European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 23, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday March 23, 1987 the stars and stripes Page 9 army seeks diva replacement digs Europe manufacturers approached. Washington iad the army hat asked British French German an Swiss armaments manufacturers to sub Mil bids for a contract to replace he aborted Sel. York air defense gun with a Winner to t c chosen this year. The set. York which was also known As the d1vad, or division air defense gun consisted of a modified tank Chas Sis two 40mm Cannon and a radar sys tem. It col. Craig Macnab an army spokesman said on Friday that the serv ice s request Tor proposals was issued last week to interested companies All the bidders thai Are viewed As hav ing weapons that can meet the testing deadline Are either european or  rope an partnerships. According to Macnab the Pentagon decided to buy a system in production or ready for  that guideline is expected to Timit the Competition to four bidders. They include the British aerospace co s tracked rapier system Eromis Silc s Roland to missile system made by a Franco German consortium a partnership of the Ltd corp and Thomson Csc of France  around the French Shah inc missile system and a partnership of the Martin Marietta corp. And the Swiss firm of Oer liken Buhrle ltd., which recently sold an air defense missile system known As adapts to can Ada. The new acquisition strategy is expected to mollify european arms makers because it makes them immediately Eligi ble to compete for the entire air defense contract. That is because the army s bid request Abandons the idea of delaying purchases or Only buying a Stopgap weapon while launching a research program to develop an entirely new air defense system that . Manufacturer would presumably be Able to compete for on its own. Rather it Calls for contractors to pro vide weapons for immediate testing that meet certain floor value requirements and which have High probability of being improved overtime. A key Factor in the Competition will be How much these weapons can grew in performance Macnab said. The request for bids itself is classified because in contains detailed specifications for the new weapon Macnab said. But the army has decided to require interested companies to provide two Proto types for testing by july i allowing Selec Tion of a Winner by nov. 26, he said. The army expects nil of the bidders will propose Mobile fire units that can shoo ground to air missiles against enemy aircraft to protect its troops. It has not ruled out accepting a missile Catling gun combination however. The service wit initially award a con tract for 160 fire units Macnab added while also requesting five years Worth of contract options that could increase the total buy to Between 500 and 600 units. Ail old the army contract is expected to be Worth More than $3  More than seven Yean of development work and an investment of ii.8 billion defense Secretary Caspar w. Weinberger wrapped the sgt. York weapon aug. 27, 1985. Saying in simply could t protect tank columns from modern soviet helicopters. While hailed by congressional critic As inc right move the cancellation of the sgt. York left the army without a weapon considered sufficiently lethal to protect its divisions against modern aircraft despite More than a decade of study. According to Pentagon sources the army has always preferred to concen trate on developing and Fielding a Brand new weapon to replace the sol York. Bui Congress concerned that the service would not move quickly enough to protect its troops and tanks mandated a decision on the matter by nov. 26,1987, despite the congressional directive the army did appear to be wavering ear Lier this month on How it would proceed delaying the issuance of a bid request while it debated Stan ing a research pro Gram for an entirely new weapon. Race erupts to find new superconductors new York a the race among physicists to find new superconductors has erupted into a world wide free for Alt following a breakthrough that one scientist describes As the physicists equivalent of running a 3 a minute mile with a single cautious scientific paper published last year in a German physics journal two scientists at an ism research Laboratory in Switzerland announced the discovery of a striking new scientific phenomenon. Their work has opened the door to dramatic changes in the Way electricity will be generated transmitted Naused. For example superconducting magnets More Power Ful than any now possible Coula improve the performance of magnetic resonance imaging machines used in Medicine. Such magnets also might make it practical to generate electricity by Means of nuclear fusion a process that does not produce High level radioactive waste As conventional nuclear Power does. With superconducting electrical transmission lines electrical generators could be located far from Scenic or residential areas even thousands of Miles away and Power could still be delivered without transmission losses. Superconducting computers could be far More com pact and powerful than today s machines. Beyond thai the phenomenon is so new and unexpected that futurists have not yet had Lime to dream. The recent excitement culminating in a symposium wednesday at an american physical society meeting in new York was generated by the discovery in Zuriff per lure to almost 400 degrees below Zero with the discovery of a new class of superconducting materials. The race was on. The materials made of Lanthanum barium Copper and oxygen were so easy to produce thai physicists could in a Mailer of a few Days drop what they we redoing and begin new research. It s like somebody opened up some new area in which there were All of these things said Maple we just have to run in there and see what they Are. In february Paul . Chu of the University of Houston and researchers in Alabama pushed the temperature to above 300 degrees below Zero fahrenheit by substituting curium for Lanthanum in the mixture. Researcher constant n pol it is of Karlsruhe Ger Many showed evidence last week of superconductivity at 234 degrees below Zero. And Chu has hints thai superconductivity might occur at temperatures As High As 27 degrees below Zero. Physicists All Over the world have now joined the sweepstakes. Neil Ashcroft of Cornell University said thursday we have devoted about 20 people to this since inc Early Days inc Early Days being defined As the mid dle of  this is the dream of a lot of scientists for a Long time said Zhao Zhongxian of the Institute of physics in Beijing. Now we have turned the dream to  at least so scientists reported new findings at a symposium wednesday night that lasted until 3 1  inc doors to the symposium Al the new York Hilton hotel opened shortly before 7 p.m., physicists knocked Over chairs in a scramble to gel in and get Low temperatures where the phenomenon had previously been known to occur. The sports analogy is quite  said Brian Schwartz of Brooklyn College. The history of super conductivity has been like the race for the four minute mile. Then suddenly out of nowhere somebody ran a j i minute  superconductivity a curious almost unbelievable phenomenon in which electricity passes through wires with Zero resistance was discovered in the nether lands 73 years ago. In occurred Only at temperatures a few degrees above off Solute Zero 459 degrees below Zero on the fahrenheit scale. Decades of work pushed the temperature up to about 418 degrees below Zero by 1973. And there i remained. The Field lost much of its excitement and Many physicists drifted into other Fields of research. I think people were a Little bit  says Brian Maple professor of physics 31 the University of California san Diego. In april 1986, k. Ale mull Rand j. Georg Bednorz at ism s Zurich laboratories suddenly pushed the let a in an area of physics where Progress is i Tauy  sure in years advances Are occurring daily. "1 used to Irile papers and use the word recently and recently Imeane last year or two years  said Maple. Now recently Means two Duys  physicists arc hand to livering manuscripts of re search papers to scientific journals in order to protect their claims to having been first to make some and Vance Schwartz said. This is really quite an exciting subject and it has i captivated the imagination of scientists and the pub " Maple said. International scholars invited to terrorism seminar Jidida saudi Arabia a the organization of islamic conference i sponsoring a seminar on the phenomenon of terrorism an organisation it Kial said saturday. Eminent scholars from All Over Itic world arc being invited to present papers at a meeting to be held in Geneva in talc Juno he said at the Headquarters of ihe46-Nulion group bused in Alltis saudi Ara Bian port City. The official who spoke on condition he nut be named win one aim a the seminar would be