the development of America’s 

Cold War nuclear submarine fleet, albeit on a smaller scale than the participating 

industrial firms contracted by the Bureau of Ships. The private sector completed 

the bulk of the R&D and production for the nuclear navy.77 Nevertheless, 

submarine development at the model basin proceeded along several different but 

related lines. The basin’s long-standing expertise in hydrodynamics and related 

scientific disciplines and expanding computational capability after World War 

II enabled researchers to develop revolutionary submarine hull designs that 

significantly improved speed and maneuverability and reduced underwater noise 

effects. The same technical resources were tapped to improve the nuclear reactor 

technologies originally conceptualized, developed, and manufactured by private 

firms.

Named after its first director, the David Taylor Model Basin was set up 

by the Bureau of Construction and Repair at the Washington Navy Yard in 

1898. After decades of steady growth that matched the Navy’s rapid expansion, 

the Navy built a larger and more modern model basin in nearby Carderock, 

Maryland. Construction of the towing tanks, test and evaluation laboratories, 

and other support facilities began in 1937, and the site became fully operational 

in 1940.78 Throughout this period, engineers and scientists at the basin applied 

76 Ibid., 217–19, 222, 256–57, 492. The development of auxiliary components for submarine drive 

assemblies was all that remained of what had been an extensive propulsion program that began at the 

station in 1946. That year, engineers began working on a closed-cycle submarine power plant fueled by 

hydrogen peroxide. For nearly a decade, development of improved versions of the “Walters” engine (named 

for its German inventor) moved forward, but, advanced as this technology was, it could not compete with 

nuclear power. In 1954, just before the first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, began sea trials, the 

bureau permanently shut down Engineering Experiment Station’s engine development program. Ibid., 241, 

250–54. 77 Although they played a steadily diminishing role in new ship construction after World War II, the 

Navy’s shipyards actively participated in the shift from conventional to nuclear propulsion. The Electric 

Boat Division of the General Dynamics Corporation manufactured most of the Navy’s nuclear submarines, 

but the Navy built ten, beginning with the Swordfish in 1957, were built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard 

in New Hampshire. By the early 1960s, Portsmouth had become a fully integrated nuclear submarine 

shipyard, capable of performing construction, overhauls, and repairs. Shiman, Forging the Sword, 62. 78 Howard, “The David Taylor Model Basin,” 227.
62 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

their working knowledge of hydrodynamics to problems in hull design, and, 

during World War II, they diversified into similar studies of mines, torpedoes, 

and other types of underwater ordnance. Although practical investigations 

persisted in such fields as propeller quieting and acoustic countermeasures to 

ward off homing torpedoes and shipborne sonar, studies of a more fundamental 

nature flourished after the war. They included research on nonuniform bodies 

through a fluid, vortex formation and interactions, turbulence, and interfaces 

among different fluids.79 In 1958, one year before it released a similar statement 

on behalf of the Engineering Experiment Station, the Bureau of Ships revised 

the model basin’s mission to include “fundamental and applied research in the 

fields of hydromechanics, aerodynamics, structural mechanics, mathematics, 

acoustics, and related fields of science.”80 Work in these fields during and after 

the war played a pivotal role in the transformation of the submarine fleet from 

diesel-electric to nuclear power.

At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin at the end of 1938, 

chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman obtained experimental evidence 

of uranium fission. News of this groundbreaking discovery quickly spread to 

the United States early in 1939, where it immediately caught the attention of 

Rear Adm. Harold Bowen, chief of the Bureau of Engineering and soon-to-be 

director of the Naval Research Laboratory. Bowen and other like-minded naval 

officers had been searching for new techniques to improve submarine propulsion 

and performance, which at the time relied on a cumbersome combination of 

diesel engines for surface operations and electric storage batteries for undersea 

maneuvers. Bowen set up a new research program at the Naval Research 

Laboratory to investigate the power potential of uranium fission, but this work 

was quickly absorbed into the much larger effort undertaken by the National 

Defense Research Committee (and subsequently OSRD and the Army Corps 

of Engineers) to develop the atomic bomb.81

The Navy’s interest in nuclear propulsion resumed at the end of the war 

but not under the guidance of Admiral Bowen. In his place was Capt. Hyman 

Rickover, who had distinguished himself during the war in the electrical 

section of the Bureau of Ships. Although he lacked Bowen’s position and rank, 

the hard-driving Rickover was still able to create, almost single-handedly, the 

Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet through a well-established network of personal 

and professional relationships in the bureau system and private industry.

For decades, the Navy’s propulsion requirements had been met by industrial 

contractors. Large firms, such as GE, Westinghouse Electric, Babcock and 

Wilcox, and the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, designed and built 

79 Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 185–86. 80 Ibid., 487.

81 Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The New World, 1939–1946, vol. 1 of A History 

of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 

1962), 10–11, 15. See also Joseph-James Ahern, “‘We Had the Hose Turned on Us!’: Ross Gunn and the 

Naval Research Laboratory’s Early Research into Nuclear Propulsion, 1939–1946,” Historical Studies in 

the Physical and Biological Sciences 33 (2003): 217–36. On the wartime Manhattan Project, see Richard 

Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).
Research and Development in the Navy 63

the engines, boilers, steam turbines, drive assemblies, and electrical equipment 

that formed the power plants of modern surface ships and submarines. 

Through his contacts with engineers and executives at these and other 

manufacturing firms during the war, Rickover fashioned an integrated research, 

development, and production program that directly linked prior technical 

expertise in conventional power-generation technology to the latest advances 

in atomic energy. His efforts along this line culminated in the establishment 

of the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory near Pittsburgh in 1948. Operated by 

Westinghouse under contract to the Navy, scientists and engineers at Bettis 

collaborated to design and build the pressurized water reactor installed on 

the Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. The early success of 

the Nautilus helped establish Westinghouse’s pressurized water reactor (and 

subsequent versions of it) as the standard propulsion unit for the nuclear fleet 

in the decades that followed. General Electric established a similar, though 

less successful, reactor development program during the same period. In 

1946, the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission (the civilian successor 

to the wartime Manhattan Project) had granted a contract to GE to set up 

the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory near the company’s primary R&D and 

manufacturing operations in Schenectady, New York. Originally established 

to develop reactors for civilian electric power production, the laboratory 

received a contract from the Navy in 1950 to develop atomic power plants 

for submarines. Two years later, the Navy instructed the Knolls laboratory to 

design and build a reactor, using a sodium liquid metal cooling system, for the 

SSN–575 Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine after the Nautilus to enter 

fleet service.82

Although it did not fill the same central role as industry in the development 

and production of atomic reactors, the David Taylor Model Basin still played 

an important role in the postwar growth of nuclear power technology for naval 

applications. In 1952, a new applied mathematics laboratory was established at the 

Carderock complex. Equipped with a UNIVAC computer system, one of the first 

mainframe computers, the laboratory focused on theory and analysis, planning and 

programming, and engineering and development. A major effort was undertaken to 

determine the operating lifetimes of the nuclear reactors installed in the Navy’s first 

generation of atomic-powered submarines. Technical staff wrote new computer 

programs to generate the first practical mathematical models of reactor-core 

behavior. Computation of core geometry and composition, for example, enabled 

accurate determination of the diffusion rates of neutrons (which caused uranium 

fission), while simulation studies revealed the depletion patterns of uranium fuel and 

the accumulation of fission by-products. Taken as a whole, these computer analyses 

enabled engineers working at the Bettis and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories 

and other private and public R&D facilities to predict the power-producing 

82 For a detailed examination of these events, see Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Nuclear Navy, 

1946–1962 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). Also on Rickover, see Francis Duncan, Rickover 

and the Nuclear Navy: The Discipline of Technology (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990); Normal 

Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982). 
64 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

capabilities of various reactor designs. Refueling projections were also forthcoming, 

and they were incorporated into the reactor designs for the Skate and Skipjack

classes of nuclear submarines and the atomic-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise,

as well as the replacement cores for the original reactors installed on the Nautilus

and Seawolf.

83

Postwar developments in reactor design at the model basin were matched 

by major advances in submarine hydrodynamics and architecture. Until nuclear 

propulsion was perfected to the point where it could safely extend the underwater 

range and speed of submersible vessels, the Navy had to rely on incremental 

improvements to its vintage wartime submarine fleet. Immediately after the 

war,the navy set up the GUPPY (Greater Underwater Propulsive Power) 

program to retrofit World War II–era submarines to achieve higher speeds and 

to run quieter under water. Removal of deck guns, changes in the shapes of sterns 

and bows, and development of new conning tower configurations were some of 

the many adjustments made to the different classes and types of submarines 

assigned to the GUPPY program. Although these changes led to improvements 

in speed and performance, drag effects and propeller and engine noise still 

imposed serious limits on further development of a quiet and fast conventional 

submarine fleet. Beginning in 1950, however, researchers at the model basin began 

experimenting with new hull forms. Three years later, they unveiled the design 

for the research vessel Albacore. Incorporating a revolutionary new “tear-drop” 

shape, Albacore exhibited more hydrodynamic stability and ran much quieter 

and faster than the retrofitted submarines in the GUPPY fleet. Albacore’s shape 

also marked a major improvement over the hull designs adopted for the Nautilus, 

Seawolf, and Skate classes of nuclear-powered submarines. Commissioned in 

1959, the SSN–585 Skipjack was the first completely redesigned submarine that 

incorporated both the optimal design of the Albacore and the latest advances 

in shipboard nuclear reactor technology. This basic platform, which emerged 

from the close institutional partnership between private industry and the Navy’s 

in-house R&D laboratories, guided the development of the attack and ballistic 

missile submarine fleet for decades.84

From Bureaus and Laboratories to System Commands 

and Research Centers

In 1959, the same year that the Navy commissioned the Skipjack, the 

bureaus of Ordnance and Ships merged to form the Bureau of Naval Weapons. 

83 Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 223–24. 84 Ibid., 243–49, 254–56. See also Gary E. Weir, Forged in War: The Naval-Industrial Complex 

and American Submarine Construction, 1940–1961 (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1993), 

chaps. 5–6. Attempts were made to develop new propulsion technologies, but none displaced the nuclear 

reactor as the primary source of power for submarines. In the 1980s, for example, a new R&D program on 

superconducting motors for surface ships the Navy established at the David Taylor Naval Ship Research 

and Development Center (created in 1967 when the model basin in Carderock merged with the Marine 

Engineering Laboratory in Annapolis). Several successful prototypes were built, but they were not produced 

in quantity or incorporated into the fleet. See Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 379–84.
Research and Development in the Navy 65

Although the merger resolved jurisdictional tensions over missile development, 

it created difficulties with regard to managerial organization and effectiveness. 

Massive and unwieldy, the new bureau controlled 60 percent of the assets of the 

Naval Material Support Establishment, itself founded in 1963 through a merger 

of the bureaus of Yards and Docks, Supplies and Accounts, and Ships. To avoid 

the likelihood of future jurisdictional conflicts arising from the development of 

new weapon systems, the Navy leadership reorganized the bureau structure in 

1965 into six separate functional commands administered by a new umbrella 

organization—the Naval Material Command (headed by the Chief of Naval 

Material). Each command was based on an integrated systems approach (for 

ships, air, ordnance, electronics, facilities engineering, and supply) that cut across 

the once-rigid institutional boundaries that had defined the old bureau system.

The Navy reorganized the in-house laboratories in response to the formation 

of the Naval Material Command. In line with this transformation, the Navy 

established late in 1965 the dual position of Director of Naval Laboratories 

(reporting to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development) 

and Director of Laboratory Programs (reporting to the Chief of Naval Material) 

to coordinate the programs and functions of the laboratories managed by the 

new command structure. This realignment placed direct management of the 

laboratories and technical programs under the control of a civilian scientist, who 

no longer reported to the individual bureau chiefs. Like the bureaus, several of the 

in-house laboratories were reorganized into major centers along functional lines. 

In 1967, the Navy established the first center—the Naval Ship Research and 

Development Center—followed by the Naval Weapons Center, Naval Undersea 

Research and Development Center, Navy Electronics Laboratory Center, and 

the Naval Air Development Center.85

The transformation of the independent bureaus into centralized system 

commands illustrates the extent to which the introduction of new weapons 

technologies upset traditional roles and missions. The Special Projects Office, 

Lead Bureau Concept, and other ad hoc measures initially eased jurisdictional 

tensions between the bureaus, but naval leaders sought a better and more lasting 

85 Booz Allen, Review of Navy R&D Management, 85–90. The Naval Ship Research and Development 

Center comprised the David Taylor Model Basin, Marine Engineering Laboratory, and the former Mine 

Defense Laboratory (Panama City, Florida). The Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake and the 

Naval Ordnance Laboratory (Corona) merged to form the Naval Weapons Center. The Pasadena annex 

of the Naval Ordnance Test Station and the Undersea Technology Directorate of the Naval Electronics 

Laboratory combined to form the Naval Undersea Research and Development Center (San Diego). The 

Naval Air Development Center at Johnsville, Pennsylvania, acquired the Aerospace Crew Equipment 

Department, the Aeronautical Materials Department, and the Aeronautical Structures Department 

previously assigned to the Naval Air Engineering Station at Philadelphia. The Naval Electronics Laboratory 

Center (San Diego), Naval Weapons Laboratory (formerly the Naval Proving Ground at Dahlgren), and 

the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (White Oak) remained intact. In addition to the major weapons centers 

and laboratories, several smaller R&D facilities were either established outright or reorganized through 

mergers and divestitures: the Naval Underwater Weapons Research and Engineering Station (formerly 

the Naval Torpedo Station; Newport, Rhode Island); the Underwater Sound Laboratory (New London); 

Naval Applied Science Laboratory (Brooklyn); Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (San Francisco); 

and the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory (Port Huenene, California). “R&D Centers/Laboratories,” 

Armed Forces Journal 106 (17 May 1969): 30–31; “Navy Establishes R&D Center,” Journal of the Armed 

Forces 104 (8 April 1967): 2.
66 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

solution. The new system command structure was largely a response to this 

organizational and technological dilemma. It was also a direct result of measures 

taken by leaders in the Pentagon to centralize control of the weapons acquisition 

process in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

During this period of transition from material bureaus to system commands, 

the organizational division of labor among research, development, and production 

remained largely intact. Although a programmatic separation of research from 

development had been one of the hallmarks of postwar naval policy since the 

early 1920s, it failed to capture the scope of the weapons innovation process in 

many of the Navy’s own laboratories. Except for the Naval Research Laboratory 

and the establishment of the discretionary funding program in the Bureau of 

Ordnance in 1948, the Navy’s laboratories, like those in the Army’s arsenals, 

thrived on the multidirectional interactions among research, development, 

testing, and prototype weapons production.

By the end of the Cold War, the Navy bureaus and their organizational 

descendents, joined by the Naval Research Laboratory and the Office of 

Naval Research, had developed a wide range of sophisticated and highly 

effective weapon systems, ranging from the Sidewinder air-to-air missile to the 

nuclear propulsion systems that powered the fleet’s attack and ballistic missile 

submarines. These and other technological successes may well have represented 

the pinnacle of Navy R&D during the postwar period. After the collapse of the 

Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 

the Navy was left without a set of clearly stated goals or a coherent mission to 

achieve them. Consequently, policymakers in the Navy, Department of Defense, 

and the Executive Branch struggled with the difficult problem of how to adjust 

the Navy’s R&D establishment to the realities of a radically different geopolitical 

environment in which traditional Cold War rivalries no longer persisted. More 

historical research on this subject is needed, but the pace at which the Navy 

divested its internal R&D functions quickened during the 1990s as military 

budgets dropped and the Defense Department enacted sweeping measures to 

reduce the size and scope of its force structure.86

86 See Rodney P. Carlisle, Navy RDT&E Planning in an Age of Transition: A Survey Guide to 

Contemporary Literature (Washington, D.C.: Navy Laboratory / Center Coordinating Group and the Naval 

Historical Center, 1997); and Philip L. Shiman, “Defense Acquisition in an Uncertain World: The Post–

Cold War Era, 1990–2000,” in Providing the Means of War: Historical Perspectives on Defense Acquisition, 

1945–2000, ed., Shannon A. Brown (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History and 

Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 2005).
Research and Development in the Air Force

The use of atomic weapons against Japan in August 1945 marked the end 

of World War II and the culmination of the Manhattan Project—arguably 

the United States Army’s most technologically challenging wartime research, 

development, and production program.1 The destruction of Hiroshima and 

Nagasaki also signaled the beginning of a new era in aerial warfare, one in which 

the strategic and tactical imperatives of an expanding nuclear arsenal would place 

increasing technical demands on the operational capabilities of American air 

power. In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which established 

an independent air force to oversee the military aviation functions previously 

assigned to the Army.2 In its new capacity as a separate service equivalent to 

the Army and the Navy, the Air Force quickly put policies in place to absorb 

the latest breakthroughs in jet propulsion, rocketry, solid-state electronics, and 

other state-of-the-art technologies introduced during the war. Such policies 

were shaped throughout the Cold War by a recurring tension between those Air 

Force leaders, who believed that technological superiority depended upon the 

organizational separation of research and development (R&D) from weapons 

production, and those who argued that these functions must remain combined 

within a single organization to ensure successful weapons innovation. Like the 

Army and the Navy, the Air Force enacted policies and created new organizational 

structures to maintain the separation of R&D from production. In many cases, 

however, research strategies and practices at the laboratory level were driven more 

by changing weapons requirements than by sweeping management directives 

handed down by the Air Staff.

Before World War II, the Air Force—then known as the Army Air Corps—

maintained most of its research, development, and testing operations at Wright 

Field in Dayton, Ohio. R&D at Wright focused on the development of aircraft 

1

 On the Army’s role in the Manhattan Project, see Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan, The Army and the 

Atomic Bomb, in United States Army in World War II, Special Studies (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 1985); and Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The New World, 1939–

1946, vol. 1 of A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University Park: Pennsylvania 

State University Press, 1962). 2

 Roger R. Trask and Alfred Goldberg, The Department of Defense, 1947–1997: Organization and 

Leaders (Washington, D.C: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1997), 6–11. On Army 

aviation after the establishment of the Air Force, see, for example, Richard P. Weinert Jr., A History of 

Army Aviation, 1950–1962 (Fort Monroe, Va.: Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army Training 

and Doctrine Command, 1991); Frederic A. Bergerson, The Army Gets an Air Force: Tactics of Insurgent 

Bureaucratic Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980); Christopher C. S. Cheng, “United 

States Army Aviation and the Air Mobility Innovation, 1942–1965” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 

1992); and Matthew Allen, Military Helicopter Doctrines of the Major Powers, 1945–1992: Making Decisions 

about Air-Land Warfare (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993), chap. 1.

Chapter Four
68 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

specifications and standards; testing and evaluation of aircraft production 

models; improvement of engines, fuels, armament, airframes, and other critical 

materials; aeromedicine; and the management and coordination of research 

contracts with private industry. Longer-term fundamental studies in such fields 

as aerodynamics were typically carried out in academic institutions and in the 

government research laboratories operated by the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics and the National Bureau of Standards.3

 But many technological 

innovations had also originated in the private sector and not in governmentowned manufacturing facilities of the type that had historically turned out new 

weapons for the Army and the Navy. Without a similar institutional legacy of 

its own, the Air Force relied more heavily on the domestic aircraft industry to 

design, build, and equip the next generation of aerial weapons.Consequently, 

the Air Force’s in-house R&D operations, which did undergo a major expansion 

after 1945, focused primarily, but not exclusively, on the testing, evaluation, 

and improvement of aircraft and other weapon systems produced by industrial 

contractors rather than on the accumulation of the requisite knowledge needed 

to develop those technologies internally. 

The origins of military aviation in the United States can be traced back to 

1907, four years after the Wright Brothers successfully demonstrated powered, 

heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Initially, modern aircraft 

were expected to be of direct benefit to military reconnaissance and observation 

during field operations, which prompted the Army leadership to establish a 

separate Aeronautical Division in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer.4 At the 

end of World War I, the War Department transferred the expanding aviation 

arm out of the Signal Corps and granted it independent status as the Army 

Air Service. In 1926, the Air Service became the Army Air Corps and then, 

in 1941, the Army Air Forces (AAF). Throughout this period, the Army’s air 

arm continued to develop and improve its tactical pursuit, close air support, and 

strategic bombing functions, all of which dated back to World War I. Employed 

with devastating effects during World War II, strategic bombing became 

increasingly important as the Air Force adopted offensive nuclear capabilities in 

the early years of the Cold War.5 Moreover, the advent of nuclear weapons, jet 

propulsion, and guided missiles prompted the leaders of the Army Air Forces 

to confront the seemingly intractable problem of how to achieve technological 

superiority at a time when aircraft production took precedence to achieve 

maximum effectiveness against military targets in Germany and Japan. Even 

before the war ended, however, disagreement within the Army’s senior ranks 

3

 Lawrence R. Benson, Acquisition Management in the United States Air Force and Its Predecessors 

(Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1997), 7. 4 Splendid Vision, Unswerving Purpose: Developing Air Power for the United States Air Force During the 

First Century of Powered Flight (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Oh.: Air Force History and Museums 

Program, 2002), 199–200. 5

 On the Army Air Corps before and during World War II, see Maurer Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. 

Army, 1919–1939 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1987); Bernard C. Nalty, ed., Winged 

Shield, Winged Sword: A History of the United States Air Force, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and 

Museums Program, 1997), chaps. 1–3, 6–10; and Edgar F. Raines Jr., Eyes of Artillery: The Origins of Modern 

U.S. Army Aviation in World War II (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000).
Research and Development in the Air Force 69

had hardened. Proponents of quantity production of serviceable aircraft to 

maintain a ready force in the event of another war squared off against advocates 

of a more technologically advanced air arm, which would incorporate the latest 

developments in science and engineering. Perhaps nowhere was this ongoing 

conflict between a “force-in-being” and a “force-of-the-future” more clearly visible 

than in the effort to incorporate a diversified research and development program 

into the Army’s existing aircraft procurement system and the one that replaced 

it after 1947.

