Early Guided Missile Development
In the years immediately preceding World War II, a concerned
Federal Government established the National Research Defense Committee to
develop new and more-sophisticated weapons. The committee's Division 5 was
charged with the development of guided weapons, a category that included
everything from radio-controlled bombs to pilotless aircraft. The National
Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Washington was chosen to become Division 5's
principal laboratory for this secret work. By 1940, NBS had assembled a
distinguished corps of scientists and technicians and the development of guided
weapons and bombs was underway. As the war worsened, the Navy's strong interest
in the new weapons intensified and a naval ordnance detachment, directed by
Captain (later Rear Admiral) Dundas P. Tucker, was established at NBS to provide
increased manpower and to conduct test, evaluation, and training functions.
Development programs were carried out on a number of weapons.
The best known of these was the Navy's BAT, which was the world's first
operational missile to be employed into combat. It homed automatically on
pre-selected targets and is credited with sinking several ships in the Pacific
during the closing months of World War II. According to an official history of
BUORD (Bureau of Ordnance) activities in World War II, BAT "ranked with the atom
bomb and the proximity fuse as one of the few entirely new weapons in World War
II." With these successes, the Navy continued to support missile development
work after the war and with the easing of security, the NBS group was officially
designated the Missile Development Division. As the missile development efforts
continued to expand, additional space was needed. This space was finally
provided by the area known as "Unit II" of the Naval Hospital at this site.
NBS Corona Laboratories
Under the direction of Dr. Robert D. Huntoon, most of NBS'
Missile Development Division began to move to the west coast and Unit II was
formally designated as the NBS Corona Laboratories. Under Dr. Huntoon's
leadership, the organization rapidly expanded to 250 scientists, technicians,
and necessary support personnel. This staff continued to concentrate on missiles
and improving methods of guiding and fusing them.
Initial Missile Evaluation
In 1952, there occurred a key event in the evolution of the NSWC
Corona Division. By that year, the Navy's Terrier guided missile had completed
development and was considered ready for full-scale shipboard firing tests.
Recognizing the need for accurate and objective evaluation of these firings, the
Navy assigned responsibility for this task to the government group whose work on
guided missiles it had been sponsoring for more than a decade-the NBS Corona
Laboratories. Starting with a six-man staff in June 1952, the NBS missile
evaluation organization grew rapidly to a group of 60 in 1953. The early work of
this group included the establishment of an operational data processing
capability to handle data from the Terrier firings, the processing of the firing
data, and the subsequent performance analysis of individual missile flights. The
first data were received from Terrier firings by the USS Mississippi and USS
Norton Sound.
Naval Ordnance Laboratory Corona
By 1953, the NBS Corona laboratories were in full operation with
a staff of more than 400. On 24 July of that year, following a decision that
weapons research and development were more properly a function of the military
than NBS, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Commerce jointly
announced plans to transfer seventeen NBS technical divisions to the Department
of Defense. As part of that transfer, the NBS activity at Corona was transferred
to the Department of the Navy, redesignated the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,
Corona (NOLC) and assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance, thus becoming an official
part of the Bureau it had served since 1941.
During the 1950's, the NOLC missile systems and research
programs were to be surpassed in size by the missile evaluation program, which
had begun in 1952 as the activity's smallest program and by 1957 had become its
largest.
NOLC Missile Evaluation Department
The missile evaluation group was formally established as the
Missile Evaluation Department in 1954. By that time, experience-gained in
performing early flight analyses of Terrier missiles-led to a more encompassing
analysis and evaluation effort involving the determination of overall weapon
system performance (including the shipboard system and the missile) and also the
system pre-firing readiness reporting. With the expansion of the Navy's missile
programs, the Department's demonstrated capabilities led to the assignment of
responsibilities for the evaluation of each new Navy missile as it was
introduced to the Fleet.
In addition to the evaluation of missile firings, the Department
rapidly expanded to two related areas vital to the production and overall
evaluation of weapons. The first area involved production quality including the
appraisal of a manufacturer's ability to produce a weapon and the development of
acceptance inspection procedures, production proof test firing plans, simulated
test programs, calibration programs, and test equipment compatibility studies.
The origin of the technical concepts for the Navy's Metrology and Calibration
Program was part of this area. The second area was that of missile quality
surveillance involving the design and management of surveillance programs on
missile systems, their components and related equipment to determine the nature
of any deterioration occurring, both in storage and in use by the Fleet. The
Department pioneered the use of the new large-scale digital computers in the
processing of factory, field test, and performance data to support the Navy's
growing need for integrated and accurate information on its weapons.
The Establishment of FMSAEG
Early in the 1960's, Captain (later Vice Admiral) Eli T. Reich,
Commanding Officer of the Navy's second operational guided missile cruiser, the
USS Canberra, discovered that the ship's missile systems could not be counted on
to function properly and different systems elements gave conflicting tactical
information. With this background, along with his World War II experience with
faulty ordnance, RADM Reich founded "Code G" in the Bureau of Weapons to focus
on the development, production, and improving the overall effectiveness of
surface missile systems. RADM Reich also initiated full operational test
programs with the goals to: ensure that the total missile system (missile,
ship's systems, and people) performed effectively against real targets; and,
demonstrate the effectiveness of a battle group in war-gaming type exercises. In
the key effort to resolve the problems associated with determining missile
systems performance and describing the performance in a consistent fashion, RADM
Reich recognized the need for a sound analytical model and data base, and an
unbiased, independent analysis agent to use the model and data.
