AREA NATIVE ASSISTS ON HIGH-TECH MISSILE

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- A Gordonville native, who helped develop the computer programming for the Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile now in use in the Persian Gulf, says the weapon has performed "remarkably well."

Paul Wessel, interviewed by telephone Wednesday from his home in Silver Springs, Md., headed the department that developed the computer software that guides the missile system.

Wessel grew up in Gordonville, where his parents still live. He graduated from Jackson High School in 1955 and Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau in 1958.

Immediately after graduating from Southeast, Wessel began working for the Navy's Surface Warfare Center in Washington, D.C.

"The Navy Research and Development Center developed the system and I was, at the time, the head of the Combat Systems Department," Wessel said. "The department had about 500 people, of which about 100 were engaged in the development of the software for the Tomahawk fire control."

The center consists of civilian scientists and engineers, who work to develop new high-technology weapons systems for the Navy. Wessel said the department developed the Tomahawk system between 1984 and 1986.

The 4,000-pound missile is propelled by a small jet engine once its booster launch rocket is ejected, Wessel said. Once airborne, folding wings are employed, and when the missile reaches its target, the power of its payload either a 1,000-pound warhead or 166 small bombs disbursed over a wide area is unleashed.

"A 1,000-pound warhead flown into a medium-size building would pretty much demolish that building," Wessel said. "There wouldn't be anything left."

As many as 256 of the missiles have been fired into Iraq from Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and north Arabian Sea, Wessel said.

Despite getting its first combat test, the Tomahawk system is performing extremely well, Wessel said.

"That first Tomahawk that exploded over Baghdad was the first fired in anger," he said. "It's been tested extensively, but you don't fire whole bunches of these things in tests because that would be awfully expensive. Consequently, you're just not sure about its capabilities until you use the weapon.

"But it's performed extremely well. It has exceeded anyone's expectations."

Wessel said that initial reports, following the first allied attacks on Iraq Jan. 16, said that 51 of the first 52 Tomahawk missiles had reached their targets.

"I called up all the people that had done the work in the department for me and offered my congratulations for a job obviously well done," he said.

"You can spend years working on this type of thing and hope at the same time that you'll never have to use them," he added. "We're very aware of the kind of damage these things can do to people and the targets."

Wessel said that, despite his apprehension, it's fortunate when weapons systems like the Tomahawk perform as they are designed.

The missile, an upgrade of an older, more rudimentary system, can be fired from vertical launchers, submarines, or "box launchers" used on smaller ships without vertical launch systems.

Wessel said the software that guides the missile allows it to "sense" its altitude and speed, enabling it to fly low and, once it reaches land, adjust to the contours of the terrain it flies over.

"It compares the terrain it flies over with a digital map, which is stored in its software," he said.

"It samples its flight path along the way from time to time and corrects it so that when it approaches its target, it senses the target spot and aims itself toward the spot it's programmed for."

"So when you hear `pin-point accuracy,' I'm not sure it's pin-point, but it's accurate," Wessel said.

He said that with a range of several hundred miles, the Tomahawk is particularly important to the Navy, which can fire the missile well off-shore and undetected by enemy radar.

In the Persian Gulf now is a fleet of two battleships, the Missouri and the Wisconsin, eight Aegis cruisers and seven destroyers that all are capable of firing the Tomahawk.

Wessel said the missile's 1,000-pound warhead also is believed capable of destroying Iraq's fortified bunkers where aircraft are stored.

"Now you have this large number of ships and you can distribute your striking power over quite an area," he said. "A potential enemy doesn't have a very good fix on where it's going to come from nor does he have any ability to counter it."

Because the missile has such a small circumference, it's difficult to detect with radar, Wessel said.

"Almost any object will have some radar return," he said. "It's just that if you're looking at the front end of a cruise missile, it's not very big more or less the size of a basketball.

"If you think of radar reflecting off something the way light reflects off a mirror, which is basically what it does, this system just isn't going to be easily detected."

The weapon's range, accuracy and payload also provides an efficient way to strike targets that otherwise would require more risky and expensive aircraft missions.

Wessel currently is working in the Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in the area of long-range planning for Navy weapons systems.

He said the success of systems like the Tomahawk in the gulf might pave the way for more funding to continue to develop high-technology systems. Wessel said the pentagon has been forced to fight some bitter battles with Congress to secure funds for many of the expensive systems that don't always perform as expected.

"But then again, if it was already cut and dried and a simple thing do it, it wouldn't be high tech and everybody would have it," Wessel said. "If you're really trying to advance the capabilities into a new area, not everything you try will succeed."

But Wessel also said the changing climate of international relations could affect the types of weapons developed and the amount of funds needed for those weapons.

"We do not face the same kind of massive threat that we faced up until a couple years ago from Russia," he said. "The nature of the kind of forces we need may be different now."