be procured. No one but a fool or an ignoramus would have insisted
that, engaged as we were in a life-and-death struggle with a savage
and ruthless enemy, we should only procure the weapons with which to
subdue that enemy within our own borders. If there is a marauder in your
grounds, your chief concern is to get a gun; you do not particularly
care whether it is your own gun or one loaned you by a neighbor, so
long as it will shoot and shoot straight. The problem of the Ordnance
Department, then, was to procure arms for our armies, to procure them in
sufficient quantities, and to procure them quickly—_not to procure them
in America only_. To have set any such limitations on our effort, no
matter how flattering it might have been to national pride, would have
cost untold lives, it would have greatly prolonged the war, and it might
well have produced a different and far less happy result. So, because
our allies were both able and glad to supply us from their surplus
store, and because it was the only way that we could obtain immediate
delivery of certain things without which our armies could not fight, we
purchased artillery abroad, as well as ammunition for that artillery;
we also purchased airplanes, automatic rifles, clothing, food, surgical
instruments, medicinal supplies; we sent our forestry battalions into the
French forests for lumber—they produced 50,000,000 feet in the month
of October, 1917, alone; we quarried their stone to build our roads; we
drew on their reservoirs for water—all highly proper courses of action,
adopted with the fullest approval of France and England, and, indeed,
at their express suggestion, for the purpose of utilizing the available
ship tonnage of the world to the best and quickest advantage in effecting
the defeat of our common enemy. Critics have brought the charge that we
purchased ordnance from our allies, intimating that it was a scandalous
proceeding for which the Ordnance Department should hang its head in
shame. Yet I do not recall that those critics ever completed the story
by stating that we sold to our allies ordnance and raw materials for
ordnance to a value _five times greater than our purchases from them_.
But even with free access to and unlimited credit in the markets of the
world, grave questions of priority had to be decided; the impending
exhaustion of the world’s resources in certain raw materials and certain
classes of skilled labor demanded constantly increasing consideration. It
was of paramount importance, of course, that our own preparations for war
should not in the slightest degree delay or lessen the assistance which
we had been rendering our allies, and which they had come to regard as
perhaps the most important factor in calculating their ability to hold
the enemy in check until our military effort could become effective.
Furthermore, there had to be taken into consideration the demands of
the American Navy, which required heavy forgings and other material, as
well as trained labor, of the very type so necessary for the solution of
the army ordnance problem. On the assumption that it would be of little
avail to build ordnance for use in the field in France unless there were
cargo-ships in which to transport it and war-ships to protect those
cargo-boats against submarine attack, the requirements of army ordnance
were made secondary to the demands of our allies, of our navy, and of our
merchant marine.
The supreme difficulty encountered in the solution of the ordnance
problem is best stated in the words of the Honorable Winston Churchill,
then British Minister of Munitions, in his report to the British War
Council for the year 1917:
“In the fourth year of the war we are no longer tapping the stored-up
resources of national industry or mobilizing them and applying them for
the first time to war. The magnitude of the effort and of achievement
approximates continually to the limits of possibility. Already in many
directions the frontiers are in sight. It is therefore not necessary
merely to expand, but to go back over the ground already covered and by
more economical processes, by closer organization, and by thrifty and
harmonious methods to glean and gather a further reinforcement of war
power.”
The situation in which the British found themselves in 1917, the critical
year of the war, as depicted by Mr. Churchill, was also, though to an
even greater degree, the situation of the French, and, to a lesser
degree, our own. Due to the gradual but increasing exhaustion of the
world’s resources of raw material and skilled labor, the production
of ordnance, at first merely a manufacturing problem, became more and
more, as the limit of expansion was produced, a problem of securing raw
materials, skilled labor, and transportation. The cumulative effect
of the difficulties which I have enumerated produced a task of such
magnitude as to be literally beyond the conception of the human mind. It
involved the mobilization of science and industry and their co-ordination
with the military establishment to an extent approaching the limits of
human endeavor. Indeed, I am indulging in no mere peroration, no idle
figure of speech, when I assert that the Army Ordnance effort represented
the application of a greater physical effort than was ever directed
toward the accomplishment of a single purpose in the history of mankind.
