Weapons Systems
By OLIVER STEWART The term 'weapons system' was probably first used in the United States of America, but it was quickly adopted here and the idea behind it was enthusiastically canvassed. Yet Skybolt has been designed and is being built and the V-bombers were designed and hay:, been built without refer- ence to one another. Putting them together will be the outcome of a comparatively recent politi- cal bright idea primarily intended to offset the criticisms of static defence systems and of what was called the Maginot Line mentality expressed in the Thor sites. By no stretch of the imagina- tion can a V-bomber carrying a Skybolt be called a weapons system. And that is one reason why there is some doubt about its tactical validity. Putting the Skybolt into a sub-sonic bomber is bringing together two articles of widely different ages, the fruits of widely spaced periods of tech- nological and scientific development. It is as if 16-inch guns were to be mounted in wooden sail- ing ships.
The view that mobility is desirable in the bases from which ballistic missiles can be launched is sound. It is an extension of the traditional mili- tary emphasis on mobility. And the inference may be drawn that the higher the speed of the mobile launching platform, the better. The fast nuclear-powered submarine is well fitted to be a mobile launching platform for Polaris. They are of about the same vintage and are designed for one another. With equal cogency it may be argued that a supersonic bomber would be the best kind of launching platform for Skybolt. But there is no British supersonic bomber.
In addition to this tactical puzzle, there is an economic puzzle. The decision to buy Skybolt has been hailed as an 'economy.' The total sum involved will be, it is said, but a fraction of what would have been required if Britain had sought to develop her own airlaunched ballistic missile —and that in spite of the useful preliminary knowledge that has been gained with the tacti- cally similar, but technically different, stand-off bomb. But the money, instead of being spent in the United Kingdom, will be spent in the United States of America. The taxpayers' contri- butions will not be redistributed here, they will be sent abroad. Economists have not so far helped aeronautical specialists to understand what this means. On the face of it, it would seem that those branches of the aircraft industry which have specialised in missile components must expect a further reduction in the amount of government money coming to them.
If the British motoring community were sud- denly to buy all its motor-cars from Detroit, there would be massive savings in the money spent in the United Ki.igdom on drawing offices, steel mills, foundries, machine shops, erecting shops and the rest, but they would not be savings of a kind likely to be appreciated in Coventry. Every time the Government buys or helps others (for example NATO) to buy from the American aircraft industry, it must weaken the British air- craft industry, and make it more difficult to keep the design teams together.
Without a defence purpose the regrouped air- craft industry will tend to be top-heavy and will find it increasingly difficult to reorient its activities towards the civil aircraft markets now developing. So hopes that the government- sponsored reshaping of the aircraft industry would make it in any way stronger are fading, not so much from intrinsic troubles as from the unforeseen changes in defence doctrine. It begins to look as if the pessimism of those who adversely criticised the changes is going to be justified.
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