 Time is neither on our side nor against us. Only those who move constantly forward can be on the side of time. Time is the past. Time is the present. Time is the future. Only those who learn from the past face up to the present and prepare for the future can avoid becoming wreckages on the shore of history. Long exiled, civil strife and famine, Lenin never lost sight of the whole world for worldwide revolution was his obsession. Scheme, zigzag, retreat, anything to hasten the coming to power of communism. Within four decades after Lenin seized power in Russia, communism came to dominate the Eurasian landmass, extended control over a third of humanity, and infiltrated new and old nations all over the world. Total destruction, peaceful coexistence, resumption of tests, negotiation over disarmament, tension on, tension off. But as persistent as time itself, the communist military establishment has never changed its course, forever strengthening its aggressive power, the iron hand to be shown on a conference table or to be used in a showdown. Three of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I'm Arthur Van Horn. This story gives the defenders answer to the challenge of force. It is modernization of arms. For modernization means moving constantly forward, always striving to keep ahead of the threat we face, to counter the threat of Soviet long-range striking power. The US Army participates in the air defense of our continent. Many Nike batteries are now guarding vital metropolitan and industrial areas, as well as the bases of the Strategic Air Command. The solid-propelled Hercules has higher speed, better guidance, and much greater destructive power than the pioneering Ajax. The anti-missile missile Nike Zeus has been under extensive testing its purpose to destroy the attacking intercontinental ballistic missiles. Implementing the Nike Zeus program is a new system known as the Nike X, a more sophisticated anti-missile design with an improved radar. It embodies time-tested Zeus components and some of the most advanced concepts. To counter the threat of large-standing armies of the Soviet Union and Red China, the US Army, together with its sister services, carries out our forward strategy. It deploys combat-ready units in critical strategic areas overseas, provides material support, advice, and training assistance to allied forces, and maintains strategic reserves at home for rapid movement to any area of emergency. To support this forward strategy, modernization in materiel has made tremendous advances in firepower, mobility, and communications. To operate across the entire spectrum of nuclear and non-nuclear warfare, the firepower held by our army is designed to react in combat with measured response as the situation demands. The individual soldier, there is the M-14. It is the first multipurpose American infantry rifle with long-range and pinpoint accuracy, short-range burst fire, and selective semi-and full automatic capacity. It can fire 20 times without reloading and sustain as much as 60 rounds per minute for more than 3,000 rounds. And there is the new M-60 machine gun, which fires up to 600 rounds per minute and weighs about half as much as its predecessor. The 7.62-millimeter cartridge is used by both new weapons to achieve compatibility, for this is the standard cartridge in the armies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The M-79 grenade launcher fills the gap between the arms throw of a hand grenade and the range of mortar fire. More powerful weapons are vehicle mounted, the 106-millimeter recoilless rifle, which can knock out tanks within 1,200 meters, and the remote-controlled solid-fuel guided missile SS-11, one of the newer tank destroyers. With low-yield nuclear warhead, is designed for use in the immediate battle area. It packs the power of many hundreds of World War II artillery pieces, yet can be operated by two men, provides effective air defense for Army combat elements against low-flying aircraft and short-range missiles. So support against strong points and concentrations, the Army boasts the extremely powerful guided missile, the La Crosse. And the solid-propellant free-flight rockets, Little John, and Honest John. The newly developed Sergeant is a superb tactical weapon, excelling in power, reliability, mobility, and accuracy. It defies all-known electronic countermeasures. The artillery man's missile, proudly named Pershing, provides the field Army with an invisible arm of up to 400 miles to knock out its main targets. This two-stage solid-fuel, inertially guided giant, answers the call for a system that combines maximum firepower with maximum mobility, ease of operation with an all-weather and all-terrain capability. The traditional artillery also undergoes constant improvement, such as the 8-inch howitzer and the 175-millimeter gun. As you may have noticed, modern firepower is inseparable from mobility, for such firepower can hit both sides of the battle line. It necessitates speedy concentration of combat units in the attack, as well as rapid dispersal before coming under enemy nuclear fire. Mobility means many things in a modern Army. It means the new main battle tank, the M60, which mounts a 105-millimeter gun for the first round kill and boasts a 335-mile cruising range with 32 miles per hour road speed. It's the radically improved Armored Personnel Carrier, the M113, which meets the requirements for rapid movement in all kinds of weather and terrain and protection from shell fragments in small arms fire. Mobility means cross-country off-road supply vehicles, such as the Gore, which can travel on difficult terrain with inherent ability to float. Mobility means the amphibious larks, carrying troops and weapons with a water speed of 10 miles per hour and a land speed of 30 miles per hour. The largest amphibious vessel in the Army is the Bark, a barge with wheels over 8 feet in diameter, with cargo capacity up to 100 tons. It can ferry outsize and heavy equipment between offshore carriers and unprepared landing areas. Awkward pieces of construction machinery can roll off the Bark and immediately go to work to build a harbor, if necessary. 