Just as a track meet consists of various events—dashes, distance
runs, broad jumps, high jumps, shot-putting, and pole-vaults—so
there were numerous elements comprised in the ordnance problem. For
Army Ordnance, the declaration of war was the starter’s pistol; the
meeting of requirements by actual deliveries the goal. In estimating
any accomplishment, whether it be the time in which a sprinter runs
a hundred yards or a horse trots a mile, the altitude reached by an
aviator or the speed of a transatlantic liner, it is necessary to take
some accomplishment along the same or similar lines as a standard of
comparison. It is generally admitted by athletes, for example, that for
a man to run a hundred yards in ten seconds is an excellent performance;
for him to run the same distance in nine seconds would be amazing.
If, in view of this generally accepted standard of what constitutes a
sprinter’s utmost exertion, a critic condemned a sprinter for not running
a hundred yards in eight seconds, or in seven seconds, that critic
would be branded by all intelligent persons as lacking in knowledge
and judgment. So, in criticising the degree of success attained by the
Ordnance Department during the war, it would be well for the critics to
be quite certain that they have chosen just standards of comparison,
and that they possess a sufficient knowledge of the problems involved
in ordnance production to enable them to recognize a record-breaking
performance if they saw one.
Generally speaking, it may be said that those phases of the ordnance
programme which had the shorter time limits were unqualifiedly
successful. There was never a time when the production of smokeless
powder and high explosives did not equal our own requirements and still
leave us with a surplus sufficient to provide large quantities for both
France and England.
During the nineteen months of our participation in the war we produced
over 2,500,000 rifles, a quantity greater than that produced during
the same period by France (1,400,000) or by England (1,970,000), and
this notwithstanding our handicap of a standing start. To use a fairer
method of comparison, the average monthly production of France during
July, August, and September, 1918, was 40,500; of England, 112,821; of
the United States, 233,562. In other words, to again make use of the
athletic simile, not only did America cover a greater total distance
during the same period of time, but when the race was called off by the
signing of the Armistice we were producing rifles at a rate double that
of England and five times that of France.
Of small-arms ammunition (for pistols, rifles, and machine-guns) there
were produced between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, 2,879,148,000
rounds, a total equivalent to three cartridges for every minute which
has elapsed since the beginning of the Christian era! True, this total
fell slightly below that of England (3,486,127,000) and of France
(2,983,675,000) for the same period, but it must be remembered that
those nations had developed highly efficient manufacturing methods as
the result of the experience they had gained during their nearly three
years of war prior to our entry into the conflict. Notwithstanding
their running start, before the Armistice we attained a speed in the
manufacture of small-arms ammunition double that of France and 10 per
cent greater than England’s.
During that period that we were at war we produced 181,662 machine-guns,
a total slightly greater than that of England (181,404) and slightly
less than that of France (229,238), but here again a comparison of total
production is hardly a fair statement of relative accomplishment, for in
machine-gun manufacture an enormous length of time is required to build
factories, to equip them with machine tools, to design the necessary
jigs, fixtures, dies, millers, profiles, and the innumerable limit
gauges for testing the precision of the various parts. A fairer basis
of comparison—the average monthly rate of production during the months
immediately preceding the signing of the Armistice—shows that America
was producing 27,270 machine-guns and automatic rifles a month—more than
twice as many as France and nearly three times as many as England.