Like their counterparts in the Army and the Navy, Air Force leaders 

considered the extent to which research and development should be connected 

to production. In some cases, they copied institutional mechanisms put in place 

by the Army and the Navy to secure scientific knowledge from private-sector 

research institutions. In 1948, for example, the Air Staff established the Applied 

Research Section (renamed the Office of Air Research [OAR] in 1949) as the 

organizational equivalent of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to award 

contracts to universities and industrial laboratories for longer-range fundamental 

studies unrelated to immediate weapons requirements but broadly correlated 

to Air Force interests.6

 OAR also coordinated basic research underway in the 

in-house service laboratories operated by the newly created Air Research and 

Development Command (ARDC). Established in 1950, ARDC managed the 

R&D facilities previously assigned to the Air Force’s procurement arm—the Air 

Materiel Command (AMC).7 Wright Field and the remaining ARDC laboratories 

also supported significant R&D programs in electronics, metallurgy, physics, 

and other scientific and engineering disciplines. Even in these cases, however, the 

content and scope of the work still focused on Air Force requirements.

The division between fundamental research outsourced to the private sector 

and the more focused, application-oriented studies handled by the Air Force’s 

own laboratories remained largely intact, with some modest adjustments, during 

the Cold War. What did undergo a major transformation, however, was the 

extent to which the Air Staff coordinated the functions of the in-house R&D 

laboratories with the procurement of aircraft and other weapons from industrial 

contractors. Before World War II, military aircraft were typically assembled 

using off-the-shelf components produced in industry and in the Army’s technical 

6

 See, for example, R. G. Gibbs, “Chemistry Division of New Air Force Research and Development 

Command Will Emphasize Basic Research,” Chemical and Engineering News 30 (3 March 1952): 854–55; 

and C. F. Yost, “Metallurgy Program of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research,” Journal of Metals 9 (May 

1957): 671. 7

 The Applied Research Section was originally assigned to the Air Materiel Command’s Engineering 

Division at Wright Field. The Office of Air Research was renamed the Office of Scientific Research 

(OSR) in 1951. Four years later, after the establishment of the Air Research and Development Command, 

OSR became the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and was assigned independent status 

equivalent to ARDC’s other in-house R&D centers (e.g., Wright Air Development Center, Arnold 

Engineering Development Center). In 1961, after the Air Materiel Command and the Air Research and 

Development Command merged to form the new Air Force Systems Command, AFOSR became the 

Office of Aerospace Research (OAR). “OSR: Keystone of Basic Research,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 

1953): 87; Nick A. Komons, Science and the Air Force: A History of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research 

(Arlington, Va.: Historical Division, Office of Information, Office of Aerospace Research, 1966): 65; 

Splendid Vision, Unswerving Purpose, 368.
70 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

services. Private firms delivered engines and airframes, for example, while the 

Army Ordnance Department provided armaments and munitions and the 

Signal Corps supplied communications equipment.8 Moreover, development 

and procurement of aircraft proceeded in sequential order, from R&D through 

prototype construction and testing to full-scale production.

Prompted by the urgency of wartime requirements for more technologically 

advanced weapons during the Cold War, aircraft manufacturers began to overlap 

these sequential functions to accelerate the procurement process, a concept 

known as concurrency. They also began to use a related strategy, that came to be 

known as the weapon system concept. Contractors no longer conceived of aircraft 

as agglomerations of interchangeable parts assembled sequentially but rather 

as complex, fully integrated systems in which all constituent components were 

designed, built, maintained, and operated according to precise specifications 

and rigorous performance requirements.9

 Faced with the increasing complexity 

of military aircraft, the rapid pace of innovation in electronics and propulsion 

technologies after the war, and changing strategic considerations, Air Force 

leaders increasingly employed both concurrency and the weapon system concept 

in the weapons acquisition process.10

The transition from sequential development to systems integration and 

concurrency had a major impact on the Air Research and Development 

Command, the umbrella organization established in 1950 to manage the Air 

Force’s network of in-house laboratories. In 1961, ARDC’s laboratories and 

testing installations merged, once again, with the procurement functions of the 

Air Materiel Command to form the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC). The 

Air Staff realigned the ARDC laboratories to provide technical support to AFSC’s 

four major weapons divisions (ballistic systems, space systems, aeronautical 

systems, and electronic systems), while the Air Force Office of Scientific Research 

(AFOSR) merged into a new and diversified Office of Aerospace Research 

(OAR) to manage and coordinate both in-house R&D and extramural research 

in universities and industrial laboratories. This reorganization simultaneously 

consolidated and decentralized the entire Air Force acquisition process, placing 

responsibility for research, development, and procurement squarely within the 

divisions. Although centralization of decision-making authority in the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in the 1960s limited its operational flexibility, a 

8

 See, for example, G. C. Gentry, “Aircraft Armament,” Journal of Applied Physics 16 (December 1945): 

771–73. 9

 During World War II, Consolidated Aircraft, Boeing, and the Glenn L. Martin Company all used 

concurrency to produce the B–24, B–26, and B–29 bombers. Boeing also employed the nascent weapon 

system concept on the B–29 program but only for some of the aircraft’s major components. Convair’s 

F–102 interceptor was the first postwar military aircraft whose development and procurement cycles were 

guided at the outset by concurrency and the weapon system concept. 10 Michael E. Brown, Flying Blind: The Politics of the U.S. Strategic Bomber Program (Ithaca, N.Y.: 

Cornell University Press, 1992), 17–27; Elliott V. Converse, “The Air Force and Acquisition, 1945–1953,” 

October 2003, 40–48 (unpublished manuscript), U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Lesley J. 

McNair, Washington, D.C. I am indebted to Dr. Converse for sharing an early version of this manuscript 

with me.
Research and Development in the Air Force 71

trend that was reversed in the 1980s, the Air Force System Command remained 

largely intact throughout the Cold War.11

Following a brief discussion of the origins of R&D in the Army’s air arm 

before and during World War II, this chapter examines in detail some of the 

major ARDC and AFSC installations that supported significant research, 

development, testing, and evaluation functions for the Air Force after 1945. 

Because Wright Field, which remained the Air Force’s primary in-house R&D 

facility throughout the Cold War, lacked suitable wind tunnels and related 

experimental facilities for jet engines, rocket motors, and other high-speed 

propulsion systems, the Air Materiel Command established a new test facility 

for this purpose in southeastern Tennessee. In 1946, planning began for the new 

Air Engineering Development Division (later renamed the Arnold Engineering 

Development Center [AEDC], after Army Air Forces General Henry Arnold). 

Construction commenced in 1950, and the facility was formally dedicated the 

following year. In addition to overseeing routine testing and evaluation functions, 

AEDC scientists and engineers worked closely with their counterparts at NACA 

(after 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA]) and 

also with industrial contractors. Together they extended AEDC’s knowledge 

base in propulsion-related subjects, including fluid dynamics in near-ground 

and space environments, thermodynamics, electronics, fuels, propellants, and 

the structure and behavior of materials.

Major advances in solid-state electronics matched similar developments 

in propulsion, airframe, and materials technologies. Established in Boston in 

1945, the Air Force Cambridge Research Center spearheaded electronics R&D, 

focusing on radio and radar technology and new classes of semiconductor 

materials used in aircraft avionics systems. Cambridge also managed large 

research and development programs in geophysics, optics, and plasma and space 

physics. The Rome Air Development Center, founded at Griffiss Air Force Base 

near Syracuse, New York, in 1950, managed, through industrial contracts and 

in-house R&D, the development of hardware for ground-based navigation and 

communication systems.

Although the Air Force operated an extensive network of support facilities, a 

handful of installations held primary responsibility for the testing and evaluation 

of new aircraft, missiles, and other major weapon systems manufactured by 

industrial contractors. Moreover, these functions were often carried out with the 

assistance of in-house laboratories operating on-site. The Air Force established 

the Air Force Armaments Center at Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Florida, 

in 1949 to test all nonnuclear weapons—bombs, rockets, and missiles—fired 

from aircraft. It also compiled firing and bombing tables. The nuclear weapons 

developed by the civilian-controlled Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), by 

contrast, were mated to advanced delivery systems at the Special Weapons 

Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. In the 1960s, Kirtland’s R&D 

11 OAR reported directly to the Air Staff, not to the weapons divisions. Michael H. Gorn, Vulcan’s 

Forge: The Making of an Air Force Command for Weapons Acquisition, 1950–1985, 4th pr., vol. 1 (Andrews 

Air Force Base, Md.: Office of History, Air Force Systems Command, September 1989), 73, 76, 118.
72 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

capabilities expanded into the development of high-energy laser, microwave, and 

particle-beam weapons. The Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force 

Base in California carried out flight testing of complete weapon systems (the 

combination of airframe, avionics, and ordnance). Edwards also static-tested the 

propulsion units for ballistic missiles, while Patrick and Holloman Air Force 

Bases in Florida and New Mexico, respectively, conducted test firings of shortand long-range missile delivery systems. These bases and their functions remained 

largely intact throughout the postwar period, albeit with a few exceptions. As 

concurrency and the weapon systems concept became more fully integrated into 

the Air Force’s acquisition process, some research laboratories and test facilities 

closed, merged into new organizations, or transferred to other locations.

From Army Air Corps to United States Air Force, 1907–1950

Before World War II, research and development in the Army Air Corps was 

subordinated to procurement and production. R&D was essentially a support 

function in a larger program to expand the air arm through close coordination 

with the domestic aircraft industry. This relationship grew stronger after 1940. 

As demand grew for military aircraft, so did pressure on airframe manufacturers 

and the engineering departments in the Air Corps to favor quantity over 

quality. Production of proven designs took precedence over the massive R&D 

investments required to generate wholesale improvements in quality.12 To be 

sure, the preference for quantity over quality did not preclude the introduction 

of important breakthroughs in design and construction, materials performance, 

and propulsion technologies during this period. A broad range of new innovations 

emerged from private industry and government laboratories. Nonetheless, it was 

not until 1945 that the Air Staff and a small group of civilian scientists began 

crafting a comprehensive R&D policy to strike what they believed should be 

a more even balance between production levels and technological superiority. 

The ensuing struggle, however, did not focus on this issue alone. The differences 

of opinion also involved an attempt to sort out the extent to which any new 

service-wide R&D program should be separated from the Army’s traditional 

procurement functions. Some members of the War Department General Staff 

favored a close connection between R&D and procurement, whereas others, 

including many influential civilian experts, argued that full separation of the 

management of the two functions was a necessary prerequisite to successful 

weapons innovation. Although disagreements along this line resurfaced routinely 

throughout the postwar period, the advocates of separation won a crucial victory 

in 1950, when the Air Research and Development Command was fashioned 

12 Donald R. Baucom, “Air Force Images of Research and Development and Their Reflections in 

Organizational Structures and Management Policies” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1976): 7; Amy 

E. Slaton, “Aeronautical Engineering at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base: A Historical Overview,” in The 

Engineering of Flight: Aeronautical Engineering Facilities of Area B, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, ed. 

Emma J. H. Dyson, Dean A. Herrin, and Amy E. Slaton (Washington, D.C.: HABS/HAER, National 

Park Service, 1993), 25.
Research and Development in the Air Force 73

from the institutional remnants of the wartime R&D program in the Army Air 

Forces. But the transition to an independent R&D establishment—ARDC—

was gradual. Any explanation of its origins and evolution must begin with a 

brief discussion of prior institutional developments and technological advances 

in Army aviation dating back to the end of World War I.

In October 1917, ten years after it had institutionalized aerial operations 

in the Aeronautical Division, the Army Signal Corps established the 

Airplane Engineering Department at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio, to 

conduct experimental investigations in support of aircraft development and 

procurement. Army engineers at McCook built upon and applied the knowledge 

created in other laboratories—such as the National Bureau of Standards and 

the new research facilities operated by the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics—to test airframes, engines, and other critical components; develop 

aircraft specifications; and improve materials. At the end of World War I, the 

War Department assumed control of the aviation functions previously assigned 

to the Signal Corps and consolidated them into the new Army Air Service. 

Under this sweeping administrative reorganization, the Airplane Engineering 

Department at McCook Field became the Airplane Engineering Division. 

Although the new division maintained elaborate chemical, metallurgical, and 

electrical laboratories, the content of the work undertaken in these and other 

facilities remained essentially the same—to support the development of aircraft 

produced in industry.

In 1926, Congress passed the Air Corps Act, which mandated a five-year 

aviation expansion program for the Army Air Service. The newly named Army 

Air Corps consolidated the existing functions of engineering, procurement, and 

supply in a separate organization—the Materiel Division. The old Airplane 

Engineering Division became the Experimental Engineering Section, composed 

of six product-oriented branches: airplane, lighter-than-air craft (dirigibles 

and observation balloons), power plant, equipment, materials, and armament. 

This organizational rationalization was accompanied by the transfer of the 

Materiel Division and all aircraft procurement functions from overcrowded 

buildings at McCook Field to adjacent facilities at the newly acquired Wright 

Field.13 Resumption of routine activities at Wright Field included the inspection, 

testing, analysis, standardization, and improvement of engine fuels and coolants, 

propellers, lubricants, rubber, glass, metals and fabrics, and other essential 

materials used in aircraft construction. Some materials, such as aluminum 

and magnesium alloys, were developed from scratch. Others were tested under 

simulated operating conditions and analyzed chemically to determine strength 

13 In addition to the Experimental Engineering Section, the Materiel Division managed separate 

sections for administration, procurement, repair and maintenance, field services, and industrial war 

planning. Slaton, “Aeronautical Engineering at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” 3–6, 8; Splendid Vision, 

Unswerving Purpose, 24–35, 44–64, 78–83. The Aircraft Radio Laboratory, which had been established by 

the Signal Corps at McCook Field shortly after World War I to develop new radio applications for aircraft 

communication, also moved to Wright Field. The laboratory’s mission expanded in 1935 to include work 

on radio navigation. J. H. Gardner, “Aircraft Radio Labs,” Radio News 27 (February 1942): 8; W. L. Bayer, 

“The Signal Corps Aircraft Radio Laboratory,” Journal of Applied Physics 16 (April 1945): 248–49.
74 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

and performance characteristics. Meanwhile, testing and refinement of gun 

mounts; bomb sites, racks, and release mechanisms; and landing gear were carried 

out to simplify installation on aircraft and improve operational reliability.14

Important breakthroughs also came out of Wright Field during this period. 

In the aircraft (formerly airplane) branch’s structures development and test 

laboratory, for example, researchers introduced the first practical, all-metal 

monocoque airframe.15 Unlike conventional airframes, in which the internal 

(initially wood) framework or truss supported the entire weight-bearing load, 

the monocoque design eliminated this requirement by shifting the load to the 

external skin, thereby reducing the overall weight of the aircraft. Other major 

innovations to come out of Wright Field—through collaboration with the 

aircraft industry—included retractable landing gear, night-flying instruments, 

oxygen equipment and cabin pressurization for high-altitude flight, and the 

automatic pilot.16

The onset of World War II prompted a massive expansion of the domestic 

aircraft industry. During the interwar period, the Army Air Corps had 

maintained a fleet of less than one thousand serviceable aircraft. Between 

1939 and 1945, however, production of aircraft, three-fourths of which were 

acquired by the Army Air Forces, soared to more than three hundred thousand 

units.17 Administrative reorganization matched this sharp increase in aircraft 

production. In 1942, the Materiel Division at Wright Field became an 

independent command, which comprised four major divisions: procurement, 

production, inspection, and engineering.18 Together these divisions managed a 

network of public and private-sector institutions in which more than 26,000 

individual contractors turned out, at any given time, almost half a million 

different aircraft parts and essential supplies. The Engineering Division 

rendered technical assistance on major aircraft components through its four 

sections (service engineering, aircraft and physical requirements, propulsion 

14 W. E. Gillmore, “Work of the Materiel Division of the Army Air Corps,” S. A. E. Journal 25 

(September 1929): 233–34; L. H. Engel, “U.S. Air Center Speeds Research,” Science News Letter 36 (8 July 

1939): 27; G. H. Brett, “Materiel Division of the U.S. Army Air Corps,” Aero Digest 35 (August 1939): 

48–51. 15 The aircraft branch had been established in 1932 through the merger of the airplane and lighterthan-air branches. The following year, the Experimental Engineering Section absorbed the Materiel 

Division’s Procurement Section. In 1935, this added function was renamed the engineering procurement 

branch. Splendid Vision, Unswerving Purpose, 67, 72. 16 A. McSurely, “Wright Field Tests New Air Weapons,” Aviation News 1 (20 March 1944): 12; 

Slaton, “Aeronautical Engineering at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” 15; Splendid Vision, Unswerving 

Purpose, 67–77. 17 Benson, Acquisition Management in the United States Air Force and Its Predecessors, 13. On aircraft 

acquisition in the Army Air Forces during World War II, see Irving Brinton Holley Jr., Buying Aircraft: 

Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces, in United States Army in World War II, Special Studies

(Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1964). 18 All logistics functions previously assigned to the Materiel Division transferred to the new Air 

Service Command at nearby Patterson Field in 1941. In 1944, the Air Service Command and the Materiel 

Command (the former Materiel Division) merged to form the Air Technical Services Command (ATSC), 

located at Wright Field. Two years later, ATSC was renamed the Air Materiel Command. In 1945, Wright 

and Patterson fields merged administratively, and the combined operation was christened the WrightPatterson Air Force Base in 1948. Benson, Acquisition Management in the United States Air Force and Its 

Predecessors, 16–17; Splendid Vision, Unswerving Purpose, 87–88.
Research and Development in the Air Force 75

and accessories, and radio and radar) and ten in-house laboratories (aircraft, 

power plant, propeller, equipment, materiel, armament, photographic, 

aeromedical, engineering shops, and aircraft radio).19 Scientists and engineers 

working in the section laboratories conducted much of the same type of testing, 

inspection, and, when necessary, research and development on materials and 

components that had been carried out at Wright Field and its predecessor, 

McCook Field, during the interwar period. Representative examples included 

wind-tunnel testing of airframe structures for performance, stability, and 

control; conservation of scarce materials and the development of suitable 

replacements; enhancement of engine power through higher horsepower 

ratings; development of high-octane aviation fuels; and improvements to 

optical equipment for aerial reconnaissance.20

The bulk of the R&D funds assigned to the Army Air Corps during 

the war was either distributed to laboratories in universities and industrial 

firms through the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) or 

absorbed directly as development costs in the production contracts awarded to 

the major aircraft manufacturers.21 Consequently, the sharp decline in aircraft 

procurement and the anticipated closure of OSRD prompted the Air Staff to 

articulate a new R&D policy for the postwar period. “The large production 

contracts that have carried a considerable part of the development load are no 

longer with us,” wrote Brig. Gen. Laurence Craigie, chief of the Engineering 

Division at Wright Field, in the October 1945 issue of the Aeronautical 

Engineering Review.22 “The result,” Craigie continued, “is that research and 

development must be prepared to stand on its own feet. [This] . . . can only 

be provided through adequate appropriations and the provision of adequate 

personnel and facilities.”23 Although Craigie presided over the cancellation of 

projects in the Engineering Division that “dealt with development of equipment 

for immediate use in combat” in favor of “longer range research,” a far more 

19 In 1944, a fifth section—engineering control—was added to the Engineering Division. F. O. Carroll, 

“Research and Development at Wright Field,” Journal of Applied Physics 16 (April 1945): 201. 20 “For the Technical Superiority of Our Weapons,” Aero Digest 45 (1 June 1944): 52–54; Slaton, 

“Aeronautical Engineering at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” 30. 21 “Debugging” of aircraft, for example, was one development cost typically amortized over the course 

of a production contract. According to Gorn, Vulcan’s Forge, xviii, the Army Air Corps allocated $3.5 

million for research and development in 1939. When aircraft production in the United States peaked in 

1944, R&D expenditures exceeded $120 million. 22 In the same article, Craigie summarized the Engineering Division’s wartime role. Following the 

precedent established at McCook Field three decades earlier, the division focused primarily on testing and 

evaluation of aircraft and related equipment manufactured in industry: “Within the Engineering Division 

are twelve individual laboratories working on the design, development, and test of aircraft and aircraft 

equipment. These laboratories are divided functionally between three subdivisions—namely, Aircraft and 

Physical Requirements, Propulsion and Accessories, and Radio and Radar. In these laboratories, every 

piece of Air Force equipment is tested and tested again. Here the products of industry are matched against 

the most exacting specifications.” 23 L. C. Craigie, “Research and the Army Air Forces,” Aeronautical Engineering Review 4 (October 

1945): 7–8. Like the Navy and the Army’s other technical departments, the Air Corps faced competition 

from the private sector for qualified scientists and engineers, a problem highlighted by Craigie in 1947: “The 

limitations on compensation for Civil Service employees makes it difficult for us to compete with industry 

in acquiring high caliber scientists and engineers.” L. C. Craigie, “AAF Plans for Engineering and Research,” 

S. A. E. Journal 55 (March 1947): 19.
76 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

comprehensive and influential evaluation of civilian and military aeronautics 

was already in progress under the direction of Gen. Henry Arnold, the Army 

Air Forces’ chief of staff.24

In November 1944, one year before Craigie commented on the anticipated 

institutional restructuring of R&D in the postwar Army Air Forces, General 

Arnold met briefly with Theodore von Kármán, a widely respected aerodynamicist 

and head of the Daniel Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California 

Institute of Technology (Caltech). Arnold asked von Kármán, who was also 

intimately involved in Caltech’s wartime rocket R&D program, to investigate 

the current status of aeronautical research and make recommendations for the 

application of new scientific knowledge in the field to the long-term development 

of American air power.25 As the head of Arnold’s newly formed Scientific Advisory 

Group (SAG), von Kármán led a handful of academic and industrial scientists 

and engineers overseas the following spring. They concentrated their efforts in 

war-torn Germany, making a systematic survey of the sophisticated research and 

development facilities that had turned out the world’s first operational jet aircraft 

and long-range rockets.

In addition to making recommendations for the transfer of sensitive German 

documentation and personnel to the United States, the advisory group compiled 

a set of preliminary findings, which von Kármán summarized in “Where We 

Stand,”the first report he submitted to Arnold on behalf of the SAG membership 

in August 1945. Von Kármán predicted a new era in aerial warfare, one in which 

supersonic aircraft would be able to strike distant targets with electronically 

controlled, high-velocity missiles. Radar-guided communication and navigation 

systems would enable precise coordination of offensive and defensive air 

operations regardless of poor visibility and inclement weather. In December, 

the Scientific Advisory Group submitted the multivolume study Toward New 

Horizons, which not only reiterated the findings of “Where We Stand” but also 

included detailed discussions of key technical fields—aerodynamics, aircraft 

propulsion, guided missiles, radar—that required additional exploration because 

of their anticipated military value to future air operations.

