The Atomic Pinpoint

In Exercise Long Horn, the vast Army-Air Force mock war in Texas, the green-clad Aggressor forces had just seized a position deep behind the defenders' lines and were massing for a new attack. Suddenly a blank mortar shell exploded over the invaders' heads with a roar and a burst of smoke. The umpires stunned the Aggressors with a terse ruling: 1,600 of their men had just been put out of action; the exploding shell symbolized a devastating hit by a revolutionary new weapon, atomic artillery.

This week the U.S. Army and the Atomic Energy Commission confirmed what Exercise Long Horn hinted at. The atomic bomb, once a massive city-buster suitable only for use in strategic air attack, has been tamed and reshaped as a major new tactical weapon for the U.S. Army. Its bulk has been compressed and slimmed into a workable artillery shell. The shell can be fired with pinpoint accuracy by a new highly mobile atomic artillery piece. The atomic cannon is already in production.

The Green Light. The Army has dreamed of drafting the atom into the artillery ever since it heard about Hiroshima. But the dream was wild and impractical until the atomic scientists discovered how to bring off small, controlled, atomic explosions. Then a young Army ordnance expert who is also a nuclear physicist, Colonel Angelo R. del Campo, drew up some sketches and took them to the AEC laboratories at Los Alamos. Working in high secrecy, West Pointer del Campo spent months juggling the requirements of artillery against the requirements of an atomic charge. (Sample: the mechanical parts of an atomic bomb need only be strong enough to withstand the bumps of turbulent air; the mechanical parts of an atomic shell must be 4,000 times as strong to stand up under the explosion when the gun is fired.) One day Del Campo telephoned his Pentagon bosses: "I've just returned from Los Alamos and the light is green."

Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins hustled the design to a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The J.C.S. ran it through the wringer of the interservice Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, headed by able General John E. Hull. The W.S.E.G. approved. The Navy, wise to the ways of big guns, pitched in to help with the construction of the first shell and first gun. The first test (made without an atomic charge in the shell) was a shattering failure, but after subsequent tests were successful, Collins gave the order for large-scale production.

Lineal Descendant. The A-cannon is not designed to replace divisional artillery, the 105-mm. and 155-mm. howitzers. It is what is known as "Army" artillery, a lineal descendant of such famous oldtime corps performers as Long Tom and Big Bertha, a type of heavy artillery brought to the front only for such special purposes as siege action or destruction of an enemy massed for a river crossing. Its use against lesser concentrations would be militarily ineffective as well as prohibitively expensive. At long range the big gun is four times as accurate as the average field piece, and can shoot four types of non-atomic shells.

From a distance, the big A-cannon assembly looks like a loaded railroad flatcar, with engine cabs at both ends. When it is ready to leave the road to go into action, the two cabs rev up to a deafening roar and swivel around to push the flatcar sideways (see cut) across the terrain to firing position. Once in position, the cabs help lower the gun bed to the ground and then pull out from under.

The whole assembly weighs about 75 tons, but it is still light enough to cross a division bridge (i.e., a bridge built to withstand any standard piece of equipment in an Army division). On the highway it can travel about 35 m.p.h. It can cross rough country and ford streams five feet deep. The gun assembly has a traveling range of 250 miles. And it can fit comfortably behind the clamshell doors of a Navy landing ship.

Groundman's Answer. The critics of atomic artillery, who have battled Collins for the past two years over his expensive A-cannon project, hold that the A-cannon can do nothing that an airplane can't do by dropping a tactical atomic bomb. Collins answers back with a seasoned groundman's vehemence. In bad weather, airplanes just can't perform tactical missions within the cramped confines of the battlefield. And even in good weather, one miscalculation by an atomic bombardier could panic a whole division on his own side.

Collins and his artillery experts admit that the A-cannon is just an interim weapon. Their long-range plans revolve around ground-to-ground guided missiles, another Army development project. These are still too inaccurate for any kind of close-in use. But when the aim is perfected, the missiles will doubtless outdate atomic artillery because they will exceed artillery's hitting power, and exceed its reach as well.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.