As to artillery ammunition, let us take the production of shell for the
75-mm. guns. Of this calibre we had produced 4,250,000 high-explosive
shell, more than 500,000 gas-shell, and over 7,250,000 shrapnel when the
Armistice was signed. From January 18, 1918, when the first complete
American division entered the line, until firing ceased ten months later,
our gunners used 6,250,000 rounds of 75-mm. ammunition. Prior to the
Armistice we had shipped to France about 8,500,000 shell of this same
calibre. Thus it will be seen that though American gunners admittedly
made use of French-made ammunition from the Franco-American pool (thereby
confirming the worst suspicions of the army’s critics), each round fired
was made good prior to the signing of the Armistice with 33⅓ per cent
margin.
Of the artillery programme proper, it is difficult to appraise the
performance, for the reason that the race was called off before it was
half run. It will be forever difficult to establish beyond question
whether the American artillery programme at the time of the signing of
the Armistice was as sufficiently far advanced as could be reasonably
expected under the circumstances. Any attempt to pass on Ordnance’s
accomplishment, or lack of accomplishment, in this respect must in
justice take into account the best previous performance along these
lines. Of all the countries engaged in the war the experience of England
affords the closest parallel to that of the United States in respect
to the initial stages of industrial and military preparation. In
determining a standard of performance in the equipping with artillery of
a hastily raised army by a peace-loving nation, permit me to quote a few
significant sentences from a statement made by the British Ministry of
Munitions:
“It is very difficult to say how long it was before the British Army was
thoroughly equipped with artillery and ammunition. The ultimate size
of the army aimed at was continually increased during the first three
years of the war, so that the ordnance requirements were continually
increasing. It is probably true to say that the equipment of the Army as
planned in the early summer of 1915 was completed by September, 1916. As
a result, however, of the battle of Verdun and the early stages of the
battle of the Somme, a great change was made in the standard of equipment
per division of the Army, followed by further increases in September,
1916. The Army was not completely equipped on this new scale until
spring, 1918.”
Thus it will be seen that it took England nearly four years to completely
equip her army with artillery and ammunition. On that basis we had
two years and five months to go before incomplete equipment with
American-made artillery could have been condemned, with justification,
as poor performance. The nineteen months which the war lasted after
America’s entry did not give sufficient time for our industrial power
to make itself fully felt. Even so, I don’t suppose that any one, save
perhaps the profiteers, would wish the war to have lasted long enough for
us to prove that we could produce artillery as rapidly as our allies.
It should be kept in mind that proper strategy demanded an ordnance
programme designed to insure an _ultimate_ overwhelming and continuous
rate of production rather than a lesser rate of production at an earlier
date. What I wish to get across to you (pardon the slang) is that the
primary object of Ordnance was not to obtain immediate production of
enough artillery and ammunition to equip our little First Contingent, but
to obtain a _rate of production_ which would provide for the equipment
of the army of 5,000,000 men which it had been decided to raise. Now it
is perfectly obvious to any one that a housewife could buy a stove and
bake a dozen loaves of bread in far less time than would be required to
build a bakery and bake enough bread to feed an entire city. But the rate
of production from the housewife’s oven would never feed the city. So it
was with ordnance. By the sacrifice of far more important considerations,
there is no doubt that enough guns could have been produced in a
comparatively short time to equip the first few divisions. In order to
do this, time was required for building plants capable of such a rate
of production. We had to obtain designs and even, in certain cases, to
discard existing designs, in order to get manufacturing plants on a
basis permitting such a rate of production. It would have been madness
to have sacrificed production in 1920 to force a quicker but far smaller
production in 1918. The Ordnance Department was not directing its efforts
to obtain for American arms an immediate but isolated success, gratifying
as such a success would have been to American pride; instead it was
building a machine which would make an ultimate and sweeping victory
absolutely certain.
