Atomics in the Field
By LAIN COLQUHOUN
I. N lives and property the cold war may be less wasteful than the hot, but it is quite as extravagant in the treasure it pours out in research into lethal weapons. There is logic in this, of course. The object of rearmament is security from strength, and the decisive factor in military strength is the possession of weapons of war which your adversary lacks and against which he has no adequate defence. It was on this theory that America hoped to keep the peace of the post-war world by a combination of U.N.O. and the atom bomb. Production of the bomb in Russia destroyed the hope, but not the theory. America, not content with quantitative superiority in atom bombs or in conventional armaments, has been engaged in a prolonged and intensive campaign to develop tactical atomic weapons for use on the field of battle. It is as if King Henry V, while maintaining the mass production of good yew-bows and cloth-yard shafts, had turned his backroom boys on to inventing a high-velocity repeating-rifle. The advantage, even at Agincourt, would have been impressive.
In America the backroom boys have been making rapid progress. At the beginning of this. month Mr. Gordon Dean, chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, announced officially that America is in possession of tactical atomic weapons. The Commission, he said, was working toward the position where the United States would have a complete atomic armoury. "This would include artillery shells, guided missiles, torpedoes, rockets and bombs for ground support air- craft among others, and it would include big ones for big situa- tions and little ones—and this is important—for little situations."
This statement merely confirmed rumours that have been grow- ing steadily stronger for the last twelve or eighteen months. It is not known, of course, just what weapons in Mr. Dean's list have actually been developed, and whether any of them have reached the production stage. From what is known, however, it can be assumed that the Americans have found a way of getting rid of the heavy casing which was necessary for the first atomic bombs in order to prevent premature explosion or the dissipation of the atomic charge when the firing mechanism was detonated. If this is,. so, then the provision of small atom bombs and atomic warheads for rockets and torpedoes is a com- paratively simple matter, and these have probably been made already. Atomic shells should present no insuperable difficulties, but the design of the special artillery which would probably be required to fire them is a different business about which no information at all is to be had.
It is morally certain that America now has prototype atomic weapons which can be used against enemy troops wherever artillery, tanks, rockets or tactical bombers would be used today. So far there is no sign that any of the new devices have gone into mass-production, but they are at least ready for their final testing with troops. Any day now, in the testing ground in Nevada American troops will stage an exercise in which atomic detona- tions take place. It is at least unlikely that the projected armoury of atomic weapons is much greater than has been surmised above. There was a time when atomic dust was thought to be the weapon of the future. But outside scientific romances this has never been a serious proposition. Until man has learned to control the winds, radio-active dust in any form is liable to be as dangerous to friend as it is to foe. Nor is there any likelihood of any type of atomic small-arms ammunition. The role of the bullet in modern battle is limited. It is required to kill its man at ranges up to a thousand yards at the outside. The conven- tional bullet does this efficiently and cheaply. Even if it were possible, there would be no point at all in harnessing nuclear fission for the rifleman.
Even without that however, the impact of tactical atomic weapons upon military planning will be quite sufficient. Briefly, to the strategic superiority which the atom bomb has given America the new weapons will add a tactical superiority which, while it is one-sided, may be overwhelming. This is a develop- ment of the first importance, for the great weakness of the atom bomb has been its outrageous power. Because of the range of its destructive effect it could not be used against an army with whom one was actually at grips. Its role has been limited to long-range bombardment. Its possible targets have been enemy cities, industrial centres and communications. And, again because of the scale on which it operates, there have been moral inhibitions against using the bomb against such targets. The atom bomb, in fact, has never been the answer to masses of troops and tanks launched into invasion of friendly territory. Nor has it been the answer to military power used in penny packets. It is, and it will remain, a weapon of last resort in a total war. Hence the attempts which the democracies are making to re-equip themselves with conventional armaments.
The arrival of atom weapons on the battlefield will change this picture. It will be possible to concentrate them against, and to limit their effects to, the enemy forces. It will therefore be possible to use them much more readily. They will fcicus mass destruction where it is wanted. They will therefore place at a disadvantage the mass concentration of men or tanks. It is foolish to suggest, as The Economist and The Daily Telegraph have done, that these new weapons will be purely defensive, in the sense that they can only be used to make ground impassable and so deny it to the enemy. They are, in fact, offensive weapons in' the tactical sense of the term. Their development was encouraged by tests at Eniwetok last May. These revealed that the dangers of radiation after an atomic detonation are less lingering than .had been thought. Troops could go forward quite quickly on the heels of atomic shelling. The tests also showed that, outside the epicentre of the blast, the human body could withstand the shock of atom bombs better than had been expected. Atom weapons, therefore, could be. used in fairly close support. This means that they could be successfully used in the modern concept of elastic defence which consists of a series of retreats and advances. Atom weapons are not a new kind of Maginot Line, and there is no point at all in working up the Maginot mentality about them. Nor, of course, are they the inevitable weapons of tomorrow. It is possible that other devices may be found which are much cheaper, and equally effective against troops and armour. The use of flame is one possible alternative. The extent of its use in Korea, in the form of jellied petrol or napalm, has not been very widely realised. Napalm is a very terrible weapon. Each discharge is lethal and widespread. It is simple to use and very cheap to make. It will almost certainly have a horrible part to play if the third world war is ever allowed to begin. It is hardly likely, however, to take the place of atom weapons once these can be mass produced. For one thing, Russia already has napalm. It has been used at least once by the Com- munists in Korea. She has not, so far as we know, developed atomic devices for use in the field. It is true that a fortnight ago Mr. Stalin said that Russia had atomic bombs of various calibres. If by this he meant that Russia had baby bombs," then the other tactical weapons should be hers in a matter of time—but it will take her longer to make them in quantity than it will take in America. It will always pay America to go in for weapons which offer advantage at the expense of complicated production technique. If she can force a race under these con- ditions, she oda most probably maintain a lead.
In .any case it is wrong to assume that atomic weapons will always be ruinously expensive. They may be ruinous, but not necessarily in the economic sense. Senator McMahon, chairman. of the Congress Atomic Energy Committee, has calculated that by vigorous mass production the cost of an atom bomb could be brought below that of a modern tank. He estimates that if the American forces were to be equipped with atomic rather than with conventional weapons, the taxpayer in the United States could knock ten thousand million pounds a year off his armament bill. It is just possible that the Senator's figures owe more to a sense of the draniatic than to good arithmetic. But they are not so wild as to be ruled completely out of court. Some- time within the next eighteen months, or within the next three years at the outside, atomic weapons are going to be in the hands of soldiers, sailors and airmen. If the Korean war drags on that shattered land may be the first to see the next refinement in destruction. In the short view this might be a good thing for the democracies. Its deterrent effect might be very salutary, for it would demonstrate convincingly that science had been brought to the help of the small battalions. It might produce a balance of power in the world which does not really exist at the moment.
It might. But it is just as likely to produce the ultimate catastrophe. If a world war started, the use of tactical atom weapons by one side might be the quickest way to producing the extreme situation where full-scale atoni bombs would be used by the other. It would be safer to get the whole thing under international control before the baby bombs set off the bigger ones.
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