RADM Reich also recognized that the NOLC Missile Evaluation
Department had the technical expertise, models, and data bases to perform the
analysis, but lacked the direct reporting relationship required to provide the
truly independent and unbiased reports needed. Under RADM Reich's leadership,
the Missile Evaluation Department was separated from NOLC and established as the
Fleet Missile System Analysis and Evaluation Group (FMSAEG), a separate command
at the Corona site. The establishment was officially authorized by the Secretary
of the Navy on February 24, 1964. The mission assigned to FMSAEG was "To provide
the Navy Department, the Operating Forces, and appropriate organizations of the
Shore Establishment with evaluation of performance, reliability, readiness, and
effectiveness of missile weapon systems, subsystems and assemblies, and
associated test equipment and checkout systems."
Fleet Analysis Center
Work on missile programs continued to expand for FMSAEG with
major assignments in the surface and air launched missile systems areas and the
Fleet Ballistic Missile Weapon Systems Program. Work in the component
reliability survey project led to the establishment of the Inter-service Data
Exchange Program (now GIDEP) and the Failure Rate Data program. Both of these
programs had significant effects on the cost and reliability of emerging weapons
systems.
In the first steps of the consolidation of related Navy
activities in the Los Angeles area, FMSAEG became an Annex of the Naval Weapons
Station, Seal Beach on 1 July 1971. With the continuing expansion of assignment
and capabilities, FMSAEG was renamed the Fleet Analysis Center (FLTAC) in
January 1976 to better recognize its evolving role.
Naval Warfare Assessment Center
During the 1980s, the NWS Seal Beach Technical Directorate was
formed, incorporating FLTAC, the Navy's Metrology Engineering Center, Gage and
Standards Center and the Weapons Quality Evaluation Center. On October 9, 1987,
VADM William H. Rowden formally established the Naval Ordnance Centers of
Excellence at ordnance shore activities. This action formally recognized the
Technical Directorate's Centers of Excellence for: Measurement Science; Missile
and Combat Systems Performance Assessment; and Product Quality Assurance as the
major technical business components managed overall at the FLTAC location. On 1
April 1989, the Technical Directorate became the Naval Warfare Assessment
Center, Corona (NWAC) to better reflect the overall purpose of the consolidated
scientific and technical organization.
Joint Warfare Assessment Lab
The Naval Warfare Assessment Division of the Naval Ordnance
Center dedicated a new 48,000 square-foot Warfare Assessment building April 6th,
1994. The $9,425,532 Warfare Assessment Laboratory provides a consolidated
secure facility to analyze fleet readiness and capability during world-wide
multi-service training exercises. With completion of the three-year construction
project, the Naval Warfare Assessment Station of the Naval Surface Warfare
Center will provide improved integrated analytical support to Naval fleet and
shore organizations. Additionally, the laboratory is used to conduct detailed
evaluations of Defense Department weapons systems performance assessment,
readiness and effectiveness. The assessment results are used to enhance force
readiness, and as source data to improve the development, test and evaluation,
and in-service support of the Navy's weapons and combat systems.
At the center of the Laboratory is an integrated operations
center with 12 large screen displays and capacity to seat more than 200 people.
Naval Warfare Assessment Station employees will use state-of-the-art technology
including: scientific graphical analysis workstations, multi-dimensional
analytical models, parallel computer processing, large screen displays, and
video teleconferencing facilities to assess combat systems performance. This
assessment is integrated using hyper-speed computer networks and coupled to
Fleet commands and program offices to provide near real-time assessments of the
exercise from overall battle group and squadron performance to individual unit,
weapon or combat system effectiveness.
Building and operating the Warfare Assessment Laboratory
demonstrates the long-term commitment by the Navy to improve Fleet and Marine
Force readiness as the Defense Department restructures the Armed Forces to meet
the challenges of tomorrow in a dynamic and fast-changing world.
Measurement Science and Technology Laboratory
Another significant building project was completed and opened on
August 26, 2002, as the 39,000 square-foot Measurement Science and Technology
Laboratory provided 21st century technology, where metrologists are able to take
measurements as minute as 50 millionths of an inch.
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division
From the period of 1993 to 2001, multiple reorganizations and
name changes occurred. On September 14, 1993, NWAC was realigned under the Naval
Ordnance Center, and became the Naval Warfare Assessment Division (NWAD). On
February 15, 1998, NWAD transferred from the Naval Ordnance Center to the Naval
Surface Warfare Center, and was renamed Naval Warfare Assessment Station. Though
the mission was unchanged, the realignment allowed greater technical synergy and
more effective relations with the Naval Surface Warfare Center engineering
agents. Naval Sea Systems Command's new logo was unveiled in 2000, and in March
2001 the center's name changed to Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division.
Daugherty Memorial Assessment Center Laboratory
On May 28, 2009, Corona dedicated the Daugherty Memorial
Assessment Center, another center devoted to analysis, in honor of fallen Petty
Officer 1st Class Steven P. Daugherty of Barstow who died in combat.