No branch of the army took up its war-task under such discouraging
conditions as the Ordnance Department. It had 97 officers; it needed
10,000. But where were they to come from? It was and is impossible
to improvise ordnance experts, like those of pre-war times, who were
required to possess a thorough knowledge of all phases of ordnance
work from design and development through procurement, production, and
inspection to the supply of troops. But upon the outbreak of hostilities
thousands of engineers, graduates of the world’s most famous technical
institutions and many of them with wide experience in their respective
branches of the engineering profession, offered their services to the
Ordnance Department, and it is very largely due to their ability,
experience, and devotion that the solution of many of Ordnance’s most
perplexing problems is due. The industrial field, too, yielded a generous
contribution of its best ability. To these men were often given strange
tasks. They were called upon to procure materials with which they were
unfamiliar in markets where no readily available supply existed. They
had to design and erect complete manufacturing plants and to teach
manufacturing methods which they themselves often had first to learn.
Time after time they were ordered to manufacture articles of which they
had never so much as seen a specimen before they entered the army. A
huge personnel had to be organized to care for the inspection of this
enormous volume of varied material, to prove it by means of firing tests
at Aberdeen and elsewhere, and to develop it from the first rough model
through all the interminable stages to the point of successful quantity
production.
The advice, wishes, and requirements of our allies were given full
consideration, often at a sacrifice of natural national pride. On
their advice or at their formally expressed desire, we in many cases
undertook the manufacture of components instead of complete assembled
units: powder for propelling charges and high explosives for bursting
charges of ammunition, instead of assembled shell complete in smaller
quantity; black or rough-machined forgings for cannon, projectiles or
recuperators in place of the corresponding finished articles; motors and
structural steel work for standardized tanks for joint use in lieu of
a smaller number of complete units for the use of our armies alone. We
yielded priority on raw material sorely needed to make our own programme
a success, but even more desperately needed by our allies to stave off
defeat until we should arrive in force.
Every 15 pounds of finished smokeless powder requires 14 pounds of cotton
and 700 pounds of mixed acid for its nitration, so we made the gun-cotton
to the extent of more than 500,000,000 pounds on this side of the water,
thus saving the excess tonnage that would have been required for the
shipment of the raw materials. A similar condition obtained with regard
to high explosives. Guided by the same sound principle, we shipped in
bulk enough pierced shell blanks to keep the French and British factories
going to the limit of their capacity, and so on through the endless
list of articles or components required for our common use. For, be it
remembered, it was not our war alone.
[Illustration: AN AMERICAN 75-MM. IN ACTION.
The French admitted that the 75-mm. field gun as built in the United
States in several respects excelled their own famous Soixante-Quinze.
_Photograph by Signal Corps, U. S. A._]
[Illustration: THE 37-MM. GUN IN ACTION.
This vicious, hard-hitting, and extremely mobile little weapon proved of
enormous value in wiping out machine-gun nests.]
The quality of our product is attested by the almost pathetic eagerness
of the _poilu_ to acquire an American rifle with its beautifully adjusted
sights, its admirable breech mechanism, and its rimless, non-jamming
ammunition; by the universally acknowledged excellence of the American
automatic pistol; by the purchase by the French Government of 550 155-mm.
howitzers built in America from French designs; by the cabled request
of the French Government for a continuous supply of 3,000 Browning
machine-guns _every month_ and 50,000,000 cartridges for them, after
witnessing their performance under battle conditions; by the general
order from British General Headquarters directing that on account
of its greater uniformity, and consequent less danger to the troops
advancing under its protection, _only American-made powder_ be used for
artillery barrages—all these are tributes to American science, American
engineering, and American industry, as exemplified in American ordnance,
by qualified judges who were backing their opinions with their lives.
* * * * *
American artillery may be roughly divided into four classes: light,
medium, heavy, and railway. The light artillery consists of two types:
the little, hard-hitting 37-mm. infantry-accompanying cannon, operated by
two men, primarily designed for knocking out “pill-boxes” and machine-gun
nests and, with a shortened barrel, for use in tanks, and the 75-mm.