In the opening volume, Science, The Key to Air Supremacy, von Kármán 

laid out his institutional vision for technological superiority in the Air Force of 

the future. His recommendations centered on the infusion of civilian scientific 

24 “ATSC Review and Long-Range Air-Research Program,” Aeronautical Engineering Review 5 (February 1946): 73. 25 Arnold also played a leading role in the establishment of Project RAND at the Douglas Aircraft 

Company in 1946. Created to develop a science of strategic warfare for the Air Force, RAND separated 

from Douglas two years later and reorganized as an independent, nonprofit corporation. RAND was the 

first of the new breed of “think tanks” that originated during the early years of the Cold War to provide 

expert advice to the Department of Defense and the military services on many facets of science and 

technology planning. On the origins of RAND, see David A. Hounshell, “The Medium Is the Message, 

or How Context Matters: The RAND Corporation Builds an Economics of Innovation, 1946–1962,” in 

Systems, Experts, and Computers: The Systems Approach in Management and Engineering, World War II and 

After, ed. Agatha C. Hughes and Thomas P. Hughes (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000); and Martin 

J. Collins, Cold War Laboratory: RAND, the Air Force, and the American State, 1945–1950 (Washington, 

D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).
Research and Development in the Air Force 77

expertise into the Army Air Forces through a combination of institution 

building at the laboratory and management levels. To facilitate what he believed 

would be more productive collaborations among universities, industry, and the 

AAF’s in-house laboratories, von Kármán recommended that the management 

of research and development be completely separated from aircraft production 

and procurement. He also sought to have permanent lines of communication 

established between the civilian scientific community and the major AAF staff 

functions at headquarters.

Although the Air Staff endorsed von Kármán’s recommendations, plans 

drawn up for their full implementation were shelved because of congressional 

budget cuts that placed strict limits on defense spending throughout the 

remainder of the decade. Nonetheless, von Kármán did manage to transform 

the Scientific Advisory Group into a permanent organization—the Scientific 

Advisory Board (SAB)—with direct access to the AAF Chief of Staff. In a 

similar move to establish a formal liaison between the SAB and the Air Staff and 

also to expand the role of R&D at the policymaking level, he encouraged Arnold 

to appoint a new Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development.26

To fill this position, Arnold hand-picked Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, who had 

distinguished himself leading strategic bombing operations in Europe and 

Japan during the war. But LeMay lacked broad powers of supervision and was 

unable to coordinate effectively the AAF’s sundry R&D activities. When the Air 

Force separated from the Army and became an independent military service in 

1947, LeMay’s position was eliminated altogether, its function transferred to the 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel on the Air Staff.27

The demise of the Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development 

reflected a larger and more pervasive conflict between advocates of a separate 

R&D organization in the Air Force and those who favored the current 

institutional status of this function alongside logistics and procurement in the 

Air Materiel Command. At the time, one only had to look as far as the Navy 

to see how effectively that service had institutionalized prevailing wartime 

attitudes about the value of science to weapons innovation. The result had 

been the Office of Naval Research, founded in 1946 to exploit on behalf of the 

Navy the most recent advances in science and technology.28 One observer of this 

transformation in Navy R&D was Theodore von Kármán, who recommended 

to the Air Staff in 1947 that the Air Force set up a similar organization to fund 

long-term extramural research in colleges and universities. Lt. Gen. Benjamin 

Chidlaw, commanding general of the Air Materiel Command, endorsed von 

26 Gorn, Vulcan’s Forge, 1–5; Thomas A. Sturm, The USAF Scientific Advisory Board: Its First Twenty 

Years, 1944–1964, repr. ed., (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1986): 4–17; Michael H. 

Gorn, Harnessing the Genie: Science and Technology Forecasting for the Air Force, 1944–1986 (Washington, 

D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1986), chap. 1. Previously, management of R&D had been assigned to 

the AMC procurement and supply division. See A. Leggin, “Army Air Forces Research and Development,” 

Chemical and Engineering News 24 (10 November 1946): 2914. 27 Converse, “The Air Force and Acquisition, 1945–1953,” 16–18.

28 On the history of the Office of Naval Research, see Harvey M. Sapolsky, Science and the Navy: The 

History of the Office of Naval Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
78 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Kármán’s recommendation, but he added one important caveat: The proposed 

organization should be managed by AMC and located on-site at Wright Field, 

the hub of Air Force R&D and procurement.

Chidlaw’s opinions were shared by other Air Staff officers, such as Lt. Gen. 

Kenneth Wolfe, deputy chief of staff for materiel, who believed that R&D 

functions should be intimately connected to the aircraft procurement process. 

In their view, such a connection guaranteed the most effective use of technical 

expertise to solve problems arising in all stages of aircraft development and 

production. Von Kármán and other civilian experts, by contrast, believed that 

maintaining a direct link between R&D and procurement would sacrifice research 

on the scientific frontier—the anticipated source of major innovations—in favor 

of work on short-term production problems, thereby limiting the development 

of a technologically advanced Air Force. Early in 1948, the Applied Research 

Section (renamed the Office of Air Research the following year) was set up in the 

Engineering Division of the Air Materiel Command. Although it was transferred 

out of the Engineering Division in 1949 and assigned the same organizational 

status as its parent, the new Office of Air Research did not operate as a wholly 

independent unit reporting directly to the Air Staff, as von Kármán and the 

Scientific Advisory Board had envisioned.29

OAR’s existence in the Air Materiel Command was short-lived, however. 

Von Kármán’s aborted attempts to institutionalize all of the recommendations 

listed in Science, The Key to Air Supremacy were recast by Brig. Gen. Donald 

Putt, who in September 1948 became director of research and development in 

the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel at Air Force headquarters 

in Washington, D.C. Prior to taking this position, Putt had earned a master 

of science degree in aeronautical engineering under von Kármán at Caltech 

and had risen through the engineering ranks of the Air Materiel Command. 

In consultation with Gen. Muir Fairchild, vice chief of staff, Putt asked the 

Scientific Advisory Board to assemble a committee of experts to review the 

status of Air Force R&D and recommend policies for long-term programming. 

The committee, under the direction of physicist Louis Ridenour, dean of the 

graduate school at the University of Illinois, submitted its report to Gen. Hoyt 

Vandenberg, Air Force chief of staff, in September 1949. The Ridenour Report, 

as it came to be known, reiterated prior recommendations made by von Kármán 

and the Scientific Advisory Group back in 1945. It also included some sweeping 

changes. In addition to appointing a new deputy chief of staff for research and 

development at Air Force Headquarters (to coordinate planning and policy) 

and maintaining a contracting arm—the Office of Air Research—to support 

basic research in academic and industrial laboratories, the report called for a new 

29 OAR did not have a separate budget line. AMC controlled its funding. Komons, Science and the 

Air Force, 16; Stephen B. Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 1945–1965

(Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2002): 34–35; Robert Sigethy, “The Air 

Force Organization for Basic Research, 1945–1970: A Study in Change” (Ph.D. diss., American University, 

1980): 25; Sturm, “The USAF Scientific Advisory Board,” 31; “Research Command Starts to Function,” 

Aviation Week 55 (2 July 1951): 14; D. L. Putt, “Air Force Research and Development,” Aeronautical 

Engineering Review 9 (March 1950): 41.
Research and Development in the Air Force 79

R&D command, separate from the Air Materiel Command. Endorsed by Putt, 

Arnold, Fairchild, and Vandenberg, the Ridenour Report served as the founding 

document for the new Air Research and Development Command, established 

in January 1950. Putt became director of R&D under Maj. Gen. Gordon 

Saville, whom Vandenberg appointed to serve as the first deputy chief of staff, 

development. Ridenour, meanwhile, agreed to serve as chief science advisor.30

Although organizationally independent of the Air Materiel Command, the 

new Air Research and Development Command was not as autonomous as it may 

have appeared to outside observers. Initially, AMC controlled ARDC’s budget, 

and it also managed research and development contracts with private-sector 

institutions.31 Moreover, the founding of ARDC underscored the long-standing 

difficulties of trying to set clear boundaries between research and development and 

the institutional environments in which they were expected to flourish. Shortly 

after ARDC was established, the Air Staff began the process of separating the 

R&D functions previously assigned to the Air Materiel Command. Brig. Gen. 

Donald Keirn, ARDC’s deputy chief of staff for research, suggested that all inhouse research in the new command be combined into one centralized laboratory. 

Ridenour rejected Keirn’s proposal outright on ideological and practical grounds. 

Expecting to cover all of the technical fields of interest to the Air Force in a single 

laboratory was simply unrealistic. Far better to accumulate a broad knowledge 

base in science and engineering from private-sector R&D institutions through 

contracting agencies such as the Office of Air Research. Ridenour also argued 

that in-house research should be limited to work that the Air Force was uniquely 

qualified to handle—testing and evaluation of aircraft and other weapon 

systems. Moreover, he believed that “a good government laboratory is usually 

inferior to its civilian equivalent,” a view that was not uncommon among other 

scientists whose professional standards often reflected the academic elitism 

of the university.32 To be sure, all of these views and opinions were gradually 

incorporated into ARDC’s internal laboratory structure, that is to say Ridenour’s 

support for contracting through the growth and diversification of OAR and its 

organizational descendent—the Office of Scientific Research—and Keirn’s 

predilection for in-house R&D facilities as evidenced by the expansion of several 

Air Force laboratories dedicated to electronics and materials research.

To some extent, however, historians have incorporated the differing views 

of Keirn, Ridenour, and other participants into their own interpretations 

and analyses of events, culminating in the formation of the Air Research and 

30 “Deputy Chief of Staff, Development” was the new name assigned to the position previously titled 

“Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development” given in the Ridenour Report. Johnson, The United 

States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 38, 43; Gorn, Vulcan’s Forge, 5–9, 12–17. 31 “R&D Command: New AF Group at Dayton Indicates Greater Stress on Basic Research,” Aviation 

Week 53 (6 November 1950): 15; Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 192; 

Gorn, Vulcan’s Forge, 63–66. 32 Ridenour quoted in Sigethy, “The Air Force Organization for Basic Research,” 44; Komons, Science 

and the Air Force, 22–23. On academic perceptions of government science during this period, see, for 

example, Thomas C. Lassman, “Government Science in Postwar America: Henry A. Wallace, Edward U. 

Condon, and the Transformation of the National Bureau of Standards, 1945–1951,” Isis 96 (March 2005): 

25–51.
80 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Development Command. Several studies, for example, have examined the 

motives behind ARDC’s separation from AMC in terms of a protracted conflict 

between enlightened officers tuned to the potential benefits of an independent 

R&D command by forward-looking civilian experts and conservative, risk-averse 

officers who sacrificed technological superiority in favor of short-term production 

goals to maintain a ready force structure.33 Although such a division may have 

existed at the management level, this argument is nevertheless misleading, 

because it assumes by consequence that R&D was most effective as a separate 

function, independent of production.34 The evidence presented in this chapter, 

however, shows that the division of research and development from production 

was not always clearly visible in the laboratories. More historical research on 

this subject is needed, but it is perhaps just as likely that, managerial separation 

notwithstanding, the Air Force accumulated innovative capabilities precisely 

because each of these functions—research, development, and production—

remained mutually dependent in the postwar period.

A similar disjunction between policy and practice was evident in ARDC’s 

contracting programs. An executive order issued in 1954 obligated the Office 

of Scientific Research to limit its funding of unrestricted scientific research in 

favor of investigations expected to yield practical results directly relevant to Air 

Force requirements, but program managers quietly manipulated the language of 

the R&D funding categories to maintain OSR’s institutional commitment to the 

accumulation of fundamental knowledge.35 Like their counterparts in the Army 

and the Navy, the in-house Air Force laboratories and contracting units did not 

always operate according to the procedures and guidelines set down by the Air 

Staff and the civilian and military leaders who set broad policies in the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense.

Growth and Diversification: The Air Research and 

Development Command, 1950–1961

“The [Army] Air Forces are delving into every nook and corner of scientific 

endeavor. Projects are now underway to study atomic power, jet propulsion, 

physics of the higher atmospheres, radioactive explosives, electronics, guided 

missiles, and the use of new metals and ceramics,” Chemical and Engineering 

News reported in 1946. The AAF spent two-thirds of the Army’s $280 million 

R&D budget that year, mostly through contracts awarded to universities and 

industrial firms. In 1948, after it had been separated from the Army, the new 

Air Force managed a research and development budget nearly twice the size 

($145 million) of the one assigned to the next largest consumer of government 

33 See, for example, Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation; Gorn, Vulcan’s 

Forge; and Baucom, “Air Force Images of Research and Development and Their Reflections in Organizational 

Structures and Management Policies.” 34 Converse, “The Air Force and Acquisition, 1945–1953,” 24, also argues that the claims made by the 

historians cited in footnote 34, above, are overdrawn. I am grateful to Dr. Converse for bringing this point 

to my attention. 35 See Komons, Science and the Air Force, chap. 5.
Research and Development in the Air Force 81

funds for aeronautical R&D, the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics.36 This massive 

technical effort was managed and coordinated through the directorate of 

research and development in the Air Materiel Command, located at the newly 

named Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.37 When the Air 

Research and Development Command was established in 1950, however, 

AMC’s R&D functions shifted to more narrow pursuits—trouble-shooting 

problems and making appropriate modifications to new aircraft, a process AMC 

managers called “support engineering.” This type of work had a long history 

at AMC—“That is what AMC’s research and development people have been 

doing for some time,” Aviation Week observed in 1950.38 As the new hub of 

research and development for the Air Force, ARDC’s institutional growth and 

diversification proceeded along two separate but related trajectories. Internal 

expansion of the laboratories and testing facilities previously operated by the 

Air Materiel Command was matched by a major increase in R&D outsourcing 

to industry and academia. In 1953, for example, nearly 90 percent of ARDC’s 

research and development budget was distributed through external contracts 

to 1,520 industrial firms and 160 colleges, universities, and other nonprofit 

R&D organizations.39

The Air Materiel Command’s largest in-house R&D facility, comprising 

more than a dozen separate laboratories in three divisions (engineering, flight 

testing, and all-weather flying), was located at Wright-Patterson Air Force 

Base (renamed Wright Air Development Center [WADC] after the transfer 

of operations to ARDC). The Air Force consolidated electronics research, 

36 Leggin, “Army Air Forces Research and Development,” 2914. Next in line after the Navy Bureau of 

Aeronautics ($75 million) were the following agencies and departments: National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics ($43.5 million), Navy Bureau of Ordnance ($21.5 million), Army Ordnance Department 

($11 million), Office of Naval Research ($5 million), Civil Aeronautics Administration ($1.6 million), 

and the Weather Bureau ($630,000). Total federal expenditures for R&D in aeronautics and related fields 

that year exceeded $300 million. R. McLarren, “Largest Aero Research Program,” Aviation Week 48 (23 

February 1948): 45. 37 The mission requirements of the directorate of research and development were met by the 

laboratories and testing facilities managed by the engineering division at Wright-Patterson and the allweather flying division, located at the Clinton County Air Force Base in Wilmington, Ohio. In addition to 

research and development, AMC managed two other directorates: procurement and industrial mobilization 

planning; and supply and maintenance. B. W. Chidlaw, “New Weapons for Air Supremacy,” Aero Digest 57 

(September 1948): 51. 38 “R&D Command: New AF Group at Dayton Indicates Greater Stress on Basic Research,” Aviation 

Week 53 (6 November 1950): 15.

39 T. S. Power, “The Air Research and Development Team,” Aeronautical Engineering Review 14 (April 

1955): 40. The annual budget of the Office of Scientific Research doubled in 1956 to fund expanded 

programs in hypersonics, propulsion methods and fuels, high-temperature studies, and solid-state physics. 

See R. Hotz, “USAF Expands Basic Research Program,” Aviation Week 63 (18 July 1955): 12–13. The 

rapid growth of the defense establishment in the 1950s prompted many industrial firms to diversify into 

lucrative military markets, whereas others merely expanded the output of in-house production units 

originally established during World War II to manufacture weapons and other critical materials for the 

armed services. Strategic considerations also played a role in this transformation. Businesses turned to 

defense production as a hedge against cyclical downturns in civilian markets. “Munitions: A Permanent 

U.S. Industry,” Business Week (27 September 1952): 27–28; “The Pentagon’s Top Hands,” Business Week

(20 September 1958): 39. See also A. M. Smythe, “The 25 Biggest Defense Suppliers: Part One,” Magazine 

of Wall Street 99 (29 September 1956): 12–14, 51–52; and Smythe, “The 25 Biggest Defense Suppliers: 

Part Two,” Magazine of Wall Street 99 (13 October 1956): 65–67, 100.
82 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

dispersed across laboratories in Georgia, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, 

and New York, at two locations—the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in 

Boston and the Rome Air Development Center (RADC) at Griffiss Air Force 

Base near Syracuse, New York. AMC also ceded control of the huge wind tunnel 

and propulsion testing facilities—among the largest of their kind in the United 

States—at the newly established Arnold Engineering Development Center in 

Tennessee. The Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New 

Mexico and the Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida tested and 

evaluated delivery systems for atomic and nonnuclear weapons. The Flight Test 

Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California tested aircraft in the prototype 

and production stages, while the missile test centers at Patrick Air Force Base in 

Florida and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico carried out similar work on 

all types of short- and medium-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.40

The headquarters operation of the Air Research and Development Command 

was originally located on-site at Wright Air Development Center but moved to 

Baltimore in 1951 (and later to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington). 

In addition to managing the command’s in-house facilities, the headquarters staff 

also coordinated the activities of other functions specific to ARDC’s mission. 

The Office of Scientific Research, established in 1951 to take over the functions 

of the Office of Air Research, awarded research contracts to universities and 

industrial firms and coordinated basic research in the ARDC laboratories. “By 

basic research,” wrote OSR’s chief in 1953, “we mean fundamental investigations 

which are supported because of their probable contribution to advancement of 

scientific knowledge when we have no specific Air Force problem or application 

in mind.”41 Meanwhile, the Office of the Assistant for Operational Readiness 

dispatched teams of experts to maintain close liaison between the headquarters 

staff and the operational commands that used the weapons and other systems 

developed in ARDC laboratories and test facilities.42 The job of each team was to 

tune the requirements of the commands to ARDC’s R&D programming and “to 

keep the user commands conversant with the ‘state-of-the-art’ in their particular 

fields of interest.” In the early 1950s, ARDC’s technical program split into seven 

directorates: aeronautics and propulsion, armament, electronics, equipment, 

geophysics, human factors, and nuclear applications.43

All of these fields, except geophysics, were investigated to some extent at 

the Wright Air Development Center in the 1950s, either in-house or through 

contracts awarded to private-sector institutions. The newly introduced weapon 

systems concept, which redefined the institutional mechanisms by which the 

40 Leggin, “Army Air Forces Research and Development,” 2915; Chidlaw, “New Weapons for Air 

Supremacy,” 51; “Research Command Starts to Function,” 14; “A New Command Is Born,” Flying 48 (May 

1951): 87; “R&D Pattern Taking Form,” Aviation Week 54 (7 May 1951): 13. 41 O. G. Haywood Jr., “The Air Research and Development Program,” Journal of Engineering Education

43 (March 1953): 375. 42 The operational commands: Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, Air Defense 

Command, Air Training Command, and Military Air Transport Service. 43 “ARDC Molds U.S. Air Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 79–80 (quote on 79); 

“Research Command Starts to Function,” 14.
Research and Development in the Air Force 83

Air Force acquired aircraft, missiles, and other military hardware also guided 

this technical effort. “We can no longer afford to order an airframe and then 

try to stuff it with government furnished equipment developed separately under 

separate contracts,” observed the chief of WADC’s Weapons Systems Division. 

“From now on,” he continued, “the faster aircraft go, the more exactly we must 

tailor our power, aerodynamics, guidance, and firepower to fit each other in a 

single airframe package.”44 Lending urgency to these technological considerations 

was the Air Staff ’s concern about recent advances in Soviet air power and the 

perceived threat that they posed to American security. Both factors—one 

technological, the other strategic—prompted ARDC managers and their 

subordinates at the Wright Air Development Center to rely on industry and 

the scientific community for major breakthroughs. Such reliance, however, was 

not to be sought at the complete expense of the in-house R&D programs that 

already maintained a vital link between the laboratory and the factory floor.45

Representative examples to be discussed briefly below include the center’s role 

in the development of the Convair B–58 Hustler, the first supersonic bomber, 

and the R&D activities underway in the center’s aircraft and power plant 

laboratories.

Development of the delta wing B–58 began in the early 1950s, when the 

Air Force selected the Convair Division of the General Dynamics Corporation 

to serve as the program’s prime contractor. In this capacity—a defining feature 

of the weapon systems concept—Convair managed all phases of the B–58’s 

development, from the airframe produced in-house to the weapon subsystems 

(for bombing and navigation, autopilot and controls, offensive and defensive 

armament, communications, reconnaissance, cooling, and ground support) 

designed and built by other firms under contract.46 Convair also handled the 

complete integration of all subsystems into a fully functional, combat-ready 

aircraft. ARDC monitored, evaluated, and supervised the overall development 

program, and, in collaboration with the Air Materiel Command, recommended 

and selected the contractor—in this case Convair—most qualified to complete 

the project. The Wright Air Development Center provided technical support.47

44 “Weapon System Plan Spurs Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 83. 45 ARDC put several procedural changes in place to accelerate weapon systems development. In 1955, 

for example, competitive bidding based on paper design studies was eliminated in favor of direct selection 

of contractors equipped with the expertise to meet specific service requirements. ARDC also made 

proprietary knowledge of weapons requirements available to a larger pool of contractors to boost industry 

participation in the procurement process, especially through the expansion of in-house corporate R&D. C. 

