Evening star., 1952-04-25
The Atoms Effect on Armies

Like the one set off in the same area last
November, the latest atomic explosion in Nevada
has involved troop participation of a type de-
signed to help the Army adjust itself-along
with the Navy and Air Force-to the revolu-
tionary implications Of nuclear ornaments.
The ornaments are many and varied. Far
from being weapons whose use is limited to such
strategic targets as cities, they can be employed
tactically-in the form OF bombs, guided missiles,
artillery shells" etc.-against ground forces in
an active theater of war. Accordingly, in terms
of both planning and training, the infantry and
armor Of land power must now reckon with pro-
found changes in some of the most basic mill
tary tenets of the past.
Although the Army has not as yet issued
any detailed comment, Tuesdays exercise-in
which the GIs were dug in closer to the ex-
ploding point than those who took part In the
test last November-apparently had four objec-
tives: O To condition the troops psychologically
against exaggerated ideas of residual radioac-
tivity; (O to help spread the same conditioning
through the ranks by seeing to it that those
troops were drawn from units in all parts of
the country and thus when they return to their
stations, will share their experience on a wide
spread basis; 90 to begin building up a corps
Of trained men equipped to instruct others in
atomic warfare; and az to demonstrate on a
small scale how an advancing force, after being
supported by an A-weapon attack on an enemy
area, can move into that area and take 1t over
before the enemy has a chance to recover.
These objectives differ considerably from
those of the CT participation in last November's
test. At that time in addition to the psyche
logical factor, the Army declared itself to be
primarily interested in measuring the physio-
logical reaction of infantry and armored groups
to atomic attack in the field. In other words,
the purpose then was to find out as much as
possible about the ability or inability Of troops
and their equipment to survive such an attack
q defensive exercise in contrast to Tuesdays
experiment in offensive operations In Novem
ber, incidentally, eyewitness observers of the
Nevada explosion voiced the opinion that
single such explosion would be enough-given
accurate delvery-to wipe out whole division
of soldiers if the division were reasonably con-
centrated"
Plainly enough as emphasized by General
Eisenhower in his recent report on the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, nuclear arma-
ments are greatly changing the nature OF ground
warfare. It is not inconceivable, for example,
that they are leading to time when the vast
numerical superiority of RuSsias land forces
will be rendered obsolete-obsolete in the sense
that it would be suicidal for those forces to mass
and concentrate for an all-out attack on NATO
armies formidably equipped with tactical
A-weapons.
This subject, of course, is still extremely
speculative. Even so as far as ground warfare
is concerned there is good reason to believe that
science is shifting the advantage to the defender
and creating tremendous new problems for at
tacking infantry and armor, regardless OF num-
bers. Quite obviously, our Army-like the army
of every major power-must train accordingly.