[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE.
"THE END OF THE WAR."
A GRAPHIC RECORD.
One minute before the hour.
All guns firing.
Nov. 11, 1918. 11 A.M.
One minute after the hour.
All guns silent.
This is the last record by sound ranging of artillery activity
on the American front near the River Moselle. It is the
reproduction of a piece of recording tape as it issued
from an American sound-ranging apparatus when the hour of
11 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1918, brought
the general order to cease firing, and the great war came
to an end. Six seconds of sound recording are shown. The
broken character of the records on the left indicates great
artillery activity; the lack of irregularities on the right
indicates almost complete cessation of firing, two breaks
in the second line probably being due to the exuberance
of a doughboy firing his pistol twice close to one of the
recording microphones on the front in celebration of the
dawn of peace. The two minutes on either side of the exact
armistice hour have been cut from the strip to emphasize
the contrast. Sound ranging was an important means of
locating the positions and calibers of enemy guns. A
description of these wonderful devices, which were a secret
with America and the Allies, is given in Book III, chapter
4.]
America's Munitions
1917-1918
REPORT
OF
BENEDICT CROWELL
THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR
DIRECTOR OF MUNITIONS
[Illustration]
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1919
WASHINGTON, D. C., _December 24, 1918_.
DEAR MR. CROWELL: American munitions production, which for some time
has been in your charge, played an important part in the early decision
of the war, yet the very immensity and complexity of the problem has
made it difficult for this accomplishment to be adequately understood
by the public or in fact by any except those who have had occasion to
give the matter special study. As the whole people have been called
upon to make sacrifices for the war, all the people should be given an
opportunity to know what has been done in their behalf in munitions
production, and I therefore ask that you have prepared a historical
statement of munitions production, so brief that all may have time to
read it, so nontechnical that all may be able readily to understand it,
and so authoritative that all may rely upon its accuracy.
Cordially yours,
NEWTON D. BAKER,
_Secretary of War_.
Hon. BENEDICT CROWELL,
_The Assistant Secretary of War_.
WASHINGTON, D. C., _May 10, 1919_.
DEAR MR. SECRETARY: Responding to your request, I transmit herewith
a brief, nontechnical, authoritative history of munitions production
during the recent war. The several chapters have been prepared in the
first instance by the officers who have been directly responsible for
production, and have been assembled and edited, under my direction, by
Hon. Robert J. Bulkley, assisted by Capt. Robert Forrest Wilson and
Capt. Benjamin E. Ling. Capt. Wilson has undertaken responsibility for
the literary style of the report, and has rewritten the greater part of
it, consulting at length with the officers who supplied the original
material, and with officers of the statistics branch of the General
Staff, in order to insure accuracy.
Maj. Gen. C. C. Williams, Chief of Ordnance; Brig. Gen. W. S. Peirce,
Acting Chief of Ordnance; Maj. Gen. C. T. Menoher, Chief of Air
Service; Maj. Gen. W. M. Black, Chief of Engineers; Maj. Gen. W. L.
Sibert, Chief of Chemical Warfare Service; Maj. Gen. H. L. Rogers,
Quartermaster General; Mr. R. J. Thorne, Acting Quartermaster General;
Maj. Gen. G. O. Squier, Chief Signal Officer; Brig. Gen. Charles B.
Drake, Chief of Motor Transport Corps; and Maj. Gen. W. M. Ireland, the
Surgeon General, have cooperated in the preparation of the material
transmitted herewith.
Special acknowledgment for the preparation and correction of the
several chapters is due to the following officers:
The ordnance problem, Col. James L. Walsh.
Gun production, Col. William P. Barba.
Mobile field artillery, Col. J. B. Rose.
Railway artillery, Col. G. M. Barnes and Maj. E. D. Campbell.
Explosives, propellants, and artillery ammunition, Col. C. T. Harris
and Maj. J. Herbert Hunter.