Witze, “Speed R&D, USAF Orders Industry,” Aviation Week 63 (22 August 1955): 12–13; “USAF Urges 

Aircraft Industry to Use Own Funds for Research,” Aviation Week 63 (5 September 1955): 14–15; “ARDC 

Trades Secrets for Progress,” Aviation Week Buyer’s Guide 63 (Mid-December 1955): 11; “Progress Proves 

ARDC’s Mission Vital,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 1956): 76–77; C. Witze, “Industry Role in New 

Weapons Increased,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 1956): 86–88; “How ARDC ‘Buys’ Scientific Ideas,” 

Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 358. 46 Convair did not manage development and production of the propulsion system. The high 

development cost prompted the Air Staff to assign those functions directly to ARDC. 47 Other ARDC facilities also provided technical support. Air and ground tests on the B–58’s weapon 

systems were conducted at Holloman Air Force Base in 1956. See I. Stone, “Holloman Evaluates Missile 

Systems,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 1956): 133.
84 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

WADC engineers collaborated with Convair to establish performance 

specifications for the major subsystems on the B–58. The Wright laboratories 

handled a related function, which also applied to other weapons programs, namely 

the development of engineering and production standards for interchangeable 

parts—fasteners, bearings, vacuum tubes, and other equipment—previously 

obtained as government-furnished equipment but now procured directly 

through subcontractors.48

“We do only enough research and development work in ARDC laboratories 

and centers to maintain a technical competency in our required fields and to 

tackle problems that are so specialized for USAF requirements that there is no 

outside interest in handling them,” observed Lt. Gen. Thomas Power, ARDC’s 

commander, in 1956.49 Power’s comments accurately described R&D policy at the 

Wright Air Development Center in the 1950s, where more than 85 percent of 

the funds earmarked for research and development were distributed to academic 

and industrial laboratories and other private-sector R&D organizations. The 

outsourcing of R&D was not necessarily carried out at the expense of Wright’s 

own in-house functions, which included a combination of undirected studies in 

broadly defined fields of science and technology and focused investigations on 

specific weapons applications. Work along both lines proceeded in two of the 

center’s six directorates: laboratories and research.50 General research problems 

were investigated in the research directorate’s aeromedical, aeronautical research, 

and materials laboratories, while studies that focused on aircraft hardware were 

concentrated in the nine commodities laboratories managed by the laboratories 

directorate: aircraft, aircraft radiation, armament, communications and 

navigation, electronic components, equipment, photo reconnaissance, power 

plants, and propellers.51

Engineers in the aircraft laboratory’s wind tunnel and structures branches 

tested complete airframes and applied new aerodynamic knowledge to improve 

flight characteristics, such as lift, drag, stability, and range. They also synthesized 

test and performance data into specifications and design standards for use by 

aircraft and component manufacturers. Other work in these two branches focused 

on static-load testing of wings, tail surfaces, and complete airframes, such as the 

huge, six-engine Convair B–36 heavy bomber. The mechanical branch carried 

out similar studies on wheels, brakes, and tire assemblies at simulated speeds, 

48 “Weapon System Plan Spurs Development,” 84–85; “ARDC Molds U.S. Air Development,” 78. 

Convair employed the weapon system concept and concurrency to develop the B–58, but the results were 

not encouraging. Cost overruns, scheduling delays, and performance shortfalls plagued the program. See 

Brown, Flying Blind, chap. 5. 49 Power quoted in “Progress Proves ARDC’s Mission Vital,” 76.

50 In addition to laboratories and research, Wright managed four other directorates: flight and allweather testing, engineering standards, procurement, and support. 51 Among the R&D programs managed by the research directorate, a major effort in metallurgical 

research was supported by the aeronautical research and materials laboratories. Much of the work in the 

aeronautical research laboratory, for example, focused on the internal structure and physical and electrical 

properties of ceramics, semiconductors, and other magnetic and electronic materials required for avionics 

applications in jet aircraft. See J. W. Poynter, “Metallurgy Research Program of the Aeronautical Research 

Laboratory,” Journal of Metals 9 (May 1957): 675–76.
Research and Development in the Air Force 85

while engineers in the special projects branch examined the friction, oxidation, 

and heating properties of alloy steel and ceramic bearings used in aircraft engines 

and flight control assemblies. Meanwhile, the power plant laboratory operated 

testing and calibration equipment to evaluate the operational performance of 

aircraft engines produced by commercial manufacturers. Types ranged from 

conventional piston engines to ramjets. In all cases, Aviation Week reported in 

1953, “The [power plant] laboratory . . . reserves to itself the task of guiding and 

evaluating the manufacturers’ development efforts and [the] solution of power 

plant problems developing in field operations.”52

Although it had been a center of power plant development and testing before 

and during the war, the Wright Air Development Center was unable to fulfill 

these functions as Air Force planners abandoned propeller-driven, reciprocating 

engines in favor of much faster jet propulsion technologies. Consequently, 

Wright ceded control of high-speed engine testing and evaluation to the Arnold 

Engineering Development Center.53 At this new facility in Tennessee—located 

next to the town of Tullahoma, seventy-five miles southeast of Nashville—the 

Air Force tested airframes, aircraft materials, and propulsion technologies 

capable of operating at higher speeds, temperatures, and altitudes than their 

wartime counterparts. “The emphasis on supersonic flight, guided missiles . . . 

and electronic equipment has established requirements for a whole new set of 

test facilities,” wrote General Craigie in March 1947. Beyond the sound barrier 

(breached for the first time later that year), the air surrounding an airplane begins 

to exhibit fluid-like characteristics. “The design of an aircraft that will fly in such 

media,” Craigie predicted, “becomes quite an assignment.”54 It was this and other 

unknowns in aircraft performance that guided technical programming at the 

Arnold Engineering Development Center during the 1950s.

The origins of the Tullahoma facility can be traced back to 1945, when Theodore 

von Kármán and the Scientific Advisory Group conducted their survey of the 

R&D laboratories that turned out jet engines, rocket motors, and other advanced 

propulsion technologies for the German aircraft industry. Prompted by von 

Kármán’s recommendation that similar R&D facilities should be built in the United 

States, the AAF dismantled, shipped stateside, and reassembled at Tullahoma 

the propulsion laboratory constructed by the Bayerischen Motoren Werke in 

Munich in 1943 to develop jet engines for military aircraft. Also accompanying 

the equipment were some of the German scientists who had operated it during the 

52 A. McSurely, “WADC: $200-Million Research Key,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 99, 102, 

107–8 (quote on 108). 53 Putt, “Air Force Research and Development,” 42; Leggin, “Army Air Forces Research and 

Development,” 2914. In 1948, the Wright Air Development Center’s largest wind tunnel operated at 

a maximum sustained speed of 400 miles per hour, well below the speed necessary to break the sound 

barrier. The power ratings of the tunnels at Wright did not exceed 40,000 horsepower. The wind tunnels 

planned for the Air Engineering Development Division (later Arnold Engineering Development Center), 

by contrast, were expected to operate at nearly four times that rating—150,000 horsepower. McLarren, 

“Largest Aero Research Program,” 43; M. Dobert, “Home of the Impossible,” Flying 40 (March 1947): 34. 54 Craigie, “AAF Plans for Engineering and Research,” 20; Leggin, “Army Air Forces Research and 

Development,” 2915.
86 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

war.55 This state-of-the-art laboratory served as the centerpiece of AEDC’s new 

engine test facility, which conducted full-scale tests and evaluations of all types 

of jet engines operating under controlled temperature and humidity conditions 

at simulated altitudes reaching eighty thousand feet, far exceeding the limits of 

conventional piston-driven engines. Gas dynamics and wind tunnel facilities were 

subsequently added to the Tullahoma center to evaluate new airframe designs at 

hypersonic speeds and also to test aircraft-installed ramjet and turbojet power 

plants. Expansion of these facilities to achieve faster speeds at higher simulated 

altitudes proceeded accordingly throughout the rest of the decade in response to 

the Air Force requirement that industrial contractors test their prototype aircraft 

and propulsion systems at Tullahoma. Tests conducted for the Army and the 

Navy—on the propulsion systems for the Sergeant, Pershing, and Polaris missile 

systems, for example—also added to the workload during this period.56

Although AEDC engineers tested new airframes and the propulsion units 

that powered them at supersonic and hypersonic speeds, their counterparts at 

the Armament Test Center at Eglin Air Force Base—located on the gulf coast 

of Florida, fifty miles east of Pensacola—carried out similar investigations to 

determine the effects of such high velocities on the operation and effectiveness 

of conventional ordnance. “[N]ew high-speed airplane designs have raised a 

slew of armament problems that haven’t even been tackled yet,” Business Week

reported in 1949. Little was known, for example, about the effects of protruding 

gun barrels on the aerodynamic stability of aircraft flying at supersonic speeds. 

Similarly, in the case of free-fall bombing, it was unclear whether standard 

ordnance inherited from the war would be suitable for delivery from high-speed 

aircraft. Conventional bomb sights were also outdated, prompting Eglin’s test 

engineers to work with private manufacturers to develop automatic, radar-guided 

targeting systems for supersonic aircraft.57 The rapid increase in the Armament 

Test Center’s budget was one likely measure of the significance attributed to 

the operational limits placed on weapon systems as aircraft velocities passed the 

sound barrier: It quadrupled between 1952 and 1957, from $5 million to $20 

million.

Construction of the Armament Test Center (later shortened to Armament 

Center) at Eglin Air Force base commenced in 1950, but work in this field 

had already been underway since the mid-1930s, when the Army Air Corps 

established a bombing and gunnery range on the same site. In 1951, Air Force 

headquarters transferred the test center from the Air Materiel Command to the 

55 Sturm, The USAF Scientific Advisory Board, 6; A. McSurely, “AF Planning Huge New Research 

Center,” Aviation Week 51 (21 November 1949): 11–12; D. A. Anderton, “AF Reveals Plans for Engineering 

Center,” Aviation Week 55 (2 July 1951): 13–14. On the transfer of German aircraft and rocket technology 

and scientific personnel to the United States, see Clarence Lasby, Project Paperclip: German Scientists and 

the Cold War (New York: Atheneum, 1971); and Karen J. Weitze, Command Lineage, Scientific Achievement, 

and Major Tenant Missions, vol. 1 of Keeping the Edge: Air Force Materiel Command Cold War Context, 

1945–1991 (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Oh.: Headquarters, Air Force Materiel Command, August 

2003), 162–86. 56 G. W. Newton, “AEDC Provides Huge Jet Engine Test Facility,” S. A. E. Journal 62 ( July 1954): 

28–32; J. Trainor, “Arnold Center Tests All Big Systems,” Missiles and Rockets 9 (14 August 1961): 32. 57 “Weapon Center,” Business Week (30 April 1949): 26, 28 (quote on 28).
Research and Development in the Air Force 87

new Air Research and Development Command.58 The test center at Eglin was 

essentially composed of bombing, rocket, and gunnery ranges lined with sensitive 

instruments to measure the movement, tracking capabilities, trajectories, and 

explosion patterns of all types of bombs, rockets, and projectiles fired by jet 

aircraft and other advanced delivery systems. By the late 1950s, the center’s 

missions had expanded into the compilation of firing and bombing tables, using 

ballistics, terminal effect, blast, and fragmentation data gathered during the 

testing of bombs, gun projectiles, rockets, and air-launched missiles.

Private contractors carried out most of the Armament Test Center’s work, 

operating on-site. The center’s in-house laboratories managed programs that 

provided technical support to these outside vendors. The Armament Test Facilities 

Laboratory, for example, developed some of the optical instruments used on the 

test ranges, but most equipment of this type was produced by commercial firms. 

“The general policy,” Aviation Week reported in 1953, “calls for the lab to produce 

its own items with in-shop capability only when industry—through lack of 

available instruments or reluctance to produce a small quantity—is not able to 

do the job.” A similar policy guided the activities in the center’s Air Munitions 

Development Laboratory. In one particular case, laboratory personnel assisted in 

the development of the 20 and 30 mm. versions of the Vulcan Gatling cannons 

built under contract for the Air Force by the General Electric Company.59

The Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, located along 

the southeastern edge of Albuquerque, New Mexico, handled the nuclear 

equivalent of Eglin’s testing functions for conventional ordnance. Established 

at the beginning of World War II as a flight training center for the Army 

Air Forces, Kirtland expanded rapidly during the 1950s as the Air Force 

incorporated into its growing fleet of supersonic aircraft the latest advances in 

nuclear weapons technology.60 The Special Weapons Center mated the atomic 

weapons manufactured in nearby production facilities owned by the Atomic 

Energy Commission to the aircraft and other delivery systems maintained by 

the Air Force. Originally established in 1947 as a liaison office to transmit Air 

Force requirements for nuclear weapons to the AEC (primarily to the nearby 

Sandia and Los Alamos laboratories), the newly named Special Weapons Center 

added its own R&D and testing functions in 1951.61 Although it ranked second 

behind the Wright Air Development Center in R&D expenditures that year, 

Kirtland, like the other ARDC’s test centers, outsourced most of its research 

and development to industrial firms and universities.

58 “Center Tests USAF Armament Systems,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 210–11; Karen 

J. Weitze, Installations and Facilities, vol. 2 of Keeping the Edge: Air Force Materiel Command Cold War 

Context, 1945–1991 (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Oh.: Headquarters, Air Force Materiel Command, 

August 2003), 106–07, 114–15. 59 “Center Tests USAF Armament Systems,” 215–16 (quote on 216), 219; “AFAC Sharpens Air 

Force Armament,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 99. 60 Weitze, Installations and Facilities, 264–65. 61 Although owned by the Atomic Energy Commission, the nuclear weapons laboratories typically 

operated under contract with universities and industrial firms. The University of California held the 

contract for the Los Alamos laboratory, while the Western Electric Company, the manufacturing arm of 

the Bell Telephone System, managed Sandia.
88 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

The Special Weapons Center housed a wing to support the testing functions 

of the AEC’s atomic proving ground—the continental test site in Nevada 

and the overseas operation at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Dedicated 

aircraft dropped the test weapons, gathered airborne data on the blast effects 

and fallout, and tracked radioactive cloud movement. Meanwhile, scientists 

and engineers employed in the Special Weapons Center’s research directorate 

used this information and other data to produce analytical studies on current 

and anticipated requirements in nuclear weapons capabilities. Through the 

development directorate, they integrated these findings into the weapons 

development programs underway in the AEC laboratories and the industrial 

firms that produced the delivery systems under contract. In this capacity, the 

center essentially maintained its prior role as a clearinghouse, similar to the liaison 

office established in 1947. Other functions carried out by the research directorate 

included studies of the hazards of nuclear warfare and the corresponding 

effects on humans and the environment; analyses of the vulnerability of nuclear 

weapons to countermeasures, natural disasters, and human errors; and the 

compilation of data on the anticipated yields of atomic warheads currently under 

development.62

Edwards Air Force Base, located on a dry lake bed one hundred miles north 

of Los Angeles, conducted initial tests of complete air weapon systems on the 

first production models of combat aircraft. Originally used by commercial 

airframe manufacturers in the 1920s to test new designs, the military took over 

the site during World War II to serve as a secret test location for Bell Aircraft’s 

P–59, the first American jet fighter. Edwards was designated a full-service flight 

test center in 1951, the year it was absorbed into the new Air Research and 

Development Command. The major test facilities in operation at Edwards 

in the 1950s included a high-altitude speed course, precision bombing range, 

photographic range to check the accuracy of new reconnaissance equipment, and 

radar and tracking facilities to record flight test data.

Following the establishment of flight characteristics at the Wright Air 

Development Center, production models of new aircraft were sent to Edwards to 

determine operational capabilities. This function entailed rigorous flight testing 

in various simulated combat conditions to match the contractor’s performance 

guarantees to the operational requirements of the receiving Air Force command. 

After testing at Edwards, aircraft were transferred to Eglin Air Force Base, where 

they received tactical evaluation to determine combat capabilities. In cases where 

aircraft subsystems experienced technical malfunctions, on-site laboratories 

at Edwards were pressed into service to debug problems and overhaul critical 

components. Engines, for example, were routinely removed from aircraft and 

put through rigorous evaluation on test stands and other diagnostic laboratory 

62 R. Hotz, “Center Mates Planes to Atom Weapons,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 91–97; 

Hotz, “Kirtland Gives USAF Nuclear Delivery,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 1956): 151–53, 155–58, 

161–63.
Research and Development in the Air Force 89

equipment. This work was carried out on a limited scale, however, typically in 

collaboration with the industrial contractors that manufactured the aircraft.63

Testing and evaluation of propulsion units for intercontinental and 

intermediate-range ballistic missiles constituted the other major function at 

Edwards Air Force Base. This work complemented the massive effort underway 

within the Air Research and Development Command to develop, produce, and 

put into operation a strategic ballistic missile force as quickly as possible. In 

1954, the Air Force established the Western Development Division (WDD) in 

Inglewood, California, as a separate ARDC field office to manage and coordinate 

this accelerated program. Under the leadership of Brig. Gen. Bernard Schriever, 

the new division institutionalized the weapon system concept and concurrency on 

a grand scale to guide all phases of ballistic missile development and production. 

A new breed of private-sector organization that specialized in system analysis 

and integration handled technical direction. In this case, the Ramo-Wooldridge 

Corporation appropriated many of the technical functions previously assigned 

to the prime contractor and ARDC’s Wright Air Development Center.64

Construction of the Rocket Test Facility at Edwards Air Force Base 

commenced in 1950, and a rocket motor was first fired there in 1953. Three 

years later, following the establishment of the Western Development Division, 

Edwards initiated a major expansion program to handle the increased workload 

prompted by the rapid growth of the ballistic missile program. Massive test 

stands were added to fire engines capable of generating up to fifty thousand 

pounds of thrust. Engineers from the Convair Division of General Dynamics, 

Douglas Aircraft, and North American Aviation conducted tests of the power 

plants still under development for the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, the 

Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile, and the Navajo cruise missile. In-house 

missile assembly facilities, machine and metal-working shops, and engineering 

and hydrodynamics laboratories provided technical support to the contractors 

working on-site.65 Meanwhile, ARDC conducted full-scale testing of these 

and other short- and medium-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles at 

the contractor-operated test ranges at Patrick Air Force Base, located at Cape 

Canaveral on the eastern coast of Florida, and at Holloman Air Force Base, 

63 Industrial contractors working on-site at Edwards (as part of the test team and also to assist in the 

debugging of aircraft systems) included Northrop, Douglas Aircraft, and North American Aviation. W. 

Coughlin, “Flight Test Center Probes Aviation’s Supersonic Frontiers,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 

119, 125, 141–42; “Edwards Evaluates Weapons Systems,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 117. 64 “WDD Directs ICBM, IRBM Development,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 1956): 101–05; 

Benson, Acquisition Management in the United States Air Force and Its Predecessors, 24–26, 29; Johnson, The 

United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, chap. 3. See also Jacob Neufeld, The Development of 

Ballistic Missiles in the United States Air Force, 1945–1960 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 

1990); John Clayton Lonnquest, “The Face of Atlas: General Bernard Schriever and the Development of 

the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, 1953–1960” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1996); and Thomas 

P. Hughes, Rescuing Prometheus (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), chap. 3. In 1958, Ramo-Wooldridge 

merged with Thompson Products, a diversified electronics and mechanical components manufacturer, to 

form the Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (TRW). On the history of TRW, see David Dyer, 

TRW: Pioneering Technology and Innovation Since 1900 (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998). 65 “Edwards Rocket Base to Test Captive Ballistic Missile Powerplants,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 

1956): 143–45.
90 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

situated near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Both installations had been established 

and operated by the Army Air Forces during World War II, and they were 

transferred to the Air Research and Development Command in 1951.66

 The introduction of supersonic aircraft, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 

other state-of-the-art weapon systems was driven in large part by major advances 

in electronics technology. According to figures published in Aviation Week in 

1949, the Air Force expected to receive two-thirds of the $172 million set aside 

by government agencies for the purchase of electronic equipment in fiscal year 

1950.67 Avionics—the combination of radar, radio, computer, and other solidstate technologies that constituted the electronics infrastructure of modern jet 

aircraft and ground-based communications and surveillance systems—consumed 

an increasingly larger portion of the Air Force’s procurement budget during the 

same period. According to one estimate, the fulfillment of avionics requirements 

accounted for nearly half the total cost of a new jet-powered bomber in the early 

1950s.68 Although most of the sophisticated electronics technology acquired by 

the Air Force originated in the private sector, the Air Research and Development 

Command maintained its own institutionally diversified R&D program in this 

field after World War II to complement rather than replace the work already 

underway in industry.69 This effort was concentrated in two major facilities: the 

Air Force Cambridge Research Center in Boston (later moved outside the city 

to nearby Hanscom Air Force Base) and the Rome Air Development Center at 

Griffiss Air Force Base in central New York State.

The Cambridge Research Center grew out of two major R&D institutions 

that supported the electronics requirements of the Army Air Forces during World 

66 For a review of the testing programs and activities at Patrick and Holloman Air Force Bases during 

the 1950s, see “Missile Center Expands for Long-Range Flights,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 

170–84; “Holloman Tests Missiles and Pilotless Aircraft,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 186–209; 

D. A. Anderton, “Patrick Prepares for Ballistic Missiles,” Aviation Week 65 (6 August 1956): 106–16; 

Stone, “Holloman Evaluates Missile Systems,” 123–38; “Patrick Tests Air Force, Army Missiles,” Aviation 

Week 66 (3 June 1957): 97; and “Canaveral Supports Space Exploration,” Aviation Week 68 (16 June 1958): 

187–95. 67 Such equipment was needed for ultra-high-frequency aircraft radio communication, target 

identification, global communications, air navigation, coding and decoding, and radar warning. “$172 

Million for Electronics,” Aviation Week 50 (13 June,1949): 34. 68 “Avionics in the Air Force,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 249. 69 A review article in the March 1960 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology highlighted major 

electronics R&D programs underway in industry: identification, study, and production of new classes of 

electronic materials to replace germanium as the primary constituent in semiconductor devices; ongoing 

improvement of vacuum-tube technology to raise operational reliabilities and lower power consumption 

levels; and development of a new generation of microelectronic circuits, otherwise known as molecular 

electronics. Spearheading work in these and related fields were the large electronics firms: Westinghouse 

Electric, International Telephone and Telegraph, General Electric, American Telephone and Telegraph (Bell 

Telephone Laboratories), and the Radio Corporation of America. See B. Miller “Solid-State Electronics 

Trend Goes On in Plant and Laboratory,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 72 (7 March 1960): 

237–39, 243. Also by the 1960s, these and other established companies were joined by a growing number 

of entrepreneurial firms seeking to exploit the market potential of the electronics revolution spawned by the 

invention of the transistor in 1947. See, for example, Christophe Lécuyer, Making Silicon Valley: Innovation 

and the Growth of High-Tech, 1930–1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005); Ross Knox Bassett, To 

the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-Up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology (Baltimore: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 2002); and Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, Crystal Fire: The Birth of the 

Information Age (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
Research and Development in the Air Force 91

War II: the Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard University and the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1945, 

the AAF’s Air Technical Service Command (ATSC) dispatched recruiters to the 

Harvard and MIT laboratories to hire technical personnel and acquire equipment 

for the electronics programs already underway at Wright Field and the Watson 

Laboratories at Red Bank, New Jersey.70 Employee resistance to the anticipated 

move from Boston, however, prompted ATSC to establish a separate field station 

of the Watson Laboratories at Cambridge to conduct R&D on the radar and radio 

technologies previously supported by the wartime Office of Scientific Research 

and Development. In 1947, when the Air Force separated from the Army, the station’s mission broadened to include more fundamental scientific studies in the electronics field, though not wholly divorced from specific applications. The following 

year, the station was granted permanent status as an Air Force research installation. The newly named Air Force Cambridge Research Center transferred to the 

Air Research and Development Command in June 1951.71

Organizationally, the R&D program at Cambridge comprised two di- rectorates: electronics and geophysics.72 Despite an early emphasis on funda- mental research, the electronics directorate gradually moved toward hardware 

development in the 1950s, even though this latter function was already the 

assigned mission of Cambridge’s sister facility—Rome Air Development Cen- ter. At Cambridge during this period, a substantial R&D effort focused on 

digital communication and data processing to support the development of sys- tems for air defense and tactical air control. Although work on some of these 

technologies, such as the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) air 

defense system, was outsourced to private-sector institutions (including MIT 

in the case of SAGE), the directorate nevertheless operated its own in-house 

laboratories to pursue a multitude of related R&D programs. The propaga- tion laboratory, for example, studied the effects of transmission media on the 

behavior of electromagnetic radiation, while physicists, chemists, and optical 

specialists working in the components and techniques laboratory examined 

the properties of new classes of semiconductor and magnetic materials slated 

for use in avionics equipment.73 Meanwhile, other technology-oriented labo70 The Watson Laboratories had been founded during the war as part of the expansion of the Army 

Signal Corps laboratories at nearby Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The Signal Corps transferred Watson 

to the AAF’s Air Service Technical Command in 1945. On the origins of the Watson Laboratories, see 

Weitze, Installations and Facilities, 402–03. On wartime R&D in the Signal Corps, see George Raynor 

Thompson et al., The Signal Corps: The Test, in United States Army in World War II, The Technical Services

(Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1957); and George Raynor Thompson and 

Dixie R. Harris, The Signal Corps: The Outcome, in United States Army in World War II, The Technical 

Services (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1966). 71 Cambridge was officially designated the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories in July 1949. 

