Computers in Khaki
Despite the low IQ it has been accused of, it was inevitable that the computer be drafted. In the 40’s we were desperate. Included in government use of computers are military research, development, and tactical and strategic methods. World War II was a different kind of war, a complicated, electronic war that required advanced methods of operation. At Eastertime in 1942, IBM answered an urgent call from Washington and gathered all available data-processing machines for use by the military. Punched cards kept track of allotments, insurance, and the logistics of running a war. Mobile computing machines operated close to the front lines, and were important enough that a captured German officer was carrying urgent orders to bring in one of these units.
Besides the mundane effort of mere data-processing, wartime computers did important cloak-and-dagger work as well. A report came in from Allied intelligence that the Germans were working on a frightening new development—an electrically powered cannon. If it were successful we would need some kind of counterweapon. But the dike was leaking in a hundred other places too, and there was not time or equipment to do everything it seemed we might have to do. The answer was to feed some complex mathematics to an IBM computer called the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator—mathematics describing the new cannon. The computer cogitated briefly and decided that the Germans were on the wrong track; that the gun would not work. We therefore ignored the threat, letting the Germans waste their valuable time going down the blind alley, and turned our efforts elsewhere.
We have said that World War II was a different kind of war. One new development to bear out this difference was called “Operations Research”—the reduction of any program to mathematical formulas and the investigation of these formulas rather than a conventional, intuitive approach. The technique was pioneered in England, spread to the United States, and is now one of the most powerful tools not only of the military but also of government and business. The computer has made operations research a more powerful technique by permitting the analysis of thousands or millions of possibilities in hours instead of lifetimes.
Back in the days of bows and arrows, the soldier had no need for a computer. Even the rifleman required little more than a simple sight and maybe a bit of Kentucky windage. With the coming of long-range artillery, computers became desirable, and now we have moved into an age of warfare that would be impossible without high-speed computing machines.
In 1948 IBM introduced a computer known as SSEC for Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator. This machine was put to work on a problem for the Los Alamos Atomic Energy Laboratory, a problem called “Hippo.” Hippo was as unwieldy as its name, requiring some nine million involved mathematical operations that would have taken about 1,500 man-years of skilled time. That many mathematicians or that much time was not available, of course, and SSEC clicked through the job in 150 hours by itself. Another computer, the MANIAC, designed by John von Neumann, is credited with beating the Russians to the punch with the hydrogen bomb.
As an outgrowth of operations research, the simulation of war games has become an important part of military work. A number of firms, including System Development Corporation, Technical Operations, Inc., and others, devote much of their time to “playing games” to work out the optimum strategy and tactics for war in case we find it necessary again.
It is perhaps not paradoxical that war be considered a game. As William Cowper said, “War’s a game, which were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.” The game of chess, conversely, stems from war and its tactics. Indeed, the term checkmate, for victory, comes from the Persian words shah mat, the king is dead.
Through the years many war games have been developed, games which eliminate the physical conflict but preserve the intellectual maneuvering necessary for waging “war.” John von Neumann was one of the more recent to turn his great genius to this subject in the development of his “minimax” theory. This is an outline of a situation in which consequences of decisions depend on the actions of an opponent. We have seen that the computer, though not yet world champion, can play chess; the minimax theory is more grist for its electronic mill.
Tech-ops operates the Combat Operations Research Group for the U.S. Continental Army Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Among the games played here with computers are SYNTAC, in which field-experienced officers evaluate new weapons and tactics, and AUTOTAG, a computer simulation of tank-antitank combat. Other projects of this firm include air battle simulations, ship loading and other logistics problems, fallout studies, and defense against missile attacks. The beauty of such schemes is that we will not make the mistake of the Germans with their electric cannon. When the computer blinks “Tilt” or an equivalent, the engineers may have red faces, but no huge amount of time or money will have been spent before they sigh, “Back to the old drawing board!”
At Picatinny Arsenal, computers evaluate ammunition by simulating as many as a thousand battles per item. Design and management studies for projects like Nike-Zeus and Davy Crockett are also conducted at Picatinny. A mobile computer, called MOBIDIC, is designed for field combat use and has been moved in three 30-foot trailers to location with the Seventh Army in Europe. There it handles requisitions for rockets, guided missiles, electronic equipment, and other items. MOBIDIC is just part of the Army’s FIELDATA family of computers that includes helicopter-transported equipment to provide field commanders with fast and accurate data on which to base their risk decisions. Another concept is ARTOC, for Army Tactical Operations Central, an inflatable command post in which computers receive and process information for display on large screens. This is a project of Aeronutronic.
In 1961 an IBM 7090 computer was installed at Ispra, Italy, for use by the European Atomic Energy Commission (EURATOM). The computer would have as its duties the cataloging of technical information on atomic energy, the translation of technical publications, and use in basic research on solutions of Boltzmann equations and other advanced physics used in atomic work. In this country, the National Science Foundation has acknowledged the importance of the computer in scientific investigation by underwriting costs for such equipment for research centers in need of them.