Cruise Missiles for the U. S. Navy: An Exemplar of Innovation in a Military Organization - Sperry's Aerial Torpedo, Project Aphrodite, Gorgon Missile, Drones, Regulus, Harpoon, Tomahawk

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this unique book traces the development of the cruise missile by the U.S. Navy.

The nature of war at sea has changed through time as a direct consequence of innovations in technology, tactics and operational art, and naval organization. Success in future conflict , will depend upon the navy's ability to acquire appropriate new technologies and to integrate that technology into future forces. Senior naval officers and historians have identified cruise missile technology as an area where the navy resisted innovation, a failure that was blamed on intra-service political imperatives. Examination of the history of cruise missile innovation reveals a very different pattern. Over the past fifty years, the navy persistently pursued the development of cruise missile technology. The single significant gap in cruise missile development in the past half century, 1959-1967, resulted from unique historical circumstances of the time, and not organizational antipathy toward cruise missiles. Several lessons emerge from the history of naval cruise missile innovation. Prospects for success in future innovative endeavors can be enhanced by providing stable and ample resources to project scientists and engineers.

An examination of the history of naval cruise missile innovation demonstrates that, over the past 50 years, the Navy persistently pursued the development of cruise missile technology. The single interruption in cruise missile innovation, 1959-1967, resulted from extreme budgetary pressures and conflicting organizational priorities. While certain naval aviators indeed opposed the development of cruise missile technology, the facile historical interpretation of aviators opposing cruise missile innovation is not correct. Rather, the Navy has demonstrated a long interest in cruise missiles and undertook to acquire anti-ship missiles when the circumstances of mission and technology were finally right

Several lessons emerge from the history of Naval cruise missile innovation. The objectives of long-range technological innovation will probably be controversial. Leaders must be prepared to proceed in the face of well-intentioned opposition. Most innovative efforts end in failure; senior naval and government officials must expect and accept frequent failure as a cost of innovation. The prospects for success in future endeavors can be enhanced by providing steady and ample resources to projects. Naval leadership must guard against prematurely rushing new systems into operational evaluation or production. In deciding the future of ongoing projects, leaders should avoid the organizational myopia that results from judging future systems on the basis of today's needs. Finally, the Navy needs officers who are willing to promote new technologies: the zealots who crusade for their vision of future warfare and the technologies necessary for their vision. These zealots initiate the political process that leads to organizational innovation, and are a critical component of that innovation process.