“Laboratories” changed to “Center” two years later but reverted back to the former when ARDC and 

AMC merged into the new Air Force Systems Command in 1961. I. Stone, “Cambridge’s Bailiwick: Earth, 

Sky, and Sea,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 229; Sigethy, “The Air Force Organization for Basic 

Research,” 28–29, 55. 72 Cambridge added an atomic warfare directorate in October 1951 but deactivated it three years later. 

Sigethy, “The Air Force Organization for Basic Research,” 55. 73 Like their counterparts working in the laboratories operated by the large electronics firms, researchers 
92 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

ratories focused on the design of ground-based and airborne radio and radar 

antennas and the development of more sensitive detection systems capable of 

evading enemy countermeasures.74

Cambridge’s geophysics directorate studied the composition and behavior 

of the atmosphere, focusing specifically on the effects of severe weather, air 

composition, turbulence, temperature, ionization, and solar radiation on the 

performance of jet aircraft and electronic communication and guidance systems 

operating at high altitudes. Most of this work—about two-thirds of the directorate’s 

annual expenditures in 1953—was outsourced to private-sector organizations, 

with the remainder conducted in-house at Cambridge. One of the major R&D 

programs underway in the directorate’s atmospheric physics laboratory explored 

the gaseous composition of the upper atmosphere to predict the effects of higher 

aircraft speeds and altitude ranges on engine performance, airframe durability, 

and pilot health and safety. Meanwhile, researchers working in the ionospheric 

physics research laboratory studied aurora effects in the arctic region, and the 

extent to which they disrupted (through scattering and absorption) long-distance 

radio transmissions. At very high frequencies (VHF), however, auroras behaved 

like large reflectors, making transmission possible. Consequently, the laboratory’s 

primary effort in the 1950s focused on the development of techniques to predict 

the occurrences of auroral phenomena “to permit the use of lightweight, longdistance, high-frequency sets for communication.”75

The hardware end of the Air Research and Development Command’s 

electronics R&D program was handled by the Rome Air Development Center 

in New York State. Like the Cambridge Research Center, Rome traced its 

roots to the wartime Watson Laboratories in New Jersey. In 1950, the entire 

operation at Red Bank (except for the staff and equipment that had transferred 

to Cambridge five years earlier) moved to Griffiss Air Force Base, which had 

been established in 1941 to serve as a maintenance depot for the Army Air 

Forces. From this core organization at Rome emerged the Air Force’s groundbased avionics program, which included the development and procurement 

of integrated equipment for navigation, communication, direction finding, 

missile guidance, electronic countermeasures, and airborne identification. Rome 

added the procurement function was added to Rome in 1951, when the Air 

at Cambridge studied the properties of silicon to determine its suitability as a replacement material for 

germanium in semiconductors. At the time, germanium-based materials dominated the commercial 

semiconductor market. See Miller, “Solid-State Electronics Trend Goes On in Plant and Laboratory,” 237. 74 “Cambridge Advances Art of Air War,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 105. On SAGE and 

Cambridge’s collaboration with MIT, see Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation,

chap. 4; and Hughes, Rescuing Prometheus, chap. 2. 75 Stone, “Cambridge’s Bailiwick: Earth, Sky, and Sea,” 232–36, 240 (quote on 240). Studies of the 

ionosphere at Cambridge diversified into the field of plasma physics in the early 1960s. A new laboratory 

was constructed on-site at Hanscom Air Force Base to house facilities for plasma production, diagnosis, and 

interaction experiments. Researchers studied the properties and behavior of the plasma sheath surrounding 

the nose cones of missiles and spacecraft during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. Special attention 

focused on determining optimum radio frequencies capable of penetrating the sheath. Other studies 

explored the use of plasmas for space-vehicle propulsion and electronic applications. “OAR Upgraded, UpFunded for Research,” Missiles and Rockets 10 (26 March 1962): 123; “New Plasma Lab,” Missiles and 

Rockets 9 (13 November 1961): 28.
Research and Development in the Air Force 93

Materiel Command transferred purchasing, supply, and maintenance functions 

for ground-based avionics from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to Griffiss. 

Approximately half of Rome’s technical effort during this period focused on 

the management and analysis of external R&D contracts. Support of AMC’s 

procurement functions—through, for example, the preparation of specifications, 

monitoring of pilot production at contractor factories, and field introduction 

of avionics equipment—consumed another 40 percent, while the remaining 10 

percent supported Rome’s in-house R&D operations.

Although it rendered technical assistance to the Cambridge Research 

Center’s continental air defense programs, Rome’s primary mission in the early 

1950s focused on the development of avionics equipment for tactical air power, 

specifically local combat area defense and ground support. Guiding this effort 

was the concept of an integrated network of electronic systems—mobile radar 

sets, centralized computers, and radio data links—to maximize the coordination 

and timely execution of communication, navigation, guidance, and intelligencegathering functions between ground commanders and the tactical aircraft that 

provided air support. Development of these “super-systems,” which commenced 

at Rome in 1953, relied heavily on outside contractors; in-house participation 

in the program was limited to 20 percent of the R&D performed that year.76

By the end of the decade, expansion of the Air Force’s operations prompted 

Rome to diversify its technical base into global communications systems. It also 

moved beyond the development of ground-based avionics equipment for tactical 

requirements to the development of guidance system technology for ballistic 

missile defense.77

Reintegration: R&D in the Air Force Systems Command, 

1961–1991

On October 4, 1957, just as the Rome Air Development Center embarked 

on a new program of ballistic missile defense, the Soviet Union launched 

Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, into low earth orbit. This landmark 

event stunned the citizens of the United States and prompted an immediate 

response that transformed the federal research establishment. Early in 1958, just 

four months after the Soviet launch, the Department of Defense established the 

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to fund private-sector R&D for 

military space programs and other high-priority projects.78 That same year, the 

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was abolished and replaced by 

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The founding of these and 

other Cold War institutions, and the allocation of seemingly limitless resources 

to support their operations, signaled the nation’s commitment to permanent 

76 P. Klass, “Rome Guides AF Avionics Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 251, 

255–56; “Rome Expands Role of Ground Avionics,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 274; “Avionics 

Team Spends Half a Billion Dollars,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 262–70. 77 “Aerial Warfare Reshapes Rome’s Task,” Aviation Week 66 (3 June 1957): 110. 78 On the early history of ARPA, see Richard J. Barber Associates, The Advanced Research Projects 

Agency, 1958–1974 (Washington, D.C.: Advanced Research Projects Agency, December 1975).
94 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

military preparedness. They also had a major impact on the Air Force, especially 

given the service’s expanding role in the development, production, and deployment 

of intercontinental and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Much of the 

propulsion and materials technology built into the missile force complemented 

the hardware requirements of the new space program. Consequently, the Air 

Research and Development Command’s in-house facilities broadened their 

programming functions to include space-based R&D for military applications. 

Organizational changes followed. In April 1959, Bernard Schriever, now a major 

general, assumed command of ARDC. Guided by the success of the ballistic 

missile program managed by the Western Development Division, Schriever 

separated weapons production and procurement from the Air Materiel 

Command and merged both functions into ARDC, resulting in the formation of 

the Air Force Systems Command in 1961. The remaining functions of AMC—

supply and maintenance—were consolidated into the new Air Force Logistics 

Command.

The driving force behind the formation of the Air Force Systems Command 

was the ongoing struggle between ARDC and AMC to work out a mutually 

agreeable division of labor at the often-disputed point in the procurement process 

where weapons development ceased and production commenced. The adoption 

of ideas about concurrency—the process of overlapping R&D and production 

stages to accelerate the development of weapon systems—had only exacerbated 

this conflict. New institutional mechanisms, such as the Weapon System Project 

Office, provided a temporary solution to this problem by managing all phases 

of R&D and procurement through on-site collaboration of ARDC and AMC 

personnel. Still, even in cases where this solution was effective—at the Western 

Development Division, for example—a tenuous relationship continued to exist 

between the commands. Typically, the Air Staff had to intervene to resolve 

disputes on a case-by-case basis.79

Other organizational problems persisted, which prompted Air Force Chief 

of Staff Gen. Thomas White to request, shortly after the launch of Sputnik,

that the Scientific Advisory Board form a special committee to review ARDC 

policies, functions, and procedures. Submitted in the summer of 1958, the 

Stever Committee Report (named after the committee’s chairman, MIT phys- icist H. Guyford Stever) recommended sweeping changes to ARDC’s highly 

centralized management structure. Day-to-day oversight and micromanagement of programs, the committee concluded, should not be the function of the 

headquarters staff. Rather, headquarters should focus on program coordination and long-term policymaking. The committee advised General White to 

decentralize ARDC’s command structure and grant full control of program 

functions and resource allocation to the weapon system project offices operating in the field. To facilitate this transition and improve operating efficiencies 

at the program level, the committee urged the Air Staff to reorganize ARDC 

79 Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 52–54; Gorn, Vulcan’s Forge,

63–66.
Research and Development in the Air Force 95

into four major functional divisions: research, technical development, testing, 

and weapons systems.80

The Air Force high command reacted favorably to the Stever Committee’s 

recommendations. Yet it was not until Schriever’s arrival as ARDC commander 

in the spring of 1959 that lasting changes were put in place. Based on the 

recommendations of an internal review conducted by his predecessor, Lt. 

Gen. Samuel Anderson, Schriever scrapped the functional scheme proposed 

by the Stever Committee and chose instead to replicate throughout ARDC 

the organizational structure of the Western Development Division. Direct 

management authority of R&D programs passed from ARDC headquarters 

in Washington to four new operating divisions. The Ballistic Missile Division 

retained WDD’s functions, while the Office of Air Research and the Wright Air 

Development Center were elevated to division status. The former Office of Air 

Research thus became the Research Division and managed ARDC’s in-house 

and extramural basic research programs. The Wright Air Development Center 

became the Wright Air Development Division (WADD) and directed the 

development of aeronautical systems. Work on electronic and communication 

systems was vested in the Command and Control Development Division, located 

at the Cambridge Research Center in Boston.81

This divisional structure remained largely intact when the Air Research and 

Development Command and the Air Materiel Command merged in April 1961 

to form the Air Force Systems Command. The newly named Ballistic, Space, 

Electronics, and Aeronautical Systems Divisions assumed complete managerial 

responsibility for major weapons technologies, from R&D through full-scale 

production to delivery to the user commands.82 Meanwhile, the research division, 

which had been established two years earlier, was separated from AFSC and 

assigned to Air Force headquarters, reporting directly to the Chief of Staff. The 

new Office of Aerospace Research included ARDC’s extramural contracting 

units—the Office of Scientific Research and the European Research Office 

in Brussels, Belgium. OAR also acquired managerial control of ARDC’s inhouse basic research programs, concentrated in the electronics and geophysics 

directorates at the newly renamed Cambridge Research Laboratories at Hanscom 

Air Force Base outside Boston and the Aeronautical Research Laboratory at the 

Wright Air Development Division.83

Although the reintegration of R&D and production in the Air Force 

Systems Command ended more than a decade of jurisdictional squabbling 

between the now-defunct Air Materiel Command and Air Research and 

80 J. S. Butz Jr., “Stever Proposes ARDC Reorganization,” Aviation Week 69 (21 July 1958): 23–25. 81 “ARDC Consolidates Research Management,” Aviation Week 69 (20 October 1958): 37; C. Lewis, 

“ARDC Shifts Project Authority to Four New Operating Divisions,” Aviation Week and Space Technology

71 (12 October 1959): 33–34; “New ARDC Divisions Formed,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 71 

(21 December 1959): 21. See also Gorn, Vulcan’s Forge, 55–63. 82 The Air Force System Command also managed two other divisions: bioastronautics and foreign 

technology. 83 “Systems Command Given New Functions,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 75 (25 September 

1961): 71–73, 77–79; “USAF Sifts Advanced Research Concepts,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 75 

(25 September 1961): 82–86.
96 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Development Command, it did not prompt a massive reorganization of the inhouse laboratories and testing facilities previously assigned to ARDC. To be 

sure, the political fallout resulting from the launch of Sputnik in 1957 left its 

imprint on the Air Force, primarily through an across-the-board expansion of 

R&D programming in space-related fields. The laboratories, however, continued 

to provide technical support to industrial contractors through the newly formed 

System Command divisions. They also diversified into leading-edge fields 

of science and technology relevant to the Air Force’s evolving requirements. 

Representative examples to be discussed in this section include the expansion of 

testing and evaluation functions at the Arnold Engineering Development Center 

and Edwards Air Force Base, development of conventional armaments at Eglin 

Air Force Base, work on artificial intelligence technologies at the Wright Air 

Development Division and the Rome Air Development Center, and R&D on 

high-energy laser and particle-beam weapons at Kirtland Air Force Base.

By the early 1960s, the mission of the Arnold Engineering Development 

Center had changed to accord with the Air Force’s mandate to support the 

Defense Department’s military space program. Consequently, the testing and 

evaluation of air-breathing engines, which had dominated the technical activities 

at Tullahoma for nearly a decade, faded quickly, surpassed by new programs 

to develop rocket motors for missiles and spacecraft. In 1961, for example, 

70 percent of the workload at Arnold was committed to the testing of rocket 

propulsion systems for the AFSC Ballistic and Space Systems Divisions, the 

Army, the Navy, NASA, and ARPA. The remaining 30 percent focused on 

conventional air-breathing engines for aircraft and other near-surface weapons. 

Between 1958, when the first test chambers in the original engine (later renamed 

rocket) test facility were modified, and 1960, the number of rocket motor firings 

increased sharply, from 15 to 761. Meanwhile, the increasing size and power of 

propulsion technologies pushed the operational limits of the testing facilities 

even higher. The engine test facility’s original thrust limit of 50,000 pounds had 

quadrupled by 1961. New facilities under construction were expected to raise the 

ceiling to 500,000 pounds and eventually triple that figure again, to 1.5 million 

pounds, by the end of the decade. Among the major weapon systems tested at 

Tullahoma during this period was the Air Force’s Minuteman intercontinental 

ballistic missile. In addition to test firings of the solid propellant motors at 

simulated altitudes, wind tunnel tests were conducted to evaluate the stability 

of the entire missile assembly at velocities reaching Mach 8 (eight times the 

speed of sound). Aerodynamic studies of the re-entry vehicle were carried out at 

subsonic speeds and velocities exceeding Mach 20. Similar tests were completed 

for the Army’s Redstone and Nike Zeus, NASA’s Mercury and X–15, and the 

Navy’s Polaris programs.

Although the testing of rocket motors displaced similar work on air-breathing 

engines, the rocket test facility still managed a substantial workload for aircraft 

propulsion systems. Representative examples included tests to determine the 

combustion efficiency, blowout and re-ignition limits, and component reliability 

of the following: the J57 and TF33 jet engines manufactured by the Pratt and 

Whitney Division of the United Aircraft Corporation for the Convair F–106 
Research and Development in the Air Force 97

interceptor; the Republic Aircraft F–105 fighter-bomber; and the Boeing B–52 

strategic heavy bomber. Data extracted from these tests verified in-flight thrust 

calculations and assisted in the compilation of fuel consumption rates.84 Testing 

and evaluation of this type continued throughout the remainder of the 1960s 

and into the following decades, especially as new military aircraft entered service, 

such as the McDonnell-Douglas F–15 tactical fighter and the B–1 bomber 

manufactured by Rockwell International. By the 1980s, AEDC engineers and 

outside contractors were conducting separation tests on the external fuel tank and 

solid-propellant rocket boosters that carried NASA’s shuttle orbiter into space. 

Giant motor-driven compressors generated the 95,000 horsepower required 

to produce the 7,000-mile-per-hour winds that passed over the boosters and 

fuel tank during testing to ensure safe separation of the shuttle from the launch 

vehicle.85

The post-1960 diversification of the testing and evaluation functions 

at the Arnold Engineering Development Center matched a corresponding 

expansion of similar work on rocket propulsion technologies at Edwards Air 

Force Base. In 1963, the rocket test facilities at Edwards were consolidated into 

a new Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, whose civilian and military personnel 

worked in collaboration with industrial contractors to improve the propulsion 

units and requisite solid propellants for ballistic and air-launched missiles and 

satellite space systems. The laboratory also provided technical support in the 

development of upper-stage assemblies for launch vehicles. By the mid-1970s, 

much of this in-house expertise was directed at the development of the MX

intercontinental ballistic missile.86 The multiple-contractor-produced MX, also 

known as Peacekeeper, entered service in 1986.

Although the ballistic missile program consumed a sizable portion of the 

Air Force System Command’s in-house laboratory resources, it did not preclude 

ongoing development of conventional aerial weapons. Technical progress in 

this field was guided by the Armament Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base. 

Contractor-manufactured weapons technologies under development in the 

laboratory in the 1960s included aircraft guns and rockets, air-delivered mines, 

fuzes, explosives and gun propellants, incendiary and flame weapons, defoliants, 

suspension and release equipment, and munitions ground-handling equipment. 

Meanwhile, the escalation of the war in Vietnam prompted a sharp increase in 

the laboratory’s workload in the 1960s; the budget increased sixfold between 

84 J. Trainor, “Arnold Center Tests All Big Systems,” Missiles and Rockets 9 (14 August 1961): 31–34; 

“Arnold Validates Systems Early in Design,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 75 (15 September 1961): 

221–29. 85 M. L. Yaffee, “AEDC Facilities Busy, Despite Cuts,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 94 (26 

April 1971): 36; C. Pugh, “Riding the Winds of Change,” Airman 27 (October 1983): 21. See also “Test 

Facility to Boost Arnold Capability,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 110 (29 January 1979): 203–4; 

C. Covault, “New USAF Division to Stress Research,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 112 (23 June 

1980): 47–53; and B. Wanstall, “USAF Doubles Engine-Test Capability: $625 Million Boost for Arnold 

Facility,” Interavia 40 (February 1985): 138–41. 86 “Rocket Lab Focuses on Advance Needs,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 (15 July 1974): 

94–95, 97; D. E. Fink, “Minuteman Experience Aiding MX,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 105 (19 

July 1976): 113–14.
98 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

1962 and 1967, from $10 million to more than $60 million.87 Out of this wartime 

effort emerged the first generation of smart weapon systems that combined 

conventional explosives—free-fall bombs and other ordnance—and precision 

electronic guidance technologies capable of filtering, processing, computing, 

and transmitting target information almost instantaneously during flight. The 

GBU–15 glide bomb, which entered production under contract to Rockwell 

International in 1983, consisted of a television camera or infrared imaging 

sensor (for nighttime deployment) placed on the front of a general-purpose, 

2,000-pound bomb and a small data transmitter fixed to its back end. Electronic 

display and sensor control in the cockpit of the carrying aircraft enabled the 

bomb to be delivered to the target with precision accuracy. Similar weapons 

technologies that entered service during this period included a new family of 

500- and 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs used to destroy reinforced concrete 

targets and the GBU–89 antitank and antipersonnel mine dispenser.88

Unlike Eglin, which continued to support the development of conventional 

ordnance, the Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base diversified into 

new fields outside its core capabilities of mating nuclear weapons technologies to 

aircraft and missile delivery systems and conducting environmental impact studies 

of atomic warfare. Out of the center’s nuclear effects testing and simulation studies 

emerged a major program, located in the new Weapons Laboratory established 

at Kirtland in the early 1960s, to develop high-energy laser and particle-beam 

weapon systems for airborne and space-based applications. Though highly 

speculative, this research program complemented a much larger, coordinated 

effort among other federal agencies, universities, and industrial firms to develop 

an interconnected network of tracking satellites and orbiting laser weapon 

platforms to repel a ballistic missile attack. Later known as the Strategic Defense 

Initiative (SDI), this controversial program and its institutional antecedents 

consumed a significant share of the in-house resources and technical personnel 

at Kirtland’s Weapons Laboratory throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974, for 

example, weapons-oriented laser R&D consumed one-quarter of the Weapons 

Laboratory’s technical manpower. By 1987, SDI projects alone consumed 60 

percent of the laboratory’s budget.89

In the early 1970s, researchers in the Weapons Laboratory began studying 

the output properties and operating features of the gas-dynamic carbon dioxide 

laser. Despite its high-power capabilities, however, the carbon dioxide laser proved 

too inefficient for practical use. The laboratory investigated other configurations 

throughout the remainder of the decade. Chemical lasers, for example, showed 

87 “New Organization Planned to Stabilize Arms R&D, Funding,” Aerospace Technology 21 (25 

March 1968): 98–99. 88 E. Ulsamer, “The Steady Evolution of Armaments,” Air Force Magazine 68 (December 1985): 

79–81; C. F. Surba and D. Ballou, “Armament Division at Eglin AFB,” National Defense 71 ( July-August 

1986): 48–49. See also “Non-Nuclear Research Under Way at USAF Laboratory,” Aviation Week and 

Space Technology 123 (2 December 1985): 161–68; and C. Rabb, “Air Force Labs Work to Make Today’s 

Innovations Tomorrow’s Routine,” Defense Electronics 18 (September 1986): 95–100. 89 “Weapons Lab Plays Key Nuclear Role,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 (15 July 1974): 

287; Weitze, Installations and Facilities, 305.
Research and Development in the Air Force 99

promise as suitable substitutes because of their higher efficiencies, even though 

they lacked the operational simplicity of gas-dynamic devices. One line of 

research focused on pushing the output beams of chemical lasers further into the 

microwave region to help meet expected size and weight restrictions for effective 

use in aerial operations. The electric discharge laser was also scrutinized as an 

alternative energy source for weapon systems during this period. Meanwhile, the 

development of aircraft-borne technologies capable of emitting target-destroying, 

high-energy electron beams progressed alongside the laser program. Work in 

this field centered on a fundamental problem that had preoccupied physicists 

for decades, namely the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and 

matter. The introduction and proliferation of particle accelerators in academic 

and industrial laboratories before World War II had enabled physicists to study 

in detail the processes and outcomes of high-energy bombardment of materials 

by electrons, protons, ions, and other subatomic species.90 In the Air Force, 

direct application of accelerator-produced particle beams was initially carried 

out at Kirtland to complete nuclear effects tests and simulation studies. These 

investigations were scaled up in the 1970s and early 1980s to meet the planned 

operational requirements of projected high-energy weapon systems.91

Laser and particle-beam weapons represented the state of the art in advanced 

weapons concepts at Kirtland Air Force Base during the 1970s and 1980s. These 

technologies constituted, in effect, a direct extension of the Special Weapons 

Center’s core technical capabilities—the development of nuclear weapons 

delivery systems and analytical studies of the environmental effects of atomic 

warfare. A similar evolutionary cycle guided the diversification of R&D at the 

Wright Air Development Division. The major stages of organizational change 

at Wright touched on a broad range of subjects, from systems engineering 

and avionics in the 1960s and 1970s to artificial intelligence in the 1980s. 

