Taming the Serpent

Finding the Enemy: Did Doc Smith Inspire the CIC?

by Edward M. Wysocki, Jr.

I will begin by explaining that CIC stands for Combat Information Center. To understand the function of the CIC, just think back to a movie or TV show that featured naval combat from World War II or later. There might have been at least one scene in a darkened ship’s compartment with men staring at radar screens and communicating using headphones and microphones. Other men are stationed around a horizontal plotting table or may be watching as details of a battle are plotted on a circular grid pattern on a large vertical Plexiglass sheet. This compartment is the CIC.

The purpose of the CIC is to gather battle information from a number of sources and to analyze and interpret it as rapidly as possible. The results would then be passed to the commanding officer, other locations throughout the ship, and possibly to other ships and to aircraft. This would either permit the enemy to be avoided or to provide the best chance for victory should combat be necessary.

The CIC can exist upon a battleship, cruiser, destroyer, or aircraft carrier. The content and arrangement of a CIC varies according to the type of ship. My discussions within this article will be concerned with those implementations that existed during World War II. If you were to search for CIC on the Web, you will most likely find some images of modern systems that incorporate computers and advanced analysis and display capabilities. The function of the CIC, however, has not changed.

The possible connection of the science fiction author Dr. Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith with the CIC is based on a letter from John W. Campbell, Jr. to Smith. This letter was dated June 11, 1947.

In this letter, Campbell made a series of claims that I intend to address in turn:

CIC was directly inspired by the “Directrix,” which was introduced in Smith’s novel Gray Lensman.
CIC was introduced to the Navy by a particular naval officer.
The officer was identified as Captain Cal Lanning.
Campbell claimed that he was given the information by Lanning.

I am not sure how many modern readers are familiar with Doc Smith’s Lensman series of novels. The series described a galaxy-spanning battle between good and evil, with the planet Arisia as the ultimate source of good. A Lens is the product of Arisian mental science. A suitable being is issued a Lens, which serves as a means of identification and provides certain useful capabilities. If someone other than the being to whom the Lens was issued would attempt to use it, the result would be instant death. It enabled a Lensman to communicate with any being. It also permitted Lensmen to communicate instantly over any distance.

The principal human Lensman is Kimball Kinnison. One non-human Lensman is Tregonsee, who is from a race of beings with natural telepathy, but without speech, sight, or hearing. Another is Worsel, who has the appearance of a thirty-foot long dragon with wings, talons, and scales.

Four novels of the Lensman series were serialized in Astounding. The first was Galactic Patrol, which ran from September 1937 through February 1938. Next was Gray Lensman, from October 1939 through January 1940. It was followed by Second Stage Lensman, from November 1941 through February 1942. Finally, there was Children of the Lens, from November 1947 through February 1948.

The original version of Smith’s Triplanetary, which had no connection with the later works, appeared in Amazing Stories in 1934. When it was republished after Children of the Lens had appeared, changes were made to make it the first Lensman novel. A new novel, First Lensman, was then written to fit in between the new Triplanetary and Galactic Patrol.

With this background, it is now possible to discuss the Directrix. The problem presented in Grey Lensman was the management of battle when the fleets involved were very large. A battle involving 50,000 ships showed that control was impossible with the methods then available. It was decided to develop and construct a system capable of controlling 1,000,000 ships.

The Directrix was presented in the January 1940 issue of Astounding. It was described as a spaceship designated the Z9M9Z, “designed and built specifically to be Grand Fleet Headquarters, and nothing else.” The purpose of the Directrix was to house a large three-dimensional display.

The basis for the design of such a system was the “tank,” which was a three-dimensional galactic chart in the pilot room of every spaceship. The view provided by the tank was of the immediate vicinity of the ship. Larger versions were capable of displaying greater volumes of space. The volume of the final form of the tank in the Directrix was given as seventeen million cubic feet. This was in the form of a short, squat cylinder with a diameter of 700 feet, topped by a spherical segment such that its highest point was at 80 feet.

The tank in the Directrix was shown on the cover of the November 1939 issue of Astounding, which is shown in Figure 1. I have wondered why was it displayed on the cover of the November 1939 issue when it was not introduced until the January 1940 issue.

The main tank was operated in conjunction with the “reducer.” This replicated the image of the larger tank, but in a manner such that finer details were lost. The intended process was that the commander should use the reducer to evaluate the overall situation and pass his orders to the operators of the main tank for execution.

Considering the large number of items being displayed, there were initial difficulties in managing its operation. Smith explained how the problem was solved by means of the mental powers of the Lensmen such as Tregonsee and Worsel in conjunction with systems such as “Simplex analyzers” that sound impressive but which are simply doubletalk.

The operation of the main tank was described as:

Red lights are fleets already in motion. . . Greens are fleets still at their bases. Ambers are the planets the greens took off from – connected, you see, by Ryerson string-lights. The white star is us, the Directrix. That violet cross way over there is Jalte’s planet, our first objective. The pink comets are our free planets, their tails showing their intrinsic velocities. Being so slow, they had to start long ago. The purple circle is the negasphere. It’s on its way, too.