Sights and fire-control apparatus, Col. H. K. Rutherford and Maj. Fred
E. Wright.
Motorized artillery, Col. L. B. Moody and Lieut. Col. H. W. Alden.
Tanks, Lieut. Col. H. W. Alden.
Machine guns, Col. Earl McFarland and Lieut. Col. Herbert O'Leary.
Service rifles, Maj. Lewis P. Johnson and Maj. Parker Dodge.
Pistols and revolvers, Lieut. Col. J. C. Beatty and Maj. Parker Dodge.
Small arms ammunition, Lieut. Col. J. C. Beatty, Maj. Lee O. Wright,
Maj. A. E. Hunt, and Capt. C. J. Evans.
Trench warfare material, Lieut. Col. E. J. W. Ragsdale, Capt. J. R.
Caldwell, Capt. R. D. Smith, and Lieut. J. T. Libbey.
Miscellaneous ordnance equipment, Lieut. Col. S. H. MacGregor, Maj.
Bashford Dean, Capt. A. L. Fabens, and Capt. James S. Wiley.
The aircraft problem and airplane production, Lieut. Col. George W.
Mixter.
The Liberty engine and other airplane engines, Lieut. H. H. Emmons,
United States Navy.
Aviation equipment and armament, Lieut. Col. E. J. W. Ragsdale, Maj. E.
Bradley, Capt. Robert D. Smith, Capt. H. E. Ives, and Lieut. John M.
Hammond.
The airplane radio telephone, Col. C. C. Culver and Lieut. Col. Nugent
H. Slaughter.
Balloons, Capt. H. W. Treat.
The Engineers in France, Lieut. Col. J. B. Cress and Capt. C. Beard.
Military railways, Col. J. M. Milliken and Mr. S. M. Felton.
Engineer activities at home, Lieut. Col. J. B. Cress and Lieut. Col. R.
W. Crawford.
Sound and flash ranging and searchlights, Lieut. Col. J. B. Cress and
Maj. W. D. Young.
Toxic gases, Col. M. T. Bogert, Col. W. A. Walker, Lieut. Col. E. M.
Chance, and Lieut. Col. William McPherson.
Defensive gas equipment, Col. Bradley Dewey and Lieut. Col. A. L. Besse.
Subsistence, Lieut. Col. J. H. Adams and Capt. S. B. Johnson.
Clothing and equipage, Lieut. Col. F. A. Ellison and Capt. W. H. Porter.
Miscellaneous quartermaster undertakings: Music, Maj. George H.
Richards; fuel, oil, and paints, Mr. J. Elliott Hall; brushes, Capt. T.
W. S. Phillips; rolling kitchens, Capt. J. G. Williams and Mr. M. A.
Dunning; tools and tool chests, Mr. W. F. Fusting and Mr. M. E. Moye;
hardware, Lieut. Col. H. P. Hill and Mr. William A. Graham; factory
enterprises, Lieut. Col. H. P. Hill; shoe fitting, Col. F. A. Ellison;
meat cutting, Dr. W. O. Trone; packing, Capt. R. H. Moody; horses and
mules, Maj. A. Cedarwald.
Motor and horse-drawn vehicles: Motor vehicles, Col. Fred Glover;
horse-drawn vehicles, Maj. A. Volgeneau.
Medical and dental supplies, Lieut. Col. J. P. Fletcher and Capt. W. G.
Guth.
Salvage, Col. J. S. Chambers and Capt. F. C. Simpson.
Mr. W. L. Pollard, Mr. Aaron Rachofsky, and Lieut. J. J. Cameron
have rendered very valuable assistance in assembling data concerning
quartermaster activities.
Cantonments and camps, and miscellaneous construction, Maj. W. G.
Maupin.
Signal Corps material, Brig. Gen. C. McK. Saltzman and Capt. Donald
MacGregor.
The accuracy of all statistics and direct statements of fact has been
checked and approved by the statistics branch of the General Staff,
under the direction of Maj. W. R. Burgess.