Throughout this period, however, weapons innovation at Wright, Kirtland, and 

the other laboratories operated by the Air Force Systems Command was guided 

by a gradual realignment of mission priorities. Beginning in the 1970s, in-house 

basic research was scaled back and increasingly outsourced to the private sector, 

while the laboratories forged a stronger and more direct link between R&D 

programming and production requirements. Although the extent to which 

this new policy was institutionalized varied widely across organizations and 

90 On the development of particle accelerator technology for high-energy physics research before 

World War II, see, for example, Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in 

Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), chap. 15; J. L. Heilbron and Robert 

W. Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, vol. 1 of A History of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley: 

University of California Press, 1989); and Thomas D. Cornell, “Merle Tuve and His Program of Nuclear 

Studies at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism: The Early Career of a Modern American Physicist” 

(Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1986). 91 B. M. Elson, “USAF Weapons Lab Mission Expanded,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 110 

(29 January 1979): 212–13; “Weapons Laboratory Aids Beam Effort,” Aviation Week and Space Technology

113 (4 August 1980): 56–58; A. L. Batezel, “Best Kept Secrets,” Airman 26 (April 1982): 43–45; “Air Force 

Labs Concentrate on SDI Research,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 127 (2 November 1987): 50. 

See also Robert W. Seidel, “From Glow to Flow: A History of Military Laser Research and Development,” 

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18 (1987):112–47; and Seidel, “How the Military 

Responded to the Laser,” Physics Today 10 (October 1988): 36–43.
100 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

individual laboratories, its introduction marked the beginning of a protracted 

transformation that culminated in the merger in 1992 of all Air Force R&D, 

procurement, and logistical functions into one large organization—the Air Force 

Materiel Command. This outcome resembled a similar transformation that had 

occurred in 1946, when the same functions were combined for the first time into 

a single organization, the Air Materiel Command in the Army Air Forces.

By 1960, one year before the establishment of the Air Force Systems 

Command, the Wright Air Development Division had already institutionalized 

the weapon system concept. Wright split into three new divisions. The systems 

management division incorporated the weapon system project offices (now 

called system program offices [responsible for aeronautics technologies]) 

formerly attached to ARDC headquarters. Technical support—essentially 

hardware development—for the system management division was provided by 

the system engineering division, staffed by the engineers and scientists who had 

worked in the commodities laboratories previously assigned to the now-defunct 

laboratories directorate. The largest of the three divisions was the advanced 

systems technology division. Each of its four divisions managed four separate 

laboratories responsible for advancing the state of the art in weapon system 

technology. The avionics division, for example, operated navigation and guidance, 

reconnaissance, electronics technology, and communications laboratories, all 

of which focused on space-based applications. Scientists and engineers in the 

navigation and guidance laboratory adapted conventional air defense technologies 

to handle similar functions on satellites and manned space vehicles.92

In 1963, WADD reorganized the avionics division (through the merger of 

several smaller laboratories) into a new avionics laboratory.93 Within a decade, 

the Wright Air Development Division’s entire in-house R&D operation had 

been restructured and split into six laboratories: avionics, aeromedical, aerospace, 

aero-propulsion, materials, and flight dynamics. All of these laboratories main- tained in-house and contract research programs, although the extent to which 

one type dominated the other varied widely in each case. In 1974, for example, 

nearly 70 percent of the operating budget for the flight dynamics laboratory 

supported in-house R&D programs. The remaining funds were distributed to 

private-sector contractors, some on behalf of other government agencies. Simi- larly, 80 percent of the R&D budget in the aerospace research laboratory that 

year supported in-house programs in energy conversion, fluid mechanics, metallurgy and ceramics, hypersonics, chemistry, and solid-state and plasma physics. 

Moreover, nearly half of the members of the technical staff working on projects 

in these fields held doctorates in science or engineering. In the aeropropulsion 

laboratory, by contrast, most of the development work on turbines, ramjets, fuels, and lubricants was contracted out to commercial engine manufacturers. The 

92 P. J. Klass, “Major Reorganization Designed to Broaden WADD Capabilities,” Aviation Week 

and Space Technology 72 (9 May 1960): 27; Klass, “WADD Avionics Division Aims at Space,” Aviation 

Week and Space Technology 73 (1 August 1960): 72–73; “WADD Reorganizes for Increased Capabilities,” 

Aviation Week and Space Technology 72 (23 May 1960): 95. 93 See P. J. Klass, “Avionics Lab Expanding Applications,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 (15 

July 1974): 206.
Research and Development in the Air Force 101

R&D activities in these laboratories through the 1970s covered a broad range 

of topics, from testing and standardization—Wright’s traditional field of expertise dating back to World War I—to the development of semiconductor devices 

for avionics systems and high-strength, temperature-resistant metal alloys and 

composite materials for critical aircraft components used on the McDonnellDouglas F–15 tactical fighter, General Dynamics F–111 fighter-bomber, and 

the Rockwell B–1 strategic bomber.94

By the mid-1970s, while these and other programs proceeded at the Wright 

Air Development Division, the headquarters staff of the Air Force Systems 

Command executed a sweeping reorganization of its in-house laboratories. 

Several factors had prompted action: tightening budgets, rising inflation, and 

ongoing debates within the Department of Defense, Congress, and AFSC about 

the extent to which research and development should be more narrowly focused 

on practical results applicable to service requirements.95 R&D facilities closed, 

merged, or were transferred to other locations in response to this realignment of 

mission priorities.

In 1970, the Office of Aerospace Research was abolished, and its constituent 

organizations—Office of Scientific Research, electronics and geophysics 

directorates at the Cambridge Research Center, and WADD’s Aeronautical 

Research Laboratory—were reassigned to AFSC headquarters, though no 

longer reporting directly to the Air Force chief of staff. Declining funding levels 

“forced [OSR] to focus more sharply on contracting for basic research with clear 

links to present and future [Air Force] requirements,” Aviation Week and Space 

Technology reported in 1974. Some seemingly esoteric fields that had received 

substantial support in the past, such as nuclear physics, were dropped entirely 

94 W. C. Wetmore, “Flight Laboratory Pushes Joint Projects,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 

(15 July 1974): 136, 138; “Research Lab Studies Air Force Needs,” Aviation Week and Space Technology

101 (15 July 1974): 251, 253–54; “Propulsion Lab Refines Engine Designs,” Aviation Week and Space 

Technology 101 (15 July 1974): 247–48; “Materials Lab Focuses on Top Priorities,” Aviation Week and Space 

Technology 101 (15 July 1974): 235, 237–38. Electronics R&D at Wright also included pilot production of 

new semiconductor materials in the avionics laboratory’s electronics technology division. By the late 1970s, 

division researchers and their counterparts working on contract at Hewlett-Packard, McDonnell-Douglas, 

Rockwell, and Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge, had identified gallium-arsenide as a possible replacement 

for silicon devices used in aircraft avionics systems, such as signal processors in radar and electronic 

countermeasures equipment. Gallium-arsenide microcircuits operated at higher speeds than silicon devices 

(while maintaining high power and low noise levels), but work with these microcircuits in the civilian sector 

had been limited because of silicon’s dominance in the consumer and industrial markets served by the major 

semiconductor firms. The manufacturing facility in the electronics technology division was built to help 

encourage industrial participation in the development of advanced semiconductor materials. In addition 

to serving as a conduit for the exchange of technical information between researchers at Wright and their 

collaborators in industry, the facility also enabled the Air Force to procure critical semiconductor materials 

for operational systems no longer produced in the private sector. “Weapon System Capabilities Explored,” 

Aviation Week and Space Technology 110 (29 January 1979): 186–89; Klass, “Avionics Lab Expanding 

Applications,” 213–15. 95 For an insightful analysis of how changing views about the relevance of R&D to military 

requirements affected industrial contractors during this period, see Glen R. Asner, “The Linear Model, the 

U.S. Department of Defense, and the Golden Age of Industrial Research,” in The Science-Industry Nexus: 

History, Policy, Implications, ed. Karl Grandin, Nina Wormbs, and Sven Widmalm (Sagamore Beach, 

Mass.: Science History Publications, 2004).
102 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

from OSR’s funding program.96 That same year, the Air Staff commissioned 

a laboratory utilization study (under the direction of Maj. Gen. Kenneth 

Chapman, assistant deputy chief of staff for research and development) to 

assess the current operational status of the AFSC laboratories and recommend 

procedures for the most effective long-term allocation of R&D resources. Out 

of this review emerged specific proposals to realign the in-house laboratories 

to focus primarily on product development and, at the same time, increase the 

percentage of total R&D outsourced to the private sector.

In its effort to reduce in-house R&D, the Chapman Committee focused on the 

laboratories previously attached to the now-defunct Office of Aerospace Research. 

In 1975, the Aerospace Research Laboratory closed, and the four remaining 

development laboratories at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base—flight dynamics, 

materials, aeropropulsion, and avionics—merged into the newly named Air Force 

Wright Aeronautical Laboratories (AFWAL). This organizational unit provided 

technical support to AFSC’s aeronautical systems division.97

Given the critical role of electronic command, control, and communication 

technologies in strategic and tactical air operations, the Chapman Committee 

had originally proposed that the R&D supporting these functions should 

move from the Rome Air Development Center to the Cambridge Research 

Laboratories at Hanscom Air Force Base. The committee also recommended that 

the Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base take over the operation 

of Cambridge’s geophysics directorate. Opposition from disgruntled laboratory 

employees, local officials, and the politicians representing the affected districts in 

Congress, however, prompted the Air Force to scrap this plan in favor of a less 

disruptive alternative. Rome received a reprieve and became the development 

center for command, control, and communications equipment, reporting directly 

to AFSC’s electronics system division.98 Cambridge, which employed more 

physicists than any other laboratory in the Air Force Systems Command at the 

time, was not so fortunate. Early in 1976, the geophysics directorate transferred 

to Kirtland, and the remaining electronics R&D programs—constituting the 

old electronics directorate—moved to Rome.99

96 At the time, OSR operated six directorates: aerospace sciences, chemical sciences, electronic and 

solid-state sciences, life sciences, mathematical and information sciences, and physics. “AFOSR Focuses on 

Pertinent Research,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 (15 July 1974): 142. 97 “New Group Coordinates Lab Activities,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 105 (19 July 1976): 

171. See also M. L. Yaffee, “Materials Lab Gears to Meet User Needs,” Aviation Week and Space Technology

105 (19 July 1976): 177–80. 98 “Rome Air Development Center Deactivated in USAF Cutbacks,” Aviation Week and Space 

Technology 101 (2 December 1974): 26; A. I. Robinson, “Basic Research in the Air Force: A Tale of Two 

Laboratories,” Science 189 (12 September 1975): 862–65. 99 “New Lab Geared to Support of Divisions,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 105 (19 July 

1976): 215–17; “OSR Given Single Manager Role for All AFSC Basic Research,” Aviation Week and 

Space Technology 105 (19 July 1976): 226, 229. Only managerial responsibility of Cambridge’s former 

geophysics directorate was assigned to Kirtland. The laboratory facilities remained at Hanscom. In line 

with the revised R&D policies set down by the Air Staff, the newly named geophysics laboratory focused 

less on exploratory research, which was increasingly outsourced to private-sector institutions, in favor of 

application-oriented development work. See “Geophysics Laboratory Stressing Development,” Aviation 

Week and Space Technology 110 (29 January 1979): 231–33.
Research and Development in the Air Force 103

Since its founding in 1950, the Rome Air Development Center had functioned 

primarily as a testing and evaluation organization for avionics technologies 

manufactured in industry. Component and device development was also part of 

Rome’s mission but only to the extent that it supported the electronics programs 

outsourced to private contractors. The transfer of more than two hundred 

R&D personnel from Hanscom to Griffiss Air Force Base, however, “expanded 

[Rome’s] activities in the research end of the field,” Aviation Week and Space 

Technology reported in the summer of 1976. Practically overnight, Rome acquired 

a more extensive knowledge base in solid-state science and technology, which 

complemented the center’s ongoing programs to develop integrated electronic 

systems for ground and airborne avionics—a function collectively known at 

the time as command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3

I).100 R&D 

in these fields had originated at the Cambridge Research Laboratories during 

World War II and expanded rapidly during the postwar period, especially after 

the invention of the transistor at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1947 and 

then amid the proliferation of semiconductor technology in the decades that 

followed. By the early 1960s, for example, Cambridge researchers were busy 

synthesizing and purifying single crystals and other electronic materials, studying 

their properties and behavior, fabricating experimental solid-state devices, and 

investigating the effects of radiation exposure on semiconductors. By the late 

1970s, these and related fields of electronics R&D were firmly entrenched at 

Rome.101

In the mid-1980s, the Rome Air Development Center’s C3I program 

expanded to include a new R&D initiative in artificial intelligence (AI) funded 

by the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Carrying out this expansion largely 

through contracts with universities and industrial firms, Rome awarded a 

five-year, $8.2 million contract to a consortium of eight, regional academic 

institutions, led by Syracuse University, to fund AI research and development 

and encourage more students to enter the field.102 Rome also worked closely with 

the Wright Aeronautical Laboratories to promote industrial participation. Work 

at Wright proceeded along two different but related lines. The flight dynamics 

and avionics laboratories collaborated with industrial contractors—primarily 

McDonnell-Douglas, Lockheed, Martin-Marietta, and Honeywell—to develop 

pilot assistance systems, based on parallel processor technology funded by 

ARPA’s strategic computing program. Representative examples included 

100 A. T. Culbertson, “Scheduling Electronic Invention,” Astronautics and Aeronautics 4 (March 1966): 

42–44; “Rome Develops New Relations with ESD,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 105 (19 July 

1976): 203–05; “Electronic Technology Aims Changed,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 110 (29 

January 1979): 221. 101 “OAR Upgraded, Up-Funded for Research,” 123; C. Pugh, “On Discovery’s Threshold,” Airman 26 

( January 1982): 29–35. Aviation Week and Space Technology reported in 1979 that “expertise [at Rome] is 

being applied to more general fields, such as improving the radiation resistance of semiconductor devices, 

which has application to airborne and spaceborne avionics.” See “Electronic Technology Aims Changed,” 

Aviation Week and Space Technology 110 (29 January 1979): 221. 102 In addition to Syracuse, the consortium included the University of Massachusetts, University 

of Rochester, State University of New York at Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rensselaer 

Polytechnic Institute, Clarkson University, and Colgate University. 
104 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

mission planning, threat awareness, monitoring of aircraft subsystems, and 

tactical coordination of friendly aircraft in combat conditions. The laboratories 

also focused their AI efforts on the development of automatic target recognition 

technology and expert systems to improve aircraft maintenance and diagnostic 

functions. The materials laboratory, by contrast, sought to apply AI concepts 

to aerospace manufacturing, especially to the development of automated 

technologies for flexible assembly. Although much of this work was contracted 

out to Honeywell and Martin-Marietta, the laboratory did operate an in-house 

facility that applied AI programming to manufacturing processes with the 

objective of reducing production times, lowering costs, and improving output 

quality.103

As the decade of the 1980s drew to a close, the Air Force Systems Command 

employed more than half of the service’s scientists and engineers who worked in 

eight divisions: space systems; aeronautical systems; munitions systems; human 

systems; electronic systems; flight testing; foreign technology; and, lastly, the 

Arnold Engineering Development Center.104 Further consolidation of the Air 

Force Systems Command’s in-house R&D functions had also culminated in the 

formation of four “super laboratories.” In addition to meeting required reductions 

in overhead and personnel precipitated by the end of the Cold War, Air Force 

leaders expected the consolidation of previously independent laboratories into 

four major centers would improve the responsiveness of R&D to the specific 

requirements of the weapons development divisions, a process that had been 

underway since the 1970s.105 Those laboratories that did not provide direct 

technical support to weapons programs were simply absorbed into the new 

laboratories as auxiliary functions.106 Meanwhile, ongoing efforts to streamline 

the weapons acquisition process as defense contractors resumed low-volume 

production prompted a merger of the Air Force Systems Command and the 

103 “Air Force Systems Command Accelerates R&D Efforts,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 122 

(22 April 1985): 67; “Wright Laboratories Broadens Advanced Technology Initiatives,” Aviation Week and 

Space Technology 122 (22 April 1985): 77–78; “Rome Air Development Center Focuses on Expert Systems 

Applications for C3, Natural Speech Technology,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 122 (22 April, 1985): 

84; “Research at Aeronautical Systems Division Points to Airborne AI,” Defense Science and Electronics 6 

(February 1987): 30–34. On DARPA’s strategic computing program, see Alex Roland with Philip Shiman, 

Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983–1993 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT 

Press, 2002). 104 “Air Force Systems Command,” Air Force Magazine 73 (May 1990): 67. 105 See J. W. Canan, “The Labs Move into the Mainstream,” Air Force Magazine 67 (April 1984): 

55–59. 106 The Wright Laboratory served the aeronautical systems division through the management of six 

laboratories: the former materials, aeropropulsion and power, avionics, flight dynamics, and electronics 

laboratories at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the armament laboratory located at Eglin Air Force 

Base. The Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base provided technical support for the space division. 

This newly named facility combined Kirtland’s weapons laboratory and the geophysics and astronautics 

laboratories located at Hanscom and Edwards Air Force Bases. Essentially unchanged, the Rome Air 

Development Center continued to support C3I technology development for the electronic systems division. 

Finally, the human systems division drew its technical support from the Armstrong Research Laboratory at 

Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. This facility managed the human research, drug testing, and 

occupational and health laboratories at Brooks and the aerospace medical research laboratory at WrightPatterson. D. F. Bond, “Air Force to Reduce Research Overhead with Mergers, Creation of Four ‘Superlabs’,” 

Aviation Week and Space Technology 133 (3 December 1990): 68–70.
Research and Development in the Air Force 105

Air Force Logistics Command into a newly reconstituted Air Force Materiel 

Command (with headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) in 1992, 

thus completing a cycle that had begun with the institutional separation of these 

functions more than four decades earlier.107

Coming Full Circle: Patterns of Organizational Change in 

Air Force R&D Since 1945

In 1997, Gen. Lew Allen, retired Air Force chief of staff, commented on 

what he believed to be the challenges facing the in-house laboratories managed 

by the new Air Force Materiel Command:

[The] consolidation reduces personnel and is consistent with the reduction in force 

required by the Air Force. However, R&D tends to be subordinated to logistics, because 

logistic problems are often urgent and affect readiness. The danger is that the long-term 

view is sacrificed to short-term issues. The Air Force laboratories have encountered 

their share of criticism and recently have been judged unresponsive to the needs of the 

operational Air Force. The laboratories are now placed under the control of the product 

centers. It is hoped that leaner, more nimble laboratories will result but, again, the risk is 

a focus on the immediate problems at the expense of long-term research.108

Effectively managing this “risk” had been an ongoing effort in the Air Force 

since 1947. To be sure, Allen’s views were neither atypical nor necessarily 

misinformed. They had perhaps derived from his experience as a practicing 

physicist in the Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in the 

1950s and then were developed and refined over the course of his subsequent 

rise through the administrative ranks to become commander of the Air Force 

Systems Command in 1977. Allen followed a long line of Air Force officers, 

who, in consultation with experts in the scientific community, had argued 

that successful weapons innovation depended upon the separation of R&D 

from procurement. Except for the decade of the 1950s, however, these 

functions operated side by side within the same organizational unit—the Air 

Materiel Command until 1950; the Air Force Systems Command between 

1961 and 1992; and finally, the Air Force Materiel Command in the decade 

of the 1990s.