Fortunately for the operators of the system, the collection of data and the distribution of orders in Smith’s universe were not limited by the speed of light.

With regard to Campbell’s claim that CIC was introduced by a particular naval officer, it is necessary to explore how the system actually came about.

The story of the CIC begins with radar. Starting in the early 1930s, the research and development work for what was eventually called radar was done at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Radar is based on the detection of radio waves reflected from a distant object. There were two limitations of early experimental radars that made them impractical for shipboard use.

First, the early systems operated at low radio frequencies because the problem of generating sufficient power at higher frequencies had not been solved. A low operating frequency meant that the antenna had to be very large.

Second, the early experimental systems had to make use of two separate antennas: one to transmit a high-power pulse and one to receive the very weak echo from a distant object. If both transmitter and receiver were connected to the same antenna, the transmitted pulse would burn out the input to the receiver.

Shipboard radar was made practical by advances in both of these areas. It became possible to generate radio waves of sufficient power at higher frequencies. As the frequency increased, the size of the antenna decreased to the point where shipboard installation was practical. It became possible to use only one antenna when circuitry was developed to isolate the receiver input from the antenna only when a high-power pulse was transmitted. The receiver was then connected back to the antenna in time to pick up the echo.

In early 1939, two radars constructed for shipboard use were evaluated by the Navy. One was the XAF, which operated at a frequency of 200 MHz and had been developed by NRL. This system was installed on the battleship New York. The other was the CXZ, which operated at 400 MHz and had been developed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It was installed on the battleship Texas.

The XAF was found to be the better system. It could detect targets at greater ranges than the CXZ. In addition, the CXZ was found to be unsuited to shipboard conditions such as the vibrations resulting from the firing of the large caliber guns.

One test involved using the XAF to track destroyers attempting to make a night “attack” upon the New York. It was possible to direct searchlights such that when they were turned on, they were pointing right at the destroyers. In a repeat of this attack at a later date, the tracking information was not provided to the searchlight operators. A technology such a radar provides vital information, but this demonstrated that there must exist the means to properly employ the information.

Even though RCA had lost the competition, it was selected to manufacture 20 radar sets based on the XAF. Six systems, designated CXAM, were installed on the carrier Yorktown, the battleship California, and the cruisers Chicago, Chester, Pensacola, and Northampton. These were delivered in mid-to-late 1940. The remaining fourteen systems, designated CXAM-1, were delivered in 1941, with most being installed on ships before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Let us consider one of the ships that received a CXAM radar. On the California, it was realized that you could not simply stick the radar and its operator in a small compartment somewhere. Through the actions of the California’s communications officer, Lieutenant Commander Henry Bernstein, the radar plotting room was created. To the radar were added voice radios, a plotting table, a radio direction finder, and telephones. Similar ideas were tried on the other ships that had received the CXAM radars. Many suggestions based on these early developments were sent to the Bureau of Ships.

As more experience was gained in working with radar, the radar plotting room evolved into the CIC. It was originally given the name Combat Operations Center (COC). Commanders objected that Operations were their responsibility, so the name was changed.

During the same period, the radar equipment itself was improved. Advances were made in how the battle situation was presented to the radar operator and others.

The early radars made use of the Type A or A-scope display which employed a horizonal trace across the screen. The left end of this trace corresponded to the location of the radar. Many pulses were transmitted by the radar each second. When each pulse was transmitted, the trace would move across the screen. A received echo from an object caused a spike – a brief vertical defection of the trace. The position of the spike indicated the range. If the full width of the trace corresponded to a range of 150 miles, a spike at 50% of that width indicated an object at a range of 75 miles.

The A-scope display was simple to implement but had its limits. The orientation of the antenna was controlled by the operator. If he was tracking a target in one direction, he could not see a target from any another direction. It was also necessary to look at another indicator to determine the direction the antenna was pointing.

This problem was solved independently by the British and the U.S. Navy. The solution was given the name Plan Position Indicator (PPI). A continually rotating antenna is synchronized with the display. Each trace starts from the center and proceed in a straight line to the edge of the display, oriented according to the antenna position. An echo causes a temporary brightening of the display. The result is a 360-degree view with the radar located at the center.

Once you have a view of a complex battle situation, how do you transmit it to those who are in need of it? A complex image on the display would be difficult to describe by telephone. A less practical suggestion was to make tracings of the display. The solution involved making use of additional displays where needed on the ship, each presenting the same information as the operator’s display. These additional displays were called repeaters.

Among the many indications on the screen during a battle, how do you tell friends from enemies? Here we have another case of development by both the British and the U.S. Navy. A friendly plane was equipped with a radio transmitter that was triggered by the radar beam. The radar system would receive both the echo from the plane and the signal from the plane’s transmitter. The system was then able to indicate that the object on the display was friendly. The name assigned to such systems is very descriptive – Identification Friend or Foe (IFF).

Now we come to the naval officer mentioned in Campbell’s letter. He was Caleb Barrett Laning, not “Lanning” as stated by Campbell. Laning was a graduate of the Naval Academy in the Class of 1929. This made him a classmate of Robert A. Heinlein, with whom he was a lifelong friend.