Respectfully submitted,
BENEDICT CROWELL,
_The Assistant Secretary of War,
Director of Munitions_.
Hon. NEWTON D. BAKER,
_Secretary of War_.
PREFACE.
Except in one or two instances, this account of the production of
munitions in America for the war against Germany and her allies
contains nothing about secret devices invented during the period under
discussion. When the necessity for silence with respect to vital
matters brought about a voluntary censorship in American publications,
the land was filled with rumors of new and revolutionary developments
in war matériel, particularly of new weapons of offense. It is fair to
the American public to-day to state that such rumors were not without
foundation. American inventiveness rose splendidly to the emergency.
The expected American offensive in 1919 would have had its "surprises"
in numbers, some of which might well have proved to be decisive.
Certain of these inventions had been put in large production before
the armistice was declared, others had been carried to an advanced
experimental stage that insured their success. Since the value of these
innovations as part of the Nation's permanent military assets depends
largely upon their secret nature, it would be obviously unwise to
mention or describe them at this time.
The Director of Munitions wishes to acknowledge the debt of America,
so far as the production of munitions is concerned, to the Navy for
its cooperation in industrial matters at home and its strong aid
in the safe transport of munitions to France, and to all the other
Government departments, each one of which contributed in numerous and
important ways to the success of the munitions enterprise. The debt
also extends heavily to the War Industries Board, its functions of
creating facilities for manufacture, opening up new sources of raw
materials, allocating materials, decreeing priorities, fixing prices,
and acting as purchasing agent for the allies, making it the national
industrial clearing house through which the War Department could work
without waste effort. Acknowledgment is made to such essential agencies
as the United States Railroad Administration, the United States Fuel
Administration, the War Trade Board, and the United States Food
Administration, and to all official or volunteer activities looking to
the conservation and mobilization of our national resources. Without
this entire cooperation the history set forth in these pages would not
be what it is.
CONTENTS.
Page.
Introduction 13
BOOK I--ORDNANCE.
CHAPTER 1. The ordnance problem 21
2. Gun production 38
3. Mobile field artillery 56
4. Railway artillery 91
5. Explosives, propellants, and artillery ammunition 103
6. Sights and fire-control apparatus 135
7. Motorized artillery 148
8. Tanks 154
9. Machine guns 158
10. Service rifles 177
11. Pistols and revolvers 187
12. Small-arms ammunition 191
13. Trench-warfare material 200
14. Miscellaneous ordnance equipment 221
BOOK II--THE AIR SERVICE.
CHAPTER 1. The aircraft problem 235
2. Airplane production 239
3. The Liberty engine 265
4. Other airplane engines 281
5. Aviation equipment and armament 294
6. The airplane radio telephone 323
7. Balloons 331
BOOK III--THE ENGINEER CORPS.
CHAPTER 1. The Engineers in France 347
2. Military railways 367
3. Engineer activities at home 375
4. Sound and flash ranging and searchlights 383
BOOK IV--CHEMICAL WARFARE.
CHAPTER 1. Toxic gases 395
2. Gas defense equipment. 410
BOOK V--QUARTERMASTER ACTIVITIES.
CHAPTER 1. Subsistence 435
2. Clothing and equipage 453
3. Miscellaneous quartermaster undertakings 475
4. Motor and horse-drawn vehicles 496
5. Medical and dental supplies 511
6. Salvage 517
BOOK VI--THE CONSTRUCTION DIVISION.
CHAPTER 1. Cantonments and camps 535
2. Miscellaneous construction 548
BOOK VII--THE SIGNAL CORPS.
CHAPTER 1. Signal Corps material 567
Conclusion 585
AMERICA'S MUNITIONS, 1917-18
INTRODUCTION.
As our war against Germany recedes into the past its temporal
boundaries become more sharply defined, and it assumes the character
of a complete entity--a rounded-out period of time in which the United
States collected her men and resources, fought, and shared in the
victory.