R&D in the laboratories managed by these organizations proceeded along 

two separate but related lines. Throughout the postwar period, much of the work 

focused on technical support for the industrial contractors that manufactured 

the bulk of the weapon systems for the Air Force. Although testing, evaluation, 

107 H. Viccello Jr., “The Past, Present, and Future of AFMC,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 146 

(16 April 1997): 38, 41; Benson, Acquisition Management in the United States Air Force and Its Predecessors,

2. 108 L. Allen, “Science Remains Key to Air Supremacy,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 146 (16 

April 1997): 60.
106 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

and standardization predominated, scientific and engineering studies of all 

types, regardless of the definitions or categories (e.g., basic, applied, fundamental, 

product-oriented) assigned to them by the Air Staff, were also supported by the 

service laboratories in line with evolving Air Force requirements. The laboratories 

focused on three major technologies after World War II—jet propulsion systems 

for tactical and strategic aircraft, microelectronics for ground-based and airborne 

avionics, and long-range ballistic missile systems equipped with nuclear weapons. 

At the same time, they diversified into state-of-the-art fields, ranging from laser 

and particle-beam weapons to artificial intelligence.

Because it lacked the same type of institutional infrastructure that 

constituted the Army’s arsenal system and the Navy’s network of shipyards, 

the Air Force relied much more heavily on the private sector for the requisite 

technical expertise and manufacturing know-how required to turn out aircraft 

and other advanced weapon systems. According to one estimate reported in 

Aviation Week in 1953, the Air Research and Development Command allocated 

nearly 90 percent of its R&D funds to civilian contractors that year, while the 

Army and the Navy distributed 45 percent and 65 percent, respectively, to 

external vendors.109 The absence of an in-house production capability, however, 

did not preclude the existence of a significant internal R&D function in the Air 

Force. Since its establishment as the Army Air Corps before World War II, the 

Air Force had maintained a broad knowledge base in science and engineering, 

initially concentrated at Wright Field in Ohio, but later replicated and dispersed 

among laboratories and testing facilities located throughout the United States. 

The institutional structure of Air Force R&D after 1945 differed from its Army 

and Navy counterparts in degree, not in kind. Throughout all three services, 

with the exception of the Naval Research Laboratory, in-house studies were 

conducted in direct support of weapons development programs. The content 

and scope of such work typically covered a broad range of mutually supporting 

subjects, from less-frequent fundamental investigations of scientific phenomena 

to the far more common functions of testing, evaluation, standardization, and 

prototype production of weapon systems and components. Similarly, in the case 

of speculative research unrelated to specific weapons requirements, the services 

established special program offices, such as the Air Force Office of Scientific 

Research, to manage contracts distributed to universities and other privatesector R&D organizations.

The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that institutional change 

in the Air Force’s R&D establishment after World War II was driven more 

by strategic considerations and evolving weapons requirements than by broad 

policies designed to resolve the seemingly intractable conflict between advocates 

of an independent R&D operation separate from production and procurement 

and those who favored the merger of these functions into a single organization. 

Because the laboratories at Wright Field were not equipped to test jet engines 

and their components, the Air Force established a new facility to fulfill this 

109 “ARDC Molds U.S. Air Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 75.
Research and Development in the Air Force 107

function—the Arnold Engineering Development Center—in Tennessee in 1950. 

In the 1960s, after R&D had been recombined with production in the new Air 

Force Systems Command, Arnold’s technical support functions remained intact 

but expanded beyond testing and evaluation of air-breathing engines to include 

work on a new generation of rocket motors and solid propellants required by the 

rapidly expanding ballistic missile and space programs.

Prompted by evidence of major advances in Soviet air power in the 1950s 

and the introduction in the United States of smaller and lighter nuclear warheads 

suitable for missile payloads, the Air Force initiated an expeditious program to 

accelerate development of intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles. Making 

use of the weapon system concept, which sought to merge R&D and production 

into a single, overlapping process, Bernard Schriever managed to bypass the 

jurisdictional conflicts that had strained relations between the Air Materiel 

Command and the Air Research and Development Command. Although the 

weapon system concept was not without its limitations—most notably its 

chronic reliability problems and cost overruns—Schriever nevertheless adopted 

its institutional equivalent—the Western Development Division—as the 

model for effective weapons development and procurement. In the late 1950s, 

he spearheaded the effort to recombine the Air Research and Development 

Command and the production and procurement functions of the Air Materiel 

Command into a new organization—the Air Force Systems Command. Given 

the high but largely unrealized expectations that preceded ARDC’s founding 

in 1950 and its demise ten years later, it is not unreasonable to conclude that, 

despite claims to the contrary, the introduction of new weapon systems into 

the Air Force’s operating commands during the Cold War depended on the 

interaction of research, development, and production.

Conclusion: Review and Retrospect

On 30 June 1953, Donald Putt became the commanding general of the Air 

Research and Development Command (ARDC), which had been established 

three years earlier to manage and coordinate the Air Force’s entire research and 

development (R&D) program. In an article about Air Force R&D published in 

Aviation Week shortly after his appointment, Putt commented on ARDC’s role 

in the development of new weapon systems:

ARDC’s job is not to actually do the research and development job. . . . For that we 

rely primarily on industry, universities, and civilian research organizations. Our job is 

to tell these groups the problems the Air Force wants to solve and to program, finance, 

monitor and evaluate the work necessary to solve them. In turn, we keep the Air Force 

informed on the kind of equipment they are likely to get at any given time because of the 

“state of the art” in any particular field.1

Putt’s comments were not unique to the Air Force. A similar institutional 

strategy guided weapons innovation in the Army and the Navy after World War 

II. Although less dependent on the private sector than the Air Force, both services 

relied on universities and industrial firms to generate the scientific and engineering 

expertise required to develop and manufacture new weapons technologies, ranging 

from high-strength materials for conventional ordnance to nuclear-powered 

propulsion systems for ballistic missile submarines. The expanding role of privatesector institutions in weapons development and production during the Cold War 

was driven by separate but mutually reinforcing causal events: the waning influence 

of the Army’s technical services and the Navy’s material bureaus and the increasing 

centralization of decision-making authority within the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense (OSD); continued expansion of research universities in the United 

States; and the rapid growth and diversification of the research, development, and 

production functions in America’s science-based industries.

These events and the sweeping changes prompted by their occurrence 

proceeded alongside an internal debate that continued to alter the institutional 

landscape of research and development in the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force 

after 1945. Vannevar Bush, Theodore von Kármán, Louis Ridenour, and other 

civilian experts acting on behalf of the military services believed that the separation 

of the management of R&D from production was a necessary prerequisite to 

effective weapons innovation. Critics of this viewpoint, such as Air Force generals 

1

 Putt quoted in “ARDC Molds U.S. Air Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August, 1953): 75.

Chapter Five
110 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Benjamin Chidlaw and Kenneth Wolfe, argued that it was crucial for all of these 

functions to remain organizationally unified. Separation, they cautioned, would 

limit the ability of researchers in the laboratory to solve critical technological 

problems on the factory floor. All sides claimed victory at various points and 

times during the Cold War as the Defense Department’s R&D infrastructure 

expanded and diversified to meet evolving weapons requirements.

Established in 1946 and modeled on the wartime Office of Scientific 

Research and Development, the Office of Naval Research contracted directly 

with universities and industrial firms to accumulate new scientific and engineering 

knowledge unrelated to specific weapons requirements but broadly correlated to 

Navy interests. The Army and the Navy set up contracting offices guided by 

the same strategic mission. Meanwhile, the in-house laboratories owned and 

operated by the services provided technical support—the solution of shortterm production problems and the testing and evaluation of complete weapon 

systems—to industrial contractors. At the same time, they maintained extensive 

internal R&D programs to complement industrial development of electronics, 

jet engine, rocket propulsion, and other critical technologies relevant to military 

applications. Periodic organizational realignments of these internal laboratories, 

however, undermined efforts to maintain a clear division of labor between R&D 

and weapons production. In 1961, eleven years after it was founded as a separate 

organization, the Air Research and Development Command absorbed the Air 

Force’s procurement arm—the Air Materiel Command (AMC)—to form the 

Air Force Systems Command. One outcome of this merger was a more intimate 

connection between the content and scope of in-house and outsourced R&D 

and the weapons requirements handed down by the Air Staff.

The periodic managerial separation and subsequent recombination of R&D 

and production functions in the Air Force illustrate the extent to which the Air 

Staff struggled to reconcile competing points of view among R&D policymakers 

and also maintain the institutional continuity needed to improve the weapons 

innovation process over the long term. R&D management policies put in place 

by the Air Staff and its counterparts in the Army and the Navy did not always 

translate into practice at the laboratory level. In many cases, research, development, 

and production proceeded simultaneously in the service laboratories. The 

laboratories managed by the Air Force, for example, provided technical support to 

the contractors that developed and manufactured aircraft, ballistic missiles, and 

other weapon systems. This mandate, however, did not preclude the conduct of 

more cutting-edge research in fields that emulated studies underway in industry 

and academia. Representative examples include semiconductor and high-energy 

radiation research at the Wright Air Development Division and at Kirtland Air 

Force Base in the 1970s and 1980s. The program of solid-state physics research 

that had originated at Frankford Arsenal during World War II to solve the 

problem of season cracking in artillery shells complemented ongoing efforts to 

develop stronger and more battle-effective ordnance materials in the other Army 

arsenals and university and industrial laboratories after 1945. Similarly, in the 

Navy, the technical bureaus were not the sole sources of product-driven R&D 

tied to specific weapons requirements, even though that function constituted their 
Conclusion: Review and Retrospect 111

primary mission. Some work along this line, such as applications-driven materials 

testing and analysis, was also carried out intermittently by the technical staff at 

the Naval Research Laboratory, which had been established in 1923 as a separate 

organization independent of the bureaus to support long-term studies broadly 

related to the Navy’s interests. Even the long-range studies supported through 

external contracts to private-sector institutions by the chemistry division of the 

Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in the 1950s were expected to 

yield results directly relevant to Air Force requirements.2

 In some cases, AFOSR 

program managers manipulated the language of the funding categories to meet 

these requirements without altering the scope and content of R&D contracts.

Although most likely frustrating to the managers and policymakers who 

sought to maintain some degree of organizational continuity in the weapons 

innovation process, the institutional vagaries of R&D in the Army, the Navy, and 

the Air Force after World War II were nevertheless indicative of broader patterns 

of technological change in the United States during the twentieth century. Given 

how much the service laboratories relied on industrial contractors to develop 

and build weapons to meet service requirements, it is perhaps not surprising 

that they adopted, either intentionally or by coincidence, some of the practices 

and organizational forms of industrial innovation that had driven the rise of big 

business since the late nineteenth century. The conduct of industrial R&D has 

always been an inherently messy process, one in which the branches of science and 

engineering and the many disciplines they inhabit in the laboratory are constantly 

overlapping and fragmenting in accordance with the changing scope, content, 

and goals of a given research program.3 As a general rule, such behavior in the 

industrial laboratory militated against efforts to impose a clear division of labor 

among research, development, and production, even in cases where corporate 

management established specific policies designed to achieve that outcome.4

The evidence presented in the preceding chapters suggests that similar 

constraints guided the conduct of research and development in the laboratories 

and testing facilities owned and operated by the Department of Defense after 

World War II. In this case, however, the profit motive was replaced by military 

2

 See R. G. Gibbs, “Chemistry Division of New Air Force Research and Development Command 

Will Emphasize Basic Research,” Chemical and Engineering News 30 (3 March 1952): 855. The Air 

Staff mandated a similar realignment of AFOSR functions in the early 1970s. See “AFOSR Focuses on 

Pertinent Research,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 (15 July 1974): 142–51. 3

 See, for example, Leonard S. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); George Wise, Willis R. Whitney, General Electric, and the Origins of U.S. Industrial Research (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith Jr., Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont R&D, 1902–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Ronald R. Kline and Thomas C. Lassman, “Competing Research Traditions in American Industry: 

Uncertain Alliances between Engineering and Science at Westinghouse Electric, 1886–1935,” 

Enterprise and Society 6 (December 2005): 601–45. 4

 See David A. Hounshell, “The Evolution of Industrial Research in the United States,” in 

Engines of Innovation: U.S. Industrial Research at the End of an Era, ed. Richard S. Rosenbloom 

and William J. Spencer (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), 41–51.
112 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

requirements for weapon systems. Successful weapons innovation, like its 

commercial equivalent in industry, depended on the efficient allocation of 

human capital and institutional resources to meet specific product requirements, 

often without regard to organizational and disciplinary allegiances. Because 

the development of guided missiles cut across the rigid boundaries separating 

the Navy’s technical bureaus—in this case, the bureaus of Ordnance and 

Aeronautics—the Secretary of the Navy established in 1955 a temporary 

expedient—the Special Projects Office—to develop the Polaris ballistic missile 

system. A similarly accelerated program to develop the first generation of landbased intercontinental and intermediate-range ballistic missiles for the Air Force 

prompted the Air Staff to set up in 1954 a separate management organization—

the Western Development Division (WDD)—within the Air Research and 

Development Command. WDD merged the research, development, and 

production functions—a management strategy known as concurrency—to 

accelerate the entire missile procurement process. So successful were the Western 

Development Division and its leader, General Schriever, in mediating the often 

tenuous relationship between ARDC and AMC that the Air Staff authorized 

Schriever’s proposal for the reintegration of both organizations into the Air 

Force Systems Command seven years later. It is precisely for this reason—that 

is, changing organizational and managerial responses to evolving weapons 

requirements—that the sweeping R&D policy directives handed down by the 

headquarters staffs of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force did not always align 

with the division of labor in the individual service laboratories, thereby driving 

subsequent realignments of those laboratories and programs. An intrinsically 

muddled process that defied routinization, weapons innovation—from concept 

to production—continuously recast the institutional landscape of the military 

R&D infrastructure that nurtured it during the Cold War.
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Fusfeld, Herbert I. Interview by Thomas C. Lassman. Unedited transcript. 2–3 

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AAF. See Army Air Forces.

ABMA. See Army Ballistic Missile Agency.

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), 28n46, 93, 96, 103, 103n102

AEC. See Atomic Energy Commission.

AEDC. Arnold Engineering Development Center.

Aeronautical Research Laboratory, 101, 102

Aeronautical Turbine Laboratory, 56

AFOSR. See Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

AFSC. Air Force Systems Command.

AFWAL. See Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories.

AI. See Artificial intelligence.

Air Corps Act, 73–74

Air Engineering Development Division, 71

Air Force

Applied Research Section, 38

 avionics, 90, 92–93, 100, 101, 101n94

 centralization of decision-making authority, 70–71

 concurrency concept, 70, 70n9, 72, 84n48, 112

 control of aeronautical research budget, 54n54

 establishment as independent force, 2, 67

 expansion of role in ballistic-missile research, 94

 R&D, 7, 9, 67–72, 80–81, 105–07, 106

 reliance on private sector, 2, 68, 106

 Stever Committee Report recommendations, 95

 transition from Army Air Corps, 72–80

 weapon-system concept, 70, 72

See also specific airfields, divisions, offices, and sections.

Air Force Armaments Center

bombing and gunnery range, 86

budget, 86

construction, 86

expansion during the 1960s, 97–98

nonnuclear weapons testing, 71, 82

private contractors and, 87

research focus, 86, 87

smart weapon systems, 98

transfer to ARDC, 86–87

Air Force Flight Test Center

expansion program, 89

missile testing, 89

nuclear weapons testing, 72

P–59 jet-fighter testing, 88

Index
136 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Air Force Flight Test Center (Continued)

production-model testing, 88–89

prototype-aircraft testing, 82

research focus, 9

Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, 97

Rocket Test Facility, 89

Air Force Logistics Command, 94, 104–05

Air Force Materiel Command, 100, 104–05

Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), 69n7, 70, 111, 111n2

Air Force Systems Command (AFSC)

abolishment, 107

AI research, 99

assessment of laboratories, 102

centralization of decision-making authority and, 70–71

divisional structure, 95

divisions managed, 95, 95n82, 96

formation, 70, 94

in-house laboratory reorganization, 101

jurisdictional squabbling, 94, 95–96

merger with Air Force Logistics Command, 104–05, 110, 112

mission priority realignment, 99–100

reintegration of R&D and production, 95–96

Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories (AFWAL), 102

Air Materiel Command (AMC)

Air Engineering Development Division establishment, 71

Air Force Armaments Center transfer from, 86–87

control of ARDC budget, 79

dispersal of electronic research, 81–82

jurisdictional squabbles, 94, 95–96

merger with ARDC, 70, 110, 112

merger of functions into Air Force Logistics Command, 94

R&D budget management, 81

support engineering function, 81

Air Munitions Development Laboratory, 87

Air Research and Development Command (ARDC)

accelerating weapon systems development, 83n45

bomber development, 83–84, 83n47

budget, 79

contracting programs, 80

decentralization of command structure, 94

electronics research, 90, 90n67

establishment and functions, 69, 70, 72–73, 79

growth and diversification, 80–93

jurisdictional squabbles, 94, 95–96

merger with Air Materiel Command, 70, 110, 112

operational commands, 82n42
Index 137

percent of R&D funds allocated to private firms, 106

Putt’s comments, 109

reorganization into four functional divisions, 94–95

separation from Air Materiel Command, 79–80

space-based R&D for military applications, 94

strategic ballistic missile force development and production, 89–90

technical program directories, 82

transfer of Air Force Armaments Center to, 86–87

Western Development Division, 89

Air Staff

Applied Research Section establishment, 69

assessment of AFSC laboratories, 102

concern about Soviet air power, 83

endorsement of von Kármán’s recommendations, 77

R&D, 69–70, 72, 79

Air Technical Service Command (ATSC), 74n18, 91

Aircraft catapults, 56, 56n63

Aircraft Radio Laboratory, 73n13

Airplane Engineering Department, 73

Airplane Engineering Division, 73

Albacore research vessel, 64

Allen, General Lew, 105

AMC. See Air Materiel Command; Army Materiel Command.

Anderson, Lt. Gen. Samuel, 95

Antisubmarine warfare, 41, 58–59

Applied Research Section, 38, 69, 69n7, 78

ARDC. See Air Research and Development Command.

Armament Test Facilities Laboratory, 87

Army Aeronautical Division, 68

arsenal system functions, 2, 11

Cold War R&D, 7

competition for scientists and engineers to staff arsenals, 20n28

content of R&D in arsenal system, 21–33

Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, 19

distribution of R&D funds to private organizations, 17n21

private-sector R&D role, 109

proving grounds, 12n3

R&D, 7–8, 11–15, 110

R&D after World War II, 15–21

reorganization of the early 1960s, 19

repair and storage facilities, 12n3

Research and Development Division, 17, 18

research budget for 1946, 17

See also specific arsenals, divisions, and offices.

Army Air Corps

allocation of funds for R&D in 1939, 75n21
138 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Army Air Corps (Continued)

competition from private sector for scientists and engineers, 75n23

Office of Scientific Research and Development, 75

postwar expansion of in-house R&D, 68

pre–World War II R&D, 67–68

renamed Army Air Forces, 68

separation of R&D from production, 77–78

World War II expansion, 74

Army Air Forces (AAF)

Air Technical Service Command, 91

budget, 80

force-in-being and force-of-the-future conflict, 69

German jet propulsion laboratory reassembly, 85–86

strategic bombing, 68

Army Air Service, 68, 73

Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), 22n33

Army Materiel Command (AMC)

centralization of weapons acquisition and, 34

establishment, 19, 34

merger of weapons acquisition process into, 19

two-tiered R&D organization, 19–20

Army Ordnance Department, 70, 81n36

Army Research Office, 9, 18–19, 18n24, 38

Army Science Advisory Panel, 18

Army Signal Corps, 8, 12n4, 20, 68, 70, 73, 73n13, 91n70

Arnold, General Henry

evaluation of civilian and military aeronautics, 75–76

naming of Arnold Engineering Development Center, 71

Project RAND establishment role, 76n25

Ridenour Report and, 79

Scientific Advisory Group study, 76–77

Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC)

Air Engineering Development Division renamed as, 71

aircraft propulsion system research, 96–97, 106–07

diversification of testing and evaluation, 97

German jet propulsion laboratory reassembly and, 85–86

high-speed engine testing, 85

Minuteman testing, 96

origins, 85

research focus, 9, 71

rocket boosters for NASA’s shuttle orbiter, 97

rocket propulsion system testing, 96

testing and evaluation of air-breathing engines, 96

wind-tunnel technology, 82, 86

ARPA. See Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Arsenals
Index 139

primary source of technological innovation and weapons acquisition, 2

business-friendly political culture and, 35

centralization of weapons acquisition and, 19–20

content of R&D in Army arsenal system, 8, 21–33

debate over, 34

decline of system, 8, 33–36

loss of institutional flexibility, 20

mandate, 35–36

metallurgical research, 23–28

outsourcing of weapons production and, 12–13, 34

postwar period role, 11

separation of R&D from production, 15–21, 34–35

staffing issues, 20n28

See also specific facilities.

Artificial intelligence (AI), 9, 96, 99, 103–04, 106

Atlas missile, 89

Atomic Applications Laboratory, 22, 23

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 21–22, 71, 87, 87n61, 88

ATSC. See Air Technical Service Command.

Augusta Arsenal, Ga., 12n3

Auroral phenomena, 92

Autofrettage, 32, 32n59

Avionics

description, 90

gallium-arsenide microcircuits and, 101n94

portion of Air Force budget allocated to, 90

Rome Air Development Center research on, 92–93

Wright Air Development Division and, 100, 101

B–1 bomber, 97, 101

B–24 bomber, 70n9

B–26 bomber, 70n9

B–29 bomber, 70n9

B–36 bomber, 84

B–52 strategic heavy bomber, 96–97

B–58 bombers, 83–84, 83n47, 84n48

Ballistic missiles

electronics technology and, 90

expansion of Air Force role in research, 94, 107

research on, 9, 72, 82, 89, 96, 106

Barnes, Maj. Gen. Gladeon, 17

Bell Telephone Laboratories, 23, 23n36, 46, 90n69, 103

Benecia Arsenal, Calif., 12n3

Bennett, Ralph, 48, 48n39

Betatron research, 29, 30, 31

Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, 63–64
140 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Boeing, 70n9, 97

Bowen, Rear Adm. Harold, 62

Bureau of Aeronautics

budget, 81, 81n36

commercial engine manufacturers and, 56

competition from private airframe manufacturers, 54

establishment, 41

functions, 41–42 

merger with Bureau of Ordnance, 54, 64–65

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and, 54–55

organizational restructuring, 53–54

shift from production to research, 41–42

See also specific divisions and test centers.

