This one was a pretty major rewrite. The following is the introduction to Chapter 2.
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If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything.
You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.
- Michael Crichton
Chapter 2: The Rise of Long-lived Complex Systems
You have been told, or suddenly realize, that you have an impossibly complex system that you must keep working much longer than it was designed for. And, of course, there is little funding available for you to do this.
Your immediate reaction is very human: stress and angst.
One way to skip the anxiety and go right to finding a solution is to understand your predicament in context. Thus, this chapter on history.
We could go back to 1760 and attempt to trace your sense of dread to the First Industrial Revolution. This was where clever people figured out how to use machines (for instance grinding wheels and pulley systems) and new sources of energy (for instance, steam) to increase production (for instance, flour). Or we could start at 1870, the official start of the Second Industrial Revolution where we start to see very large factories. Because the first truly complex system were Cold War weapon systems, I like to start this explanation with the American Civil War (1861-1865), often thought of as the first industrialized war.
The Civil War, besides being the most important turning point in the American Story and the source of millions of personal tragedies, also saw the modern warfighter using more complicated technologies as a means to secure victory. The steam locomotive is the obvious first example. The mental picture of moving troops and supplies by rail sometimes leaves out the complicated infrastructure of trestles, refueling points, re-watering points, numerous stations, and other subsystems that were vulnerable to clever attacks by the adversary. For example, simple devices to destroy the rails were employed and trestles were blown apart with modern explosives. In other words, the military began to apply Sun Tzu’s strategies of attacking the enemy’s center of gravity by attacking the enemy’s industrial logistics capability. We will see this taken to its logical conclusion in WWII when Allied manned bombers destroy German railyards.
The Civil War also saw the first use of rifled bullets, rapidly repeating machine guns, iron clad ships, telegraphic communications, and other modern inventions that would prove their full utility in the Great War, WWI. My favorite, being an Air Force man, is Chief Aeronaut, “Professor” Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, and his observation balloons.
Lowe solved many practical problems to get his balloons flying where they would be useful. A study of how he used railroad, telegraphs, portable hydrogen generators and other subsystems illustrated that new modern weapon systems carried with them the burden of complexity. Although there were challenges to overcome, many consider the failures of this new modern weapon system to be more closely tied with the military leaders’ inabilities to fully exploit it.
All of this is introduction to the real story which takes place entirely within the 20th century, the invention of the heavier-than-air craft and its effective use in warfare. This is where the story of truly complex systems begins.
Lost in the excitement of seeing a man fly a heavier-than-air craft in 1903 is the understanding of just what the Wright Brothers had accomplished. Prior to their historic flight, people had flown in balloons with little control of their destination, or sometimes even their fate. Virtually uncontrollable heavier-than-air flights injured and killed others. To create controllable heavier-than-air flight, the Wright Brothers basically invented aeronautical engineering. They did this with their precise calculations derived from their experiments with their own wind tunnels.
Their solution was a network of cables to deform parts of the craft to manipulate airflow and give the pilot full command of the aircraft.
The engineering, math, skills, and determination required for controlled flight were a signal of what was to come. Incredible machines were possible. But they would always carry with them a “logistics tail” of experts, labs, repair shops, supply depots, support hardware, and etc.
The case might be made that tall sailing ships, for instance, employed incredible technologies that we find hard to duplicate today and should be considered complex systems. But I reject the idea that even the WWII all-metal bomber equipped with a Norden bombsight is a complex system. Real complexity was signaled in the mid-20th centrury by the invention systems engineering and its first major use in creating intercontinental and sea launched ballistic nuclear tipped ballistic missiles.
As alluded to earlier, we must credit WWII strategic bombers with taking the fight to the enemy in a new and unique way. Determined and capable commanders like General Curtis LeMay took the Army Signal Corp Aviation Section ideas of strategic bombardment and demonstrated the ability to cripple a nation’s ability to wage war, first with Germany and then Japan. The Army’s thoughtful consideration of aerial doctrine between the world wars was critical in placing men like LeMay in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge.
As World War II came to an end, today’s strategic manned bombers, land based intercontinental missiles, and submarine-based missiles were realized in the period of 1950 to 1970. These weapons are an indisputable definition of what a complex system is. One hint of this is the necessity to take Bell Labs’ newly invented discipline, systems engineering, and bring it to full fruition.
In the 1980’s, when ICBMs remained in service far past their original design life, ICBM sustainment was invented and perfected.
