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Show i With scaled-dow- n models, experts at a closely guarded Maryland base Mr discover how v CRISP - as can be in the new "- N Stack Pack! to build better ships I I ,4 ' and missiles. ' ' ' ViJ it i mm ) IN TOY on a iJ bit of bleu cheese Savory! A tasty Ritz Cracker. by Harold Htlfer 'It fj-- i.4 'hen is a model boat not just a model? Answer: When it's a destroyer, a cruiser, a submarine, or a supercarrier. This may not be true everywhere, but it is at Carderock, Md. There the miniatures you see may actually be a atomic-powerguided-missil- e, warship of tomorrow. For what you behold is the nation's "Bathtub Navy." At Carderock, the Navy has a basin where the mighty ships that defend the nation are born as tiny fledgelings. There is nothing schoolboy ish about the Navy sailing models of its fleet in a make-beliethese scaled-dow- n sea. There is no military facility more closely guarded, with Marines on duty continually. One of the nation's greatest gatherings of scientists some 1,200 assemble there daily to study these replicas of the future fleet. And! even these men need special clearance when work- -' of ing. For not only are the designs and performances the mighty ships of the future worked out here, hut some matters of vital strategy, too. Not only are these Bathtub Navy operations designed to save millions of dollars, but many lives as well. World War ITs invasion of Sicily first took place in Lilliputian form, on the "beaches" of this basin. Scientists and military men studied this toy operation in minute detail, knowing that many lives were at stake here, as well as the fate of an important phase of the war. Devices were used to create waves and undertow in the basin to match the realities of an actual invasion shore. On another occasion, the problem of whether the Navy cdtild get a large carrier from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Panama Canal instead of spending precious weeks sailing around Cape Horn was solved in this "bathtub sea." As urgent as the Navy felt it was to get the carrier into the Pacific, it didn't want to risk wrecking the canal er during the war. locks, which would be a touch-and-Since the size of the carrier made it whether it could get through the canal without causing at havoc, models of the canal and the ship were built the Taylor Model Basin, as it is known officially.; It was ascertained that with a few minor changes the carrier,, could come through all right. The Navy scientists are concerned with the design and too. Thus, durability of ships under combat conditions, underwater demolitions are always going off at . the basin to see how new models will reacj. When a new model is launched, there is no champagne and no banners; instead, some new notebooks come into perview. But these notebooks, containing formance records of the baby vessels, literally shape America's ships of tomorrow and with them our security. Pi .T""""'J'1111 ""Jl1 i jews, r&ftiu- ed pj mem i i it f - ij ij!4Wi!i. I 111 7 He i i k, ve Reclosable r 11 packets keep Ritz fresher . . . handier to serve.. I Bt..a V y . ,:4' with less breakage. And Ritz stay everlastingly crisp! . tf t K go H JiiKf i f 4':V4A near-disast- ( 1 " V X Simple! A slice of pimiento-fille- d olive on Swiss and Ritz. .i vol) day-by-d- ay Family Weekly, September 14, I95 17 Soohisticjted! Red caviar on a Deaof cream cheese. NATIONAL tISCUIT C6XPANY r |