field-gun, an American adaptation of the famous French _soixante-quinze_,
which, according to the admission of the French themselves, it in
several respects excelled. Three types of weapons are included in the
medium-calibre class: the 4.7-inch field-gun, which we had adopted and
had manufactured in small quantities prior to our entrance into the
war; the 155-mm. G. P. F. (_Grand Puissance Filloux_), really a big
brother of the “seventy-five,” with correspondingly increased power and
range, designed for interdicting crossroads and harassing the enemy’s
middle areas, and the 155-mm. howitzer, which with its plunging fire
is admirably adapted for trench and dugout demolition. In mobile heavy
artillery we have the 8-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers, likewise designed
primarily for demolition purposes. And, finally, the great 8, 10, 12,
14, and 16 inch pieces—guns, howitzers, and mortars—mounted on and fired
from specially designed railway-trucks suited to the French road-beds—for
incessant pounding of the depots, dumps, headquarters, and railways far
behind the enemy’s lines. In addition to the above there are, of course,
the various types of antiaircraft artillery, mainly of 75-mm. calibre,
and the trench-mortars, ranging in size from the 3-inch Stokes, light
enough to go over the top with the first wave of an attack and simple
enough to be fired when supported only by the knees of a squatting
soldier, up to the 240-mm. trench-mortar of position, whose great shell
can blow the stoutest concrete fortification to smithereens. We also
had in use at various times small numbers of miscellaneous calibres and
types, but, as the result of the policy of reducing the number of types
in order to simplify the problem of ammunition supply, our artillery had
become fairly well standardized by the closing months of the war.
Years ago—though not nearly so long ago as it seems—when artillery was
still hauled into position by sweating gun-teams, a veteran ordnance
officer, addressing a scientific society, told his hearers that the
weight of artillery was governed by the limited power of the horse. As
a horse has a sustained pulling power of only 650 pounds, he explained,
it was obvious that a 6-horse gun-team could not pull a gun and limber
weighing more than 3,900 pounds. “If Divine Providence had given the
horse the speed of the deer and the power of an elephant,” he added,
“we might have had a far wider and more effective range for our mobile
artillery.” Could that officer have looked a few years into the future
he would have been astonished to see that, thanks largely to the genius
of a Californian named Holt, there would be substituted for the horse a
curious contrivance known as the caterpillar tractor, which possesses
many times the power of an elephant. Though the tractor cannot be
claimed, by any stretch of the imagination, to have the speed of a deer,
it nevertheless has sufficient speed to keep pace with the infantry,
or, indeed, should it become necessary, with cavalry. Few people appear
to realize how enormous were the savings in men, animals, feed,
railway facilities, and ocean tonnage effected by the motorization of
our artillery. The motorization of one 155-mm. howitzer regiment saved
1,440 horses. One tractor for this howitzer is the equivalent of sixteen
heavy draft-horses and three riding-horses, yet it is so compact that it
occupies in packing a space of but 360 cubic feet, and can be operated by
two men. Tractors are not only easier to conceal from enemy observation
than horses, but a shell-burst which would kill every horse in a battery,
would leave an armored tractor uninjured. Not long ago, at the Aberdeen
Proving-Ground, one of these tractors, on which was mounted an 8-inch
howitzer, sent through a dense wood, ran squarely into a live locust-tree
which was seventeen inches thick at the base. Before the onslaught of
the tractor the tree went down as though it were made of cardboard,
whereupon the amazing machine crawled over the fallen trunk, slid into
and clambered out of a ravine, emerged from the wood and took up its
firing position—all in scarcely more time than it takes to tell of it.
Before the war ended virtually every piece of American medium and heavy
artillery was either tractor-mounted or tractor-drawn, and we were on the
road toward motorizing the field-artillery—the “seventy-fives”—as well.
[Illustration: AN AMERICAN 75-MM. FIELD GUN. TRACTOR MOUNTED.
Thanks largely to the genius of a Californian named Holt, there has been
substituted for the horse a curious contrivance known us the caterpillar
tractor which possesses many times the power of an elephant.]
[Illustration: A 12-INCH RAILWAY GUN IN OPERATION.
Note the shell in flight.]