Evening star., 1956-12-31

/ think they will continue TO
build. Some day they may well
become quite a naval force in
the Pacific.
We used to think many years
ago that the Chinese were not
good sailors. The reason for that
Is that they were not interested
in the sea, except for junks and
transport. But the Chinese can
be good sailors. The Chinese Ma
tionalists are good sailors and
there is no reason why the Chi
nese Communists couldn't be-
You see, the difference between
land warfare and naval warfare
is that in land warfare you can
lose a battle and usually fight
again. You can lose a battle a
little bit and not many people
get killed. In naval warfare, If
you lose a battle. you usually get
wiped out, or nearly SO, and the
other side comes of pretty much
In control. You have got to ac-
cept that sort of business before
you are a good sailor. The Chi
nese in past hiStOry-except per-
haps in the 18th or 18th CEN
turies-didn accept it. But now
the Russians have helped the
Chinese Communists and they
are pretty good. They are build
Ing up navy.
Hillman: Admiral, are we
modifying our Navy 10 meet
modern conditions, and to what
extent are we doing that?
Admiral Burke: Yes, we are.
What we have to do first is to
defeat all the attacks that can
be made against us. whatever
they are. and wherever they
come from. II it is a threat
against control of the sea, we
have to defeat it. If it is the
airplane. or submarine. or mine,
or sabotage-no matter what
we have to be able to defeat it.
Threats Change
Well. threats change with
time and conditions. In the last
var. the threat was air. and we
defeated it. Now the threat is
Submarines. air. mines and mis-
sjles. We have to defeat them.
TO do that we change and inn
prove our tactics and our
weapons. We have to have the
capability of projecting our mill
tary power from the United
States to wherever we want to
use it; that is all of our military
p0wer-Army, Air Force. and
everything else. That means we
have got to have the capability
of going up against whatever
tire enemy tries to use against
US.
The Soviets have some pretty
good aircraft. SO we have got
to have modern, really good
carrier aircraft. That means
high speeds. heavy weight car
rying, and long range for us.
We have got to have long-range
aircraft to reach in and get the
enemy weapons before they can
get up. So the Navy has gone
into that kind Of aircraft. We
have the ADD. We have other
new carrier. aircraft on the
drawing board. which we think
will be even better than the
ADD. These new planes are
heavy, they are fast and they
land at high speeds. Landing
speeds for aircraft have gone
up about three knots per year
2 that is for all aircraft. We have
to build new carriers to handle
those aircraft-just as the Air
Force has to build new airfields
new hangarS-longer, heavier
runways to handle their aircraft
We have to design aircraft very
specially to get low-speed land
Ing characteristics for carrier
landings, That is why the Navy's
new interceptor. the F8U CRU
sader, tilts its wings and rotates
lts wings. The airplanes have
TO be good so that is the first
thing that you have to have.
Useful But Limited
Then you have to have carrier
and ship equipment. Take guns
for example-antiaircraf guns.
They are limited in usefulness.
very limited now. They are still
useful, but very limited. That
Is why we are going in for mis-
siles. We are installing missiles
in ships Just as fast as we can.
Yet. we don't want to install
them too fast. We don't want
10 build a lot of expensive mis-
siles at one time and then find
out We can get better ones. We
don't want to stock up on every
thing this year and get nothing
next year. We want a regular
rate. We can always change
plans and change course a little
bit.
What We are doing right now
in this transition period is
modernizine and converting all
ships In addition. all the new
submarines will have nuclear
power--that has paid of All
ships. destroyers and bigger. will
have a guided missile battery so
that they can shoot down planes
a. 10000 feet or 10000 feet alti-
tude-20 miles away. Our cleo
tronic equipment has TO be very
good Our radars have TO be
able TO detect aircraft at long
ranges and be accurate enough
so that our missiles can hit the
targets and our fighters can in
tercept. That means big an
tennae--snd expense.
We have 70 do the same thing
with antisubmarine equipment
We have TO get anti-submarin
equipment that can detect the
submarine at long ranges. We
have 70 be able 10 identify the
submarine at long ranges. and