Laning first served on the battleship Oklahoma and received training in anti-aircraft fire control systems. This was followed by submarine training and service aboard the submarines S-13 and R-2. From June 1936 until May 1938, Laning attended the Naval Postgraduate School where he specialized in Communications. He then served on the staff of Commander Cruiser Division Eight, followed by service on the destroyer Sicard and then the destroyer Conyngham.

Laning’s connection with CIC began with his assignment after the Conyngham. In October 1942, he was assigned as Communications Officer on the staff of Commander Destroyers, U.S. Pacific Fleet and then also on the staff of Commander Cruisers, U.S. Pacific Fleet. In these assignments, he was involved in all aspects of the development and use of CIC.

As I have stated, the equipment that is contained in a CIC must be properly integrated with the ship’s system. Another important concern was where the CIC was placed aboard a ship. This was a particular problem on smaller ships such as destroyers. There were several classes of destroyers employed by the Navy during the war. A particular location and arrangement of equipment that worked for one class of destroyer might not be possible for ships of a different class.

Once a way had been found to install the CIC equipment on a ship, the work was not done. It was necessary to determine how this equipment should be used in combat and then to train the men to operate it. Schools had to be created to train the men, which meant that you had to find other men qualified to do the training. Another problem was to ensure that Captains and Executive Officers were able to make use of the information received from the CIC.

The best way to present the contributions of Caleb Laning to the success of CIC is to quote from the once-classified version of the citation for his Legion of Merit:

His development and completion of vital Combat Information Center Equipment in destroyers materially contributed to an effective destroyer offensive in the Pacific Theatre. By expeditious development of CIC doctrine and organization he materially shortened the period necessary for its full utilization in combat. In addition he evolved a considerable portion of the special techniques and training facilities thus further contributing to its marked success. By an intensive training program to qualify destroyer officers for intercept, and by pressing for the incorporation of facilities in destroyer CIC for fighter direction he contributed materially to a markedly advantageous employment of destroyers. His experience and knowledge in the broad field of communications, electronics, gunnery and torpedoes were invaluable to the Type Commander.

Following his CIC development work, Laning became Captain of the destroyer Hutchins until the end of 1944. One of the many actions that the Hutchins participated in with Laning in command was the Battle of Surigao Strait. On the evening of October 24-25, 1944, as flagship of Destroyer Squadron Twenty-Four, the Hutchins was involved in attacks upon an enemy force attempting to reach Leyte Gulf. Laning received a Navy Cross for his part in this battle.

Laning’s assignment following the Hutchins was in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C. His assignment was in the coordination of radar work between the Navy, Army, the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, and other organizations. This was followed by a mixture of duty at sea and duty ashore until his retirement as a Rear Admiral on May 1, 1959. Caleb Laning died on June 1, 1991.

It is now possible to consider Campbell’s statement that the introduction of CIC to the Navy was due to Caleb Laning.

The brief history of the CIC presented here and the details of Laning’s naval career should make it clear that he was not the person who introduced CIC to the Navy. He was clearly a contributor to its success, but came to such work when the CIC was already in existence, at least in its early stages. If we want to credit certain officers with the creation of the CIC, we should look at LCDR Bernstein on the California and the officers on other ships that received the first radars in 1940 and 1941.

A useful statement regarding the origin of the CIC is from the Preface of the CIC Handbook for Destroyers, Pacific Fleet, which was issued in 1943:

The development of the Combat Information Center as an integral unit of the ship’s organization is possibly one of the most drastic and rapid changes in our shipboard experience. Apparently, the need for such an agency, a tactical plot or a ship’s operations officer, existed before the war without our general realization of the fact. When radar was developed, it simply furnished us with more information than we were able to handle in any way other than with this tactical plotting and evaluating agency. This is the origin of the C.I.C. It is not the child of theory, it is a proven result of combat experience.

Based on the available evidence, it must be concluded that CIC was developed in a manner that contradicts what was written by Campbell.

Even though the CIC was developed independently of what appeared in Gray Lensman, there are four points of comparison that should be considered.

The problem in both cases was the management of a complex battle situation. Smith’s solution was a single massive system that collected and displayed the data so that orders for the entire battle could be issued by the Directrix. In the situation faced by the Navy in World War II, the solution was to perform the same functions but at the level of individual ships.

How should the data be presented? Smith’s solution was based on the massive tank in the Directrix. The Navy made use of radar displays, most likely the PPI as the war progressed.

How was the data displayed in other than the primary locations? The overall commander in Gray Lensman made use of the reducer. A Captain on the bridge of a ship would have made use of the repeater. In the case of the reducer there was a change of scale, while the images on the repeaters were of the same scale as the original radar image.

How did one distinguish between friends and enemies on data displays? In the tank on the Directrix, objects were displayed in different colors, with “tails” indicating velocities. The IFF system enabled friendly aircraft to be labelled on the radar display.

Edward M. Wysocki, Jr.

Author Researcher