200 men, complete with their combat gear, can be transported by the Bark on land or sea into strange carriers. Each of the many thousands of conventional vehicles contributes its share of mobility. Mobility also means Army aviation. Some 5,000 aircraft serve Army aviation today. The number will be increased substantially according to foreseeable requirements. Copters may be represented by the utility and tactical transport Iroquois, designed for use in the forward battle area to move troops, supplies, and the wounded. The twin engine, Chinook, with rear ramp to handle missiles and other lengthy cargo. The Army's sturdy fixed-wing transport, the Keraboo, can carry a 3-ton load or 32 men. It has the remarkable ability of short takeoffs and landings on unprepared airfields. The 235-mile-per-hour Mohawk performs combat surveillance with its photographic and sensory devices, capable of observing the enemy even in total darkness. And of course, mobility means airdrop, carried by the Air Force planes, men and materiel can reach a critical area vertically, immediately ready to fight a bond landing, Mobile Army. Command-controlled problems put an extra premium on means of communication. For radio communication in the battlefield, the transistorized VRC-12 will become the standard set mounted on a vehicle. It replaces a series of six radios. It is of lighter weight and contains more than twice the total number of channels found in all of them. Its range reaches 25 miles. Short-range ground-based manhandled radar at company level to longer range systems for divisions, all developed for pinpointing targets, enemy activities, and other threatening aspects of our soldiers' environment. As part of the defense communications system, the Army's network interconnects the military elements in 73 nations, by around-the-world delt line of cable, high-frequency radio, wire, line-of-sight microwave, and high-power scatter links. With this global system, the Army can contact any place on Earth no matter how remote. But modernization does not stop at Army materiel. In order to improve the Army's ability to carry out its responsibilities in today's uncertain and complex international environment, it requires an organizational structure that will respond quickly and effectively to varied threats across the whole spectrum of conflict, from cold to limited to general war. The principal aims of Army reorganization are to free the general staff of operating responsibilities, including that of personnel management and to centralize responsibilities for training in the Continental Army Command, for combat developments in the Combat Developments Command, and for logistics, research, and development in the Materiel Command. The result is to be greater efficiency. To counter the increasing threat of Communist-inspired guerrilla warfare, subversion, and insurgents within selected target countries, the Army intensifies its development of special warfare capabilities. Members in the Special Forces must undergo the toughest kind of combat training to out-guerrilla the guerrillas, and then must become survival experts, linguists, and weapons, communications, demolition, or medical specialists. They must know the assigned areas and be qualified to train and advise foreign troops in the particularities of American weapons. Combat-ready forces across service lines makes the sum even greater than the parts. This is the new United States Strike Command, bringing together the Strategic Army Corps and Tactical Air Command to give swift reaction in every known environment. The Strategic Army Corps is a balanced force consisting of airborne and infantry divisions with all necessary supporting combat and logistical troops. By the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Strike Command can commit any part of a corps from a company to all divisions together with the necessary air support. Strike Command's new command means rapid reaction with the necessary force to accomplish the mission, or to move anywhere and execute a tactical operation with a minimum of preparation and orders. When movement starts at nightfall, this means delivery next morning. The modern army always keeps an eye to the future. To assure an invincible army in the battlefield of the future is the job of combat developments Combat developments search for new ways to achieve the greatest combat effectiveness. For example, in the Combat Developments Experimentation Center, a 200,000-acre maneuver area serves as the field laboratory where new concepts in organization and operation