In his last professional appointment, John Gibson was the Chief Scientist of the Operations Research Division at Nato’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Shape) technical centre in The Hague.
His science was statistics, supported by a multinational group of research scientists and analysts. Their work was occasionally derided by the uninitiated as “number crunching”, but on it hinged a wide range of operational plans for Nato deployment and emergency reinforcement.
Work on the comparison of Nato and Warsaw Pact forces and force capabilities received a shock in 1968, when a newly appointed United States under-secretary of state, arriving from a purely academic background, suddenly announced that the conventional forces of the two alliances were virtually equal.
Closer study of this proposition soon revealed that he had ignored the key military factors of quality, time and distance, thereby adding to the Nato total all the units of the member nations, wherever they may be — hence a battalion of local volunteers on a South Sea island was rated equally with a Russian motor rifle battalion in East Berlin.
Gibson was appointed assistant chief scientific advisor (studies) in the Ministry of Defence central staff in the aftermath of discussions, between scientific and intelligence staffs in London and Washington, to place the American thesis in perspective. He was to spend practically the rest of his professional life in the field of force and capabilities comparison — and wideranging studies consequent upon the results.
Advertisement
From 1977, while at the Shape Technical Centre — now the Nato C3 Agency — he became closely associated with a combination of war games and simulation model approaches developed and used in close collaboration with Nato planning staffs.
The wide variety of force-level propositions were first tested in war games, where Nato military staff officers would determine tactics, and a stochastic model would be used to adjudicate engagements where the element of chance was included in the process of deciding the outcomes of events of computed probability. Then, given a “base case” accepted by the military staffs, many excursions would be run with fast-moving deterministic models working with fixed rules for tactics and averaged outcomes. This allowed extensive sensitivity analyses of critical factors to be performed.
The particular focus during his time at Shape was the analysis of Nato transatlantic military reinforcement plans for Europe to establish precisely what forces were required, when and where in relation to intelligence-based warning scenarios, and what could be achieved in the time available.
This work was done without the benefit of personal computers or versatile graphical displays commonplace today, so it was dependent on mainframe computers with outposts that would now be considered rudimentary. Results of his studies were briefed to the national military and political leadership, often leading to significant revision of defence and contingency plans. Several studies were undertaken into the most effective types of air defence systems, a field where innovation was constantly outstripping equipment production and deployment. These included the incorporation into Nato air defence plans of the then new E3A and Nimrod airborne early-warning systems complemented by the US Raytheon Hawk Surface-to-Air missiles.
Computations included sensor coverage and analysis included logistic constraints, air-to-air refuelling operations and weather patterns. Several regional studies were undertaken, including one of the Nato Northern Region, with its headquarters at Oslo, which was eventually briefed in detail to King Olav and the Defence Ministers of Denmark, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Advertisement
Gibson was greatly assisted in his work of defence-related scientific analysis both by his wartime service in the Royal Navy, which brought an invaluable sense of realism to all he attempted, and his unusually charming and generous nature. During his time at Shape, he managed a highly skilled multinational group of research scientists and analysts, with whom his easy diplomatic style of management and recognition of their varied cultural and social backgrounds achieved great success in harmonising the collective output of many talented individuals, some with competing technical and national viewpoints.
John Walter Gibson was born at South Hetton, in Co. Durham’s pit region, son of the village policeman. He won a scholarship to Sheffield University, where he read mathematics until his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. He served as a gunnery officer in the Royal Navy from 1942 to 1947 and was present on HMS Newfoundland at the surrender of the Japanese fleet in Tokyo Bay. On return to Sheffield to complete his studies, he was released from the obligation to become a teacher, a condition of his original scholarship, and began his specialisation in statistics. He completed his postgraduate studies at University College London, in 1948.
His first appointment was with the Safety-in-Mines Research Establishment at Buxton, Derbyshire, where he met his wife, Julia. His defence-related career began in 1953, when he joined the British Joint Service Mission in Washington. After his return to England three years later, he held a series of appointments in the Royal Armaments research and Development Establishment at Fort Halstead, until transferring to the Ordnance Board to become head of its statistics division in 1961. On leaving his post as assistant chief scientific adviser at the MoD, he became an Under-Secretary for Scientific Studies in the Cabinet Office until 1976.
He retired to Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1984 but kept in touch with the large circle of friends formed during his working life until his death.
He married Julia Butler in 1951, who predeceased him. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.
Advertisement
John W. Gibson, defence scientist and analyst, was born on January 5, 1922. He died on August 31, 2004, aged 82.