As such it offers to the critic the easy opportunity to discover that
certain things were not done. American airplanes did not arrive at
the front in sufficient numbers. American guns in certain essential
calibers did not appear at all. American gas shells were not fired at
the enemy. American troops fought with French and British machine guns
to a large extent. The public is familiar with such statements.
It should be remembered that the war up to its last few weeks--up to
its last few days, in fact--was a period of anxious suspense, during
which America was straining her energies toward a goal, toward the
realization of an ambition which, in the production of munitions,
dropped the year 1918 almost out of consideration altogether, which
indeed did not bring the full weight of American men and matériel into
the struggle even in 1919, but which left it for 1920, if the enemy had
not yet succumbed to the growing American power, to witness the maximum
strength of the United States in the field.
Necessarily, therefore, the actual period of hostilities, between April
6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, was devoted in this country to laying
down the foundations of a munitions industry that should bring about
its overwhelming results at the appointed time. What munitions of the
more difficult sort were actually produced in this period might almost
be termed casual to the main enterprise--pilots of the quantities to
come.
The decision to prepare heavily for 1919 and 1920 and thus sacrifice
for 1917 and 1918 the munitions that might have been produced at the
cost of any less adequate preparation for the more distant future, was
based on sound strategical reasoning on the part of the Allies and
ourselves.
On going back to the past we find that on April 6, 1917, the United
States scarcely realized the gravity of the undertaking. There was a
general impression, reaching even into Government, that the Allies
alone were competent to defeat the Central Powers in time, and that
America's part would be largely one of moral support, with expanding
preparation in the background as insurance against any unforeseen
disasters. In line with this attitude we sent the first division of
American troops to France in the spring of 1917 to be our earnest to
the governments and peoples of the Allies that we were with them in the
great struggle. Not until after the departure of the various foreign
missions that came to this country during that spring did America fully
awake to the seriousness of the situation.
All through the summer of 1917 the emphasis upon American man power in
France gradually grew, but no definite schedule upon which the United
States could work was reached until autumn or early winter, until the
mission headed by Col. Edward M. House visited Europe to give America
place on the Supreme War Council and in the Interallied Conference. The
purpose of the House mission was to assure the Allies that America was
in the war for all she was worth and to determine the most effective
method in which she could cooperate.
In the conferences in London and Paris the American representatives
looked into the minds of the allied leaders and saw the situation as
it was. Two dramatic factors colored all the discussions--the growing
need for men and the gravity of the shipping situation. The German
submarines were operating so effectively as to make exceedingly dark
the outlook for the transport on a sufficient scale either of American
troops or of American munitions.
As to man power, the Supreme War Council gave it as the judgment of
the military leaders of the Allies that, if the day were to be saved,
America must send 1,000,000 troops by the following July. There were
in France then (on Dec. 1, 1917) parts of four divisions of American
soldiers--129,000 men in all.
The program of American cooperation, as it crystallized in these
conferences, may be summarized as follows:
1. To keep the Allies from starvation by shipping food.
2. To assist the Allied armies by keeping up the flow of matériel
already in production for them in the United States.
3. To send as many men as could be transported with the shipping
facilities then at America's command.
4. To bend energies toward a big American Army in 1919 equipped with
American supplies.
In these conferences sat the chief military and political figures of
the principal European powers at war with Germany. In the Supreme
War Council were such strategists as Gen. Foch for the French and
Gen. Robertson for the British, Gen. Bliss representing the United
States. The president of the Interallied Conference was M. Clemenceau,
the French prime minister. Mr. Winston Churchill, the minister of
munitions, represented Great Britain, while Mr. Lloyd-George, the
Prime Minister of England, also participated to some extent in the
conferences.
Out of bodies of such character came the international ordnance
agreement. It will be apparent to the reader that this agreement must
have represented the best opinion of the leaders of the principal
Allies, initiated out of their intimate knowledge of the needs of the
situation and concurred in by the representatives of the United States.