are evaluated. The simulated battleground is mapped out in detail so that the exact location of every action can be reported. Minute by minute, field reports come into this nerve center. They are pieced together to present a complete picture of combat in progress. A single field experiment may employ several thousand soldiers and hundreds of weapons and combat vehicles in realistic actions. Therefore, combat concepts produced by logic and imagination can get a thorough checkout to determine the most favorable combination of possible tactics, weapons, and equipment in the future. The Materiel for Tomorrow's Army is constantly designed and created by Research and Development, or R&D. Its objective is to best equip a man to fight in an environment more scientifically and technologically hostile than ever before in history. Its program covers two main areas, basic research and applied research and development. Both lead to the production of hardware, as illustrated by all the new material you have seen earlier in this film, providing the superior firepower, mobility, and communication for your modern army. Basic research is the fountain of major inventions, the new breakthroughs toward a wider horizon. Army's basic research program consists of several thousand projects undertaken by Army scientists, as well as by scientists in other government agencies, and other higher educational institutions, research foundations, and private industry. For instance, the development of laser, or light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. One type uses a ruby crystal to generate a pencil-thin beam of light, which has great potential as a high-capacity radio link and a high-precision rangefinder. This powerful beam can pierce a balloon, as well as a razor blade. Allied state physics has revolutionized the electronics components. The technique of micro-miniaturization, utilizing semiconductor circuits and thin films, has packed 100 times as many parts into the same spaces before, and made them exceedingly rugged and easily repairable to withstand the rigors of battle. The environmental sciences deal with problems of soldiers in extreme climates and terrain. Researchers are grappling with the physical properties of snow, ice, and frozen ground deep in the Arctic region. At the other extreme, they are exploring the difficulties caused by intense stresses of heat and humidity in the tropics. Where basic research leads to interesting possibilities for military application, applied research and development begin. A few outstanding items will indicate the scope of recent efforts. Item, quick serve meals for instant preparation. Food stuff with excessive bulk and weight can now be reduced to a small percentage of its original measurements. All that a frontline cook needs to prepare such meals is boiling water. Fuel cells, which convert energy of chemical fuels directly into electrical energy, they will have efficiency as high as 80% and promise to be the packaged power for self-sufficient and highly mobile combat units. Item, Virgo aircraft, which goes straight up and down and hovers in mid-air like a helicopter, can also cruise horizontally like an airplane. This is one of the experimental models leading to the production of an efficient, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Item, the red eye. The individual soldier can fight low-flying aircraft with this supersonic missile, which is guided by its heat-seeking device to home in on the enemy. Item, a family of field data computers, portable and rugged, ranging in size from small units for divisional level to large-scale systems for army and theater level, all capable of interchanging data rapidly and efficiently. First comes Moby Dick, which has already proved itself in stock control, an important element in logistics. Next comes the smaller basic pack. It can process and store information for such functions as fire support, meteorology and personnel administration. Another compact general-purpose data processor is designed for reducing staff work and speeding combat intelligence to commanders. Indeed, the day is not far distant when these electronic brains will take a great deal of guesswork out of command decisions thanks to such devices for high-speed information retrieval from a tremendous storage capacity. Chemical weapons, which can affect the enemy soldier's mentality, causing apathy and fear, or incapacitate him physically through temporary impairment of vision and movement. Behind all these R&D projects, there is a real sense of urgency, for we must continue to deliver modern weapons and equipment to our soldiers on time to meet the challenge of communist power. We must keep up the record of speedy R&D success, such as David Crockett, which took approximately three years from concept to hardware. Above all, the modernization of our army depends on man. Man is and will remain the most essential element in war. Man, not machines, wins or loses the battle. Machines cannot wage war. They can only increase the effectiveness of man. Thus, the prime mover of modernization is the man with moral conviction and will to win with scientific knowledge and technical skills. The man with the means to accomplish the mission to deter aggression in a continuous effort of learning from the past, facing up to the present and preparing for the future.