Dreamboat

The Navy's rocket-belching LSMR, improvised in the middle of World War II, was an efficient, lethal little vessel. As a curtain raiser to amphibious landings, it could briefly match the firepower of a modern cruiser with its close-in salvos of rockets. The enemy on the beach quickly came to respect its sting, but the unhappy crewmen aboard just as quickly discovered that the LSMR was not designed as a pleasure craft. In the calmest seas, it shook like a dog emerging from a bath; in hurricane weather, it performed better, sloughing wildly over the long sea swells--but it was worth a man's life to step out on deck.

Below decks, the situation was hideous. Buttoned up for battle, the LSMR became as breathless as a steam room. Temperatures often hit 140DEG, posing a serious hazard of debilitation among the crew and a downright perilous situation in the magazines. Sailors slept face to foot in cramped, fetid racks of three, and life was a reasonable approximation of a Roman galley. But all that has changed. Last week, on the fir-fringed shore of Puget Sound, the Navy proudly unveiled the IFS-_I (Inshore Fire Support Ship), a ship that combines all the striking power of its ancestor, the LSMR, with a new concept of life afloat.

"Bobtailed Cruiser." At the commissioning in Bremerton Navy Yard, the Navy appropriately christened its prototype ship the U.S.S. Carronade, after a snub-nosed naval cannon developed in Scotland in 1779. The Carronade looks sawed in half--it has an awesome, cruiser-like bow with eight rocket launchers planted on a forward deck which slants downward to the steel-skinned superstructure, then ends abruptly. It looks, in the words of the Carronade's crewmen, like "a bobtailed cruiser."

Although the precise firepower of the IFS-_I is secret, informed estimates put it at twice that of the old LSMR. Aside from its death-dealing capabilities, the Carronade had some eye-opening surprises. To make life afloat more livable (and more attractive to recruits), the Navy spent $6,000,000, turned Raymond Loewy and his designers loose on the plans. The result is hardly the equivalent of first-class accommodations aboard the Queen Elizabeth, but it is a far cry from the older rocket ships.

Spaciousness and privacy are emphasized from stem to stern. The traditional three-tiered bunks for crewmen remain --but with a difference. They have been ' compartmentalized like Pullman berths, with lightweight, perforated "privacy partitions." Each bunk is equipped with a bed lamp and a pocket for books. Each tier of three has a fireproof, "Sandbrown" curtain, and most are ventilated with electric fans. There are nearly twice as many lockers as sailors aboard. Each compartment has folding chairs, a table and a hi-fi radio speaker as standard equipment.

Frustrated Gulls. The mess is a pleasant spot,-with plastic-topped tables for four men, russet leather and aluminum chairs and a 21-inch TV set. Near the chow line is a "gedunk" soda fountain. The gleaming galley has most of the comforts of modern living, including an electric mixer, a potato peeler, a dishwasher, and a garbage grinder that should frustrate gulls and porpoises. Elsewhere on the ship are a 15-lb. washing machine and a steam dryer and presser.

Happily for watch-standers, all decks are covered with a composition tile that is a lot easier on the feet than the usual naked steel. Fluorescent lighting has replaced the traditional harsh, caged lightbulbs of older ships. Hatch-openings, rocket launchers and other shin-cracking hazards are sprinkled with buttons that glow at night. Throughout, the ship is a symphony in color-dynamics: "Sarasota brown," "Clipper blue," pastel green. Marine prints and woodcuts adorn the bulkheads.

Discussing the theory behind the new comforts, the Carronade's skipper, Lieut. Commander Daniel O'Connell Doran, said: "An American boy is used to home and having his own room and all we have to draw on are American boys." Among the Carronade's 137 crewmen and seven officers, only the newest apprentice seamen were blase about their ship. The oldtimers were astounded. "I can walk around," said Boatswain's Mate Bill Smith, who is 6 ft. 6 in. tall, and weighs 240 Ibs. "Look at my head miss the overhead. That pastel green overhead. That Sarasota sand overhead. I've had a stiff neck for 13 years."

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