European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 8, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                These capabilities were necessary or defending tanks knocking out a tank requires precision and an attacking plane armed with homing missiles must first get close enough Tor the Pilot to see the target and identify it As an enemy. The demands Lor Long Range and All weather capability assured that the diva. Intended to be relatively cheap and simple would be neither. The Range Lor example meant the gun would require High Caliper ammunition. The bigger shells in turn meant lower rounds could tie led through the gun each minute. The 40mm ammunition that was selected tired about 600 rounds a minute As against up to 3.000 rounds Lor the 20mm Vulcan. To compensate Lor having ewer rounds to fire at a target the designers decided they would use a proximity round triggered to detonate several Leet irom a target and Spray a Cloud of shrapnel and Tungsten pellets. Thee is disagreement about How effective proximity ammunition is against Well armoured aircraft but on one Point there is Little debate it is extremely expensive costing More than $200 a round. Moreover proximity rounds have Little effect on a tank so if the gunner wanted to join in he ground fighting the ammunition would have to be changed. The demand for an All weather gun meant the weapon would have to be heavily automated. Lasers would be needed to gauge the distance to the target. Radar would have to track both the enemy aircraft and the rounds fired irom the anti aircraft gun. A computer would be required to calculate the Likely course of the attacker and Correct the aim of the gun. Such an automated control system according to several estimates added As much As $2 million apiece to the weapon s ultimate $6.5 million Cost and was a prime source of trouble on the testing Range. Officials familiar with the gun s test results said the computer software was never Able to sort out Low flying targets and especially hovering helicopters from the clutter of Trees rocks and Hills. Evan before the army had settled on a contractor in 1981, the Pentagon s vision of whal the weapon would do had already begun to change. Intelligence reports from the War in Afghanistan had talked of a menacing soviet helicopter with the ability to hover at great distance from a target six Kilometres and lire guided missiles. In an interview the under Secretary of the army James r. Ambrose said we. The army did our very Best to Point out to the world not All of which wanted to listen that a gun that could fire Lour Kilometres could t hit anything at six no matter  indeed Ambrose said the army had argued that the maximum imaginable threat of the Long Range helicopter was largely theoretical soviet pilots would not be Able to hit targets from six Kilometres in an actual Battle especially in the frequently overcast and rolling Hills of Europe. But the army was overruled. The prevailing View of Pentagon officials was that six Kilometres represented the current threat and it became the Standard against which the gun would be measured. In the gun s final lest last May pilots playing russians were allowed to hover at up to six Kilometres from their targets where quite predictably they demolished the forces the sergeant York was supposed to protect. Weinberger announcing the cancellation of the program in August said the failure of the gun to hit Distant helicopters was one of the major reasons Lor his decision. Lewis who led the original diva team said if he were making the decision today he would probably choose a simpler gun. We might have saved $2 million a copy by not trying to get that last 5 percent of  Lewis said. He said he doubted the military or Congress would buy his idea however. We can t build a weapon system today to do just 70 percent of the Job he said. Nobody will fund it. You be got to do 95 percent of the Job or  Lay r Scully assistant Secretary o1 the army for research development and acquisition said the army is now looking with fresh in least at such a coordinated system of guns and missiles As one option or replacing sergeant York. But he conceded that the bureaucratic obstacles were form fable. The gun and missile advocates have already resumed their internal Battle and numerous contractors have rushed in to push their own gun or missile systems. Moreover he said there is usually great resistance to designing weapons that Cross jurisdictional Linos. The military conceives designs builds and deploys weapons As a Bunch of  Scully said. A missile command builds Battlefield missiles an armaments Gustos  of shoot own me cabot., command builds guns a tank command builds tanks. One of the ironies of the sergeant York is that it was conceived As a Model program an Experiment in developing new weapons quickly and cheaply. Somo of the brightest engine s in the arms Industry were to be set up in competing shops. Ires of the usual encumbrances of military red tape they would use trusty. Off the shelf components a pair of guns a tank Chassis a radar to produce a rolling anti aircraft gun to accompany army tank divisions As they raced into Battle. The arrangement had Many of the qualities now sought by military critics in arms contracts Competition a fixed Price still warranties. There would be no dazzle dazzle no Cost overruns no Long delays while the troops Mado do with out of Date equipment. Five teams of contractors submitted proposals. Ford aerospace and general dynamics were selected As finalists and Given two years to produce prototypes while the army kept its hands Oil. John r. Guthrie. A retired army general who picked the finalists said my instruction to the program manager was. Keep All those Cotton Pickin people out of  this hands off approach has produced some of the military s most highly regarded weapons like the army s multiple launch rocket system. But some participants say that in this Case it meant no one was firmly in charge at a critical stage. Charles w. Bernard the Pentagon s director of land warfare programs who had advocated a missile system recalled arriving at Pic tinny Arsenal in Dover n.j., in 1978 and asking the army program manager How s that program doing the answer he recalled was. Damned it i  had the hands off approach not been so maniacal Bernard said we could have Learned a lot earlier about problems. The Pentagon inspector general in an evaluation of the program charged that in the army had been paying closer attention it would also have seen that Ford was passing along Bills Lor millions of dollars in subcontractor charges that were not Lair or  the army disputed the inspector general s findings. Ford officials have refused to comment on the sergeant York program. Another consequence of the accelerated schedule. Army officials say. Was that Ford was not Given Lime to work out the bugs in the weapon Belore it went into production. The first prototypes were immediately dispatched to army testing and training centers where they regularly broke Down. And unlike most other weapons the sergeant York did much of its tailing in Public. Sunday december 8, 1985 the stars and stripes Page 17