Bureau of Naval Weapons, 54, 64–65

Bureau of Ordnance

discretionary fund for undirected scientific research, 47

divisions not dedicated to R&D, 42n13

establishment, 39

external R&D contracts, 42n14

functions, 39–40

hydrography division transfer, 40n7

merger with Bureau of Aeronautics, 54, 64–65

postwar expansion, 40

postwar organization, 42–44

Research and Development Division, 40

technical problem solving, 52

See also specific divisions and laboratories.

Bureau of Ships

antisubmarine warfare and underwater detection, 41, 58

chemical and metallurgical problem solving, 40

David Taylor Model Basin, 41, 58, 61–64, 64n84

formation, 40

functions, 40

Office of Scientific Research and Development, 41

postwar functions, 57–58

sonar research, 58–60

See also specific divisions and laboratories.

Bureau of Steam Engineering, 40, 40n10

Bush, Vannevar, 3–4, 16, 16n15, 34–35, 109

C3I. See Command, control, communications, and intelligence.

California Institute of Technology, 45–46, 45n25, 49

Cambridge Research Center

early research focus, 71

electronics research, 9, 81–82, 90–92, 91–92n73, 101, 103

geophysics research, 92, 101
Index 141

organizational structure, 91

origins, 90–91

SAGE air defense system, 91

transfer of programs, 102

Carnegie, Andrew, 5

Catapults, 42, 56, 56n63

Chance Vought, 13n9

Chapman, Maj. Gen. Kenneth, 102

Chapman Committee, 102

Chemical Warfare Service, 8, 12n4, 13n6

Chidlaw, Lt. Gen. Benjamin, 77–78, 109–10

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), 39, 49

CNO. See Chief of Naval Operations.

Command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I), 103, 104n106

Computers. See High-speed computing.

Concurrency concept, 70, 70n9, 72, 84n48, 112

Consolidated Aircraft, 70n9

Convair Division, General Dynamics, 83–84, 83n46, 84n48, 89

Cornell University, 28n46

Corporal missile, 23

Corps of Engineers, 12n4

Craigie, Brig. Gen. Laurence, 75–76, 75n22, 85

Crane, Commodore William Montgomery, 52n50

Crane Naval Ammunition Depot, Indiana

early postwar functions, 42–43

establishment, 52

Fleet Logistics Support Department, 53

ordnance testing, 52

Polaris missile development, 53, 112

Poseidon and Trident missile systems, 53

Quality Evaluation Laboratory, 52–53, 53n51

Terrier missile system, 53

David Taylor Model Basin

establishment and functions, 41, 60–61

hydrodynamics research, 61–62

nuclear propulsion research, 62–64

research focus, 58

staffing issues, 48

David Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center, 64n84

Davies Committee, 16–17

Defense Plant Corporation, 3, 13n6

Defense Secretary. See McNamara, Robert.

Department of Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency, 28n46, 93

military motivation for R&D, 111–12
142 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Department of Defense (Continued)

percent of contracts awarded to industrial firms in 1960, 34n62

postwar shifting of ship construction to privately owned shipyards, 37

See also specific offices and military services.

Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development. See LeMay, Maj. 

Gen. Curtis.

Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, 18–19

Detroit Arsenal, Mich., 13n6

Douglas Aircraft, 13n9, 76n25, 89, 89n63

Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. See Air Force Flight Test Center.

Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. See Air Force Armaments Center.

Eisenhower, General Dwight, 16, 17–18

Electronics

C3

I research program, 103

equipment needs and, 90, 90n67

hardware development, 91, 92–93

R&D programs, 9, 81–82, 90, 90n69, 91n73, 101, 101n94, 103, 106

See also Microwave electronics.

Engineering Division

addition of engineering control section, 75n19

Craigie’s cancellation of projects, 75–76

functions, 74–75

Engineering Experiment Station

engine development program, 61n76

performance standards for equipment, 58

renamed Marine Engineering Laboratory, 61

research focus and mission, 60–61

superalloy research, 61

Enterprise aircraft carrier, 64

Experimental Engineering Section, 73, 74n15

F–15 tactical fighters, 97, 101

F–105 fighter-bomber, 97

F–106 interceptor, 96–97

F–111 fighter-bomber, 101

Fairchild, General Muir, 78–79

Frankford Arsenal, Pa.

categories of metallurgical research, 27–28

closure, 8, 20–21, 33

contributions of industrial research and, 14

dislocation theory research, 25, 27

establishment, 11

ferrous metallurgy research, 24–25

functions, 11–12
Index 143

internal friction of metals, 26–27, 27n44

metallurgical research, 14, 25–27, 34

plastic deformation of metals, 25, 27

solid-state physics research, 110

Fusfeld, Herbert I., 27n44

GBU–15 glide bombs, 98

GBU–89 mine dispensers, 98

General Dynamics Corporation, 61n77, 101. See also Convair Division.

General Electric Company, 29, 48, 56, 63, 87, 90n69

General Motors, 13n9, 56

Geophysics, 71, 92

Glenn L. Martin Company, 13n9, 70n9

Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, 44

Greater Underwater Propulsive Power (GUPPY), 64

Griffiss Air Force Base, N.Y. See Rome Air Development Center.

GUPPY. See Greater Underwater Propulsive Power.

Hahn, Otto, 62

Harpers Ferry Armory, Va., 11n2

High-energy X-rays, 14, 22, 30–31

High-speed computing, 51–52, 63, 103

High-velocity aircraft rocket (HVAR), 49–50

Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., 9, 72, 82, 83n47, 89–90, 90n66

Holy Moses rocket, 49–50

Honest John rocket, 23, 29

Honeywell, 103–04

Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., 13n6, 22n33

Hustler bomber, 83–84

HVAR. See High-velocity aircraft rocket.

Hydrodynamics, 41, 42n14, 58, 60, 61–62, 64, 89

Industrial firms

avionics research, 93

awarding of research contracts to, 82

ballistic missile testing, 89, 89n63

diversification into defense-related fields, 5–6

diversification into electronics and missile fields, 13n9

electronics research, 90n69

in-house R&D function development, 13, 36

manufacturing capacity increase during World War II, 5

Naval Ordnance Test Station seeks advice from, 46–47

outsourcing of weapons production to, 12–13, 34

pilot assistance system collaboration, 103–04

production decline during the depression, 6n10

reasons for reliance on, 3–5
144 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Industrial firms (Continued)

separation of R&D from production, 15n12

See also specific firms.

Ionospheric physics, 92, 92n75

J57 jet engine, 96–97

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 22n33, 45n25

Jet propulsion research

AEDC and, 96–97, 106–07

David Taylor Model Basin and, 62–64

German jet propulsion laboratory reassembly, 85–86

Keirn, Brig. Gen. Donald, 79–80

Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. See Special Weapons Center.

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, 48, 63–64

Laser weapon systems, 98–99, 106

Lauritsen, Charles, 45, 45n25, 46

LeMay, Maj. Gen. Curtis, 77

Little John rocket, 29

Lockheed, 13n9, 103

M1 rifle, 35, 35n64

M8 rocket, 22

M14 rifle, 35, 35n64

Manhattan Project, 63, 67

Marine Engineering Laboratory, 61, 64n84, 65n85

Marine Physics Laboratory, 59

Martin-Marietta, 103–04

Matador missile, 22

Materiel Division, 73, 73n13, 74n18

McCook Field, Ohio. See Airplane Engineering Department.

McDonnell-Douglas, 97, 101, 101n94, 103

McNamara, Robert, 7, 19, 34, 35, 70–71

Medical Department, 12n4

Mercury program, 96

Metallurgy

contributions of research in, 14

dislocation theory, 25, 27

ferrous metallurgy research, 24

high-strength, temperature-resistant alloy development, 101

internal friction of metals, 25–26, 27, 27n44

ordnance development research, 28

plastic deformation of metals, 25, 27

postwar R&D, 23–28

problem solving by Bureau of Ships, 40
Index 145

superalloy research, 61

titanium research, 56–57, 57n64

WADC research, 84n51

X-ray research and, 28

See also Solid-state physics.

Michelson, Albert A., 46n29

Michelson Laboratory, 46–47

Microelectronics. See Electronics.

Microwave electronics, 40, 58

Mighty Mouse missile, 49

Mine Building, 43

Minuteman missile, 96

Missiles. See Ballistic missiles; specific missiles and missile systems.

MK56 and MK57 mines, 44, 45

MX missiles, 97

NACA. See National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

NAEC. See Naval Air Engineering Center.

NAEF. See Naval Air Engineering Facility.

NASA. See National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), 5, 9, 54–55, 68, 73, 81, 93

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 22n33, 71, 93, 96, 97

National Bureau of Standards, 1–2, 9, 44n18, 68, 73

National Research Foundation, 3–4

National Science Foundation, 4

National Security Act, 67

Nautilus submarine, 61n76, 63–64

Navajo missile, 89

Naval Air Development Center, 57n66, 65, 65n85

Naval Air Engineering Center (NAEC), 57

Naval Air Engineering Facility (NAEF), 57

Naval Air Experiment Station, 55–56, 57

Naval Air Material Center, 42, 56, 56n63

Naval Air Missile Test Center, 42, 56

Naval Air Station, 42, 56

Naval Air Turbine Test Station, 56

Naval Aircraft Factory, 41–42, 55–56, 57n66

Naval Aircraft Modification Unit, 55

Naval Auxiliary Air Station, 56

Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory, 40, 41n10

Naval Electronics Laboratory, 8, 41, 58, 59–60, 65n85

Naval Experiment Station, 56, 56n59

Naval Material Command, 65

Naval Ordnance Laboratory

campus description, 43n18

Cold War R&D, 7
146 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Naval Ordnance Laboratory (Continued)

discretionary fund for undirected scientific research, 47

early postwar functions, 42

merger with Naval Proving Ground, 52

origins, 43

postwar R&D efforts, 43–44

primary wartime mission, 43

separation of R&D from production, 44–45, 45n23

staffing issues, 43n17, 48

SUBROC missile development, 44

Naval Ordnance Test Station

budget for 1962, 48n37

diverse R&D infrastructure, 46

early postwar functions, 42

folding-fin mechanism for spinning rockets, 49–50

HVAR research, 49

manufacturing facilities, 46n27

Michelson Laboratory, 46–47

Mighty Mouse missile research, 49

renamed Naval Weapons Center, 50

rocket research, 49–50

seeks advice from industrial firms, 46–47

separation of R&D and production, 48–49

Sidewinder missile research, 49, 66

staffing issues, 47n32

transition from conventional ordnance to missiles and rockets, 46n28

wartime rocket development program and, 45–46, 45n25

Zuni rocket research, 50

Naval Powder Factory, 43

Naval Proving Ground armor and projectile laboratories, 51

construction of facilities, 51

early postwar functions, 42

expansion into electronics and high-speed computing, 51–52

merger with Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 52

R&D diversification, 51–52

staffing issues, 48

testing work on conventional ordnance, 50, 51 Naval Research Laboratory

budget for 1962, 48n37

Cold War R&D, 7

establishment, 9, 37, 111

functions, 9, 37–38, 111

nuclear power technology research, 41

Office of Naval Research funding, 38, 48

postwar period, 2

staffing issues, 48
Index 147

Naval Ship Research and Development Center, 64n84, 65, 65n85

Naval Surface Weapons Center, 52

Naval Tactical Data System, 60

Naval Undersea Research and Development Center, 65, 65n85

Naval Weapons Center, 50, 65

Navy

Bureau of Aeronautics, 41–42, 53–57, 81, 81n36

Bureau of Construction and Repair, 40

Bureau of Ordnance, 39–40, 42–53

Bureau of Ships, 40–41, 57–64

Bureau of Steam Engineering, 40

Cold War R&D, 7

GUPPY program, 64

independent bureaus, 38–39, 38n5

Lead Bureau Concept, 54, 65

postwar R&D programs, 37–39

postwar shift of ship construction to private shipyards, 37

private sector nuclear-power research, 61n77

R&D, 8–9, 37–42, 109, 110

reorganization of bureaus and laboratories, 64–66

Special Projects Office, 54, 65, 112

staffing issues for laboratories, 47–48, 48n36

system command structure, 64–65

technical bureau functions, 8–9, 110–11, 112

See also specific divisions, laboratories, and offices.

Navy Electronics Laboratory Center, 65

Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory, 58–59

Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., 43, 43n15

Nike-Hercules missile, 31, 31n54

Nike Zeus missile, 96

North American Aviation, 13n9, 89

Northrop, 13n9, 89n63

Northwestern University, 28n46

Nuclear power

Navy research, 41, 61n77, 62–64

postwar research developments and focus, 21–23

uranium-fission research, 62

X-rays and, 29

Nuclear weapons, 1, 21–22, 51, 68, 71–72, 87–88, 87n61, 98, 99, 106

OAR. See Office of Aerospace Research; Office of Air Research.

Office of Aerospace Research (OAR), 70, 78n29, 101

Office of Air Research (OAR), 69

Office of the Assistant for Operational Readiness, 82

Office of the Chief of Research and Development, 18–19
148 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Office of Naval Research (ONR)

academic research in nuclear physics, 21n31

establishment, 4, 9, 17, 38

functions, 9, 38, 110

model contracting agency for Army and Air Force, 9

Naval Research Laboratory funding and, 38, 48

Office of Ordnance Research (OOR), 18, 19, 23, 28, 28n46

Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)

anticipated closure, 75

budget, 81n39

closure, 16, 17

distribution of R&D funds, 3, 75

establishment, 41

functions and responsibilities, 15–16, 41

research contracts to universities and industrial firms, 82, 91

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), 6, 7, 19, 34, 35, 38, 39, 66, 70–71, 

80, 109

Ogden Arsenal, Utah, 12n3

ONR. See Office of Naval Research.

OOR. See Office of Ordnance Research.

Ordnance Department

allocation of funds for R&D, 17

arsenal functions, 13n6

arsenals assigned to, 12

Davies Committee and, 16–17

establishment, 12

OOR establishment, 18

organizational separation of R&D from production, 16

repair and storage facilities, 12n3

See also Office of Ordnance Research; Office of Scientific Research 

 and Development.

OSD. See Office of the Secretary of Defense.

OSRD. See Office of Scientific Research and Development.

P–59 jet fighter, 88

Particle-beam weapons, 72, 96, 98, 99, 106

Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., 9, 72, 82, 89, 90

Peacekeeper missile, 97

Pershing missile system, 86

Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.

3.5-inch rocket-launcher development, 29n48

Atomic Applications Laboratory, 22–23

establishment, 11

functions, 12

M8 rocket development, 22
Index 149

Matador missile development, 22

nuclear weapons R&D, 22–23

postwar diversification, 22

rocket and missile development, 14–15

Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark., 13n6

Polaris missile, 53, 54n55, 86, 96, 112

Poseidon missile, 53

Postwar period

arsenal system functions, 8, 11, 13

changing R&D after World War II, 15–21

demobilization issues, 12, 21

expansion of Navy technical capabilities, 8

growth of civilian research infrastructure, 5

outsourcing of weapons production, 13, 34

staffing issues, 20n28

variation in arsenal production levels, 13n7

Power, Lt. Gen. Thomas, 84

President, U.S. See Reagan, Ronald.

Private sector. See Industrial firms.

Putt, Brig. Gen. Donald, 78–79, 109

Quantum mechanics, 26, 26n42

Quartermaster Corps, 12n4

Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, 89, 89n64, 101n94

Raritan Arsenal, N.J., 12n3

RDB. See Research and Development Board.

Read, Thomas, 26n43, 27n44

Reagan, Ronald, 7

Redstone Arsenal, Ala., 13n6, 22n33

Redstone missile, 96

Republic Aircraft, 97

Research and Development Board (RDB), 16n15, 39

Research and Development Division, 17, 18, 40

Rickover, Capt. Hyman, 62–63

Ridenour, Louis, 78–79, 109

Ridenour Report, 78–79, 109

Rock Island Arsenal, Ill.

betatron research, 31

establishment, 11

functions, 12, 29

organizational realignment, 30

rocket and missile development, 14–15, 29, 29n49

staffing issues, 20n28

X-ray research, 29–31
150 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

Rockefeller, John D., 5

Rocket research and development

Arnold Engineering Development Center and, 96

Bureau of Ordnance and, 40

high-velocity aircraft rockets, 49

Honest John rockets, 23, 29

Little John rockets, 29

Naval Ordnance Test Station and, 45–46, 45n25, 49–50

Picatinny Arsenal and, 14–15, 22, 29n48

rocket motors for Nike-Hercules missiles, 31

Rock Island Arsenal and, 14–15, 29, 29n49

SUBROC missile development, 44

Zuni rocket research, 50

Rockwell International, 97, 98, 101

Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colo., 13n6

Rome Air Development Center

AI research, 103–04

avionics research, 92–93

C3

I research, 103

early research focus, 71

electronic hardware development, 91, 92–93

electronics research, 9, 81–82, 102

expansion of research activities, 103

industrial contractor collaboration, 103–04

management of external R&D contracts, 93

procurement function, 92–93

radiation resistance of semiconductor devices, 103n101

SAB. See Scientific Advisory Board.

SAG. See Scientific Advisory Group.

SAGE. See Semi-Automatic Ground Environment.

Salary Reform Act of 1962, 48n36

San Antonio Arsenal, Tex., 12n3

Saville, Maj. Gen. Gordon, 79

Schriever, Maj. Gen. Bernard, 89, 94, 95, 107, 112

Science—The Endless Frontier (Bush), 3

Science, The Key to Air Supremacy (von Kármán), 76, 78

Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), 77

Scientific Advisory Group (SAG), 76–77, 85

SDI. See Strategic Defense Initiative.

Seawolf, 63–64

Secretary of the Navy, 39

Seitz, Frederick, 26n43

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense system, 91

Sergeant missile system, 86

Service, Supply, and Procurement Division, 18
Index 151

Sidewinder missile, 9, 49, 49n40, 66

Signal Corps. See Army Signal Corps.

Skate submarine, 64

Skipjack submarine, 64

Solid-state electronics, 2, 23, 53, 67, 71

Solid-state physics, 14, 23, 26, 110

Sonar, 44, 58–60, 62

Special Projects Office, 54, 65, 112

Special Weapons Center

AEC testing functions and, 87–88

atomic and nonnuclear weapons testing, 9, 82

environmental impact studies, 98

establishment, 87

expansion, 87

geophysics research, 102, 102n99

laser weapons, 98–99

nuclear weapons testing, 71–72, 87–88

particle accelerator research, 99

R&D expenditures for 1951, 87

Weapons Laboratory, 98–99

Springfield Armory, Mass.

closure, 8, 20–21, 33

contributions of industrial research and, 14

establishment, 11

failure to develop replacement for M1 rifle, 35, 35n64

functions, 11

metallurgical research, 14

Sputnik, 93, 94, 96

Stever, H. Guyford, 94–95

Stever Committee Report, 94–95

Strassman, Fritz, 62

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 98

Submarine rocket (SUBROC), 44, 45

SUBROC. See Submarine rocket.

Superconductivity, 15, 33

Terrier missile system, 53

TF33 jet engine, 96

Thor missile, 89

Titanium, 27, 56–57, 57n64

Toward New Horizons (Scientific Advisory Group), 76–77

Transportation Corps, 12n4

Trident missile, 53

Underwater Sound Laboratory, 42n14, 58, 59, 65

United Aircraft Corporation, Pratt and Whitney Division, 96–97

University of Illinois, 29, 78
152 Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense

University of Pennsylvania, 25–26, 26n43, 28n46

Uranium, 62–63

Vandenberg, General Hoyt, 78–79

Von Kármán, Theodore

AEDC and, 85

recommends separating R&D from production, 77–78, 109

Science, The Key to Air Supremacy, 76, 78

and Scientific Advisory Group, 77

Toward New Horizons study, 76–77

Vulcan Gatling cannon, 87

WADC. See Wright Air Development Center.

WADD. See Wright Air Development Division.

War Department, 11, 17, 68, 73

War Department General Staff, 17, 72

War Production Board, 3

Watertown Arsenal, Mass.

closure, 8, 21, 33–34

contributions of industrial research and, 14

establishment, 11, 24

functions, 11

Materials Research Laboratory, 28

metallurgical research, 14, 24, 28, 34

operating division, 24n38

Watervliet Arsenal, N.Y.

autofrettage research, 32–33

establishment, 11

functions, 11, 33

metallurgical research, 32

organizational realignment, 32

prototype weapon-systems research, 31–32

Research and Engineering Division, 32

solid-state physics research, 32

staffing issues, 20n28, 32

superconductivity research, 15, 33

Watson Laboratories, 91, 91n70, 92

WDD. See Western Development Division.

Weapon-system concept, 70, 70n9, 72, 82–83, 84n48, 100

Western Development Division (WDD), 89, 107, 112

Westinghouse Electric, 25–26, 26n43, 56, 62–63, 90n69

White, General Thomas, 94–95

Wind tunnels, 75, 82, 85n53, 86, 96

Wolfe, Lt. Gen. Kenneth, 78, 109–10

World War I, 12, 43, 51, 68, 73, 101

World War II

aircraft industry expansion, 74
Index 153

Army arsenal system functions, 11, 12–13

civilian scientific establishment and military services, 2

Navy shipyard network, 37

outsourcing of weapons production to industry, 12–13, 12n5

private-sector weapons development, 2

wartime expenditures for arsenals, 13n6

wartime weapons developed, 21

See also Postwar period.

Wright Air Development Center (WADC)

B–58 bomber development and, 83–84

directorates managed by, 84n50

metallurgy research, 84n51

renamed Wright Air Development Division, 95

weapon-system concept and, 82–83, 100

wind-tunnel and structures branches, 84–85, 85n53

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base renamed as, 81

Wright Air Development Division (WADD)

Aeronautical Research Laboratory, 101

avionics research, 100, 101

electronics R&D, 101n94

metallurgy research, 101

R&D diversification, 99

renamed Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories, 102

restructuring, 100

staffing issues, 100

Wright Air Development Center renamed as, 95

Wright Field, Ohio

Engineering Division, 74–75

jet-engine research and, 71

major Air Force R&D efforts, 9

Materiel Division, 73, 73n13, 74

pre–World War II R&D, 67–68

research breakthroughs, 74

transfer of Air Materiel Command functions to, 67–68

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 74n18, 81, 81n37, 93, 102, 104n106

X–15 program, 96

X-rays

betatron research, 29, 30, 31

description, 29

R&D efforts, 29–31

sources, 29

See also High-energy X-rays.

Zuni rocket, 50