Brave New Weapons

Beamingly happy to be back among soldiers, Dwight Eisenhower spent a day at the Fort Benning, Ga. Army Infantry Center last week, watching a demonstration of new Army weapons and equipment undreamed of when he was Allied Supreme Commander in Europe during World War II. Most impressive:

P: The Davy Crockett tactical nuclear weapon, a sort of mortar that fires an atomic shell roughly 5 in. in diameter, with a punch enormously greater than the biggest conventional artillery shell ever fired. The Jeep-mounted version is fired by two men, has a range of five miles; the lighter, three-mile version is carried and fired by three soldiers on foot. The House Appropriations Committee was so impressed with the Davy Crockett that it voted funds for an extra 6,000 in addition to the number (secret) already provided for in the Administration budget.

P: The self-propelled 8-in. gun, weighing only 27 tons, but packing a mighty nuclear wallop.

P: The M-60 tank, with a British-made, 105-mm. gun instead of the M48 tank's 90-mm. gun. Running on diesel fuel instead of gasoline, the M-60 can travel 250 miles without refueling, as compared with the M-48's 160 miles. Because it uses aluminum fuel tanks, wheels and other parts, the 51-ton M-60 is actually lighter than the M-48, although the engine and fuel system are heavier. The Army has 360 of the new tanks on order (from Chrysler Corp.), and the 1961 budget provides for an additional 720.

P: The Pershing solid-fuel ballistic missile, with a range of more than 300 miles. Mounted on its own tracked vehicle, which serves as transporter and launcher, the Pershing is an enormous improvement over earlier battlefield ballistic missiles, e.g., the Sergeant, which moved in three segments in three trucks, took the crew half an hour to assemble and fire.

P: The Little John tactical missile, with a range of ten miles. It weighs less than one-seventh as much as its predecessor. Honest John (800 lbs. v. 5,800), can easily be transported by helicopter.

P: An assault bridge that is carried in a folded position on a tracked carrier, unfolds mechanically across spans up to 600 ft. Two minutes after arriving at the river's edge, the carrier can cross on its own bridge.

P: The phenomenally accurate SS-11 anti-tank rocket, developed and manufactured in France, with a range of more than two miles. The rocket is fired from a portable launcher, is guided to its target through a long wire it trails behind. Three times the SS-11 was fired at the Benning show, and three times it scored a direct hit on a tank more than a mile away. At the third hit, Ike pushed his hat back, grinned and exclaimed: "Holy cow!"

Army brass hoped that Dwight Eisenhower would see his way to giving the Army more money to buy the new weapons. With most of the Defense Department's procurement money going into bombers, long-range missiles, air-defense systems and nuclear submarines over the past decade, U.S. infantry hardware has remained largely unchanged since the Korean war. Alone among major powers, the U.S. still equips troops with a World War II rifle, the M1; only lately have infantry units begun to get a trickle of new M-14 rifles with the standard NATO 7.62-mm. caliber. Last week the House added an extra $208 million for new Army equipment to the $1.3 billion listed for Army procurement in the Administration's new budget--but that $208 million falls far short of what the Army wants.

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