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The Two Cent Decision In 1%5, a group chaired by RAdm. F.S. Withington, USN (Ret.) was convened to defme a replacement for

the failed Typhon AAW weapon system. That group, the Withington Committee, at its peak, consisted of over 150 people drawn from OpNav, BuOrd,

BuShips, the various naval laboratories, the JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, the competing industrial contrac- tors including Boeing, GE, Hughes, Raytheon, RCA, Sperry and Westinghouse, the Bell Telephone Labora- tories and even Army Air Defense Agencies.

The Withington Committee wrestled with a number of technical and programmatic issues during its deliberations. Probably the most important issue was the operating frequency of the central radar. This issue permeated almost every aspect of the system configuration and, as well, had programmatic and political overtones. There was no question that the radar must operate in either the C-Band (about 5 KMHz) or the S-Band (about 3 KMHz). However, there were strong arguments and vocal partisans for each in the group. The heated debates on this issue caused a delay of at least two months beyond the planned committee activities. Finally, an uneasy decision was made and C-Band was selected.

The main body of the Withington Committee was then disbanded and a small group was left to distill the many subcommittee reports and studies into a final report. As leader of the shipboard control portion of the Withington Committee, it was my task to document our system decisions and explain what alternatives we had considered and why we made the decisions that were made. The whole system selection was treated as a decision tree, all branches discussed and all arguments for all branches presented. When I tried to summarize the radar frequency selection arguments, the written words pointed much more strongly toward S-Band than C-Band. In a “frustration break” I crossed the room to where Dr. George Wheeler of the Bell Telephone Laboratories was working on his part of the committee report. I told George that “for two cents, I would change my vote back to S-Band.” George quietly reached into his pocket and produced two pennies. “George, we can’t change now.” “Why not,” says he, “let’s go see the admiral.” When we presented our second thoughts to Admiral Withington, he silently looked at the ceiling for a short time, then questioned first Dr. Wheeler, then me as to why we felt as we did. After about a half an hour of questions, he slapped his desk and declared “S-Band, make it so.”

The system defined by the Withington Committee in 1%5 is now known as the Aegis Weapon System. While advancing technology has permitted significant changes in system execution, there have been no changes in the basic system concept or radar frequency. From what we now know 23 years later, after a very large development, testing and fleet introduction effort, there is no question that S-Band was the correct choice. The C-Band choice would have led to a system with much less capability and flexibility than Aegis and, quite conceivably, led to another major system development failure.

Bvce D. Inman Captain, USN (Ret.)

24 Naval Engineers Journal, May 1990