The substance of this agreement was outlined for Washington in a cabled
message signed by Gen. Bliss, a document that had such an important
bearing upon the production of munitions in this country that its more
important passages are set down at this point:
The representatives of Great Britain and France state that
their production of artillery (field, medium, and heavy) is now
established on so large a scale that they are able to equip
completely all American divisions as they arrive in France
during the year 1918 with the best make of British and French
guns and howitzers.
The British and French ammunition supply and reserves are
sufficient to provide the requirements of the American Army
thus equipped at least up to June, 1918, provided that the
existing 6-inch shell plants in the United States and Dominion
of Canada are maintained in full activity, and provided that
the manufacture of 6-inch howitzer carriages in the United
States is to some extent sufficiently developed.
On the other hand, the French, and to a lesser extent the
British, require as soon as possible large supplies of
propellants and high explosives: and the British require the
largest possible production of 6-inch howitzers from now onward
and of 8-inch and 9.2-inch shell from June onward.
In both of these matters they ask the assistance of the
Americans.
With a view, therefore, first to expedite and facilitate the
equipment of the American armies in France, and, second, to
secure the maximum ultimate development of the ammunition
supply with the minimum strain upon available tonnage, the
representatives of Great Britain and France propose that
the American field, medium, and heavy artillery be supplied
during 1918, and as long after as may be found convenient,
from British and French gun factories; and they ask: (A) That
the American efforts shall be immediately directed to the
production of propellants and high explosives on the largest
possible scale; and (B) Great Britain also asks that the
6-inch, 8-inch, and 9.2-inch shell plants already created for
the British service in the United States shall be maintained in
the highest activity, and that large additional plants for the
manufacture of these shells shall at once be laid down.
In this way alone can the tonnage difficulty be minimised and
potential artillery development, both in guns and shells, of
the combined French, British, and American armies be maintained
in 1918 and still more in 1919.
This agreement had a profound effect upon American production of
munitions. Most important of all, it gave us time; time to build
manufacturing capacity on a grand scale without the hampering necessity
for immediate production; time to secure the best in design; time to
attain quality in the enormous output to come later as opposed to early
quantity of indifferent class.
In the late autumn of 1917, shortly after Russia collapsed and
withdrew from the war, it became evident that Germany would seize the
opportunity to move her troops from the eastern front and concentrate
her entire army against the French and British in 1918.
This intelligence at once resulted in fresh emphasis upon the man-power
phase of American cooperation. As early as December, 1917, the War
Department was anticipating the extraordinary need for men in the
coming spring by considering plans for the transport of troops up to
the supposed limit of the capacity of all available American ships,
with what additional tonnage Great Britain and the other Allies could
spare us. It is of record that the actual dispatch of troops to France
far outstripped these early estimates.
Then came the long-expected German offensive, and the cry went up
in Europe for men. England, "her back against the wall," offered
additional ships in which to transport six divisions over and above the
number of troops already scheduled for embarkation, agreeing further to
feed and maintain these men for 10 weeks while they were brigaded with
British units for final training. After the six additional divisions
had embarked there was still need of men, and the British continued
their transports in our service. The high mark of shipment was in July,
when 306,000 American soldiers were transported across the Atlantic,
more than three times the number contemplated for July in the schedule
adopted six months earlier.
[Illustration: ACTUAL TROOP SAILINGS COMPARED WITH PROGRAMS.]
The effect of this stepping up of the man-power program upon the
shipment of supplies was described by Lieut. Col. Repington, the
British military critic, writing in the Morning Post (London) on
December 9, 1918, in part as follows:
* * * they (the British war cabinet) also prayed America in
aid, implored her to send in haste all available infantry
and machine guns, and placed at her disposal, to her great
surprise, a large amount of transports to hasten arrivals. * * *
The American Government acceded to this request in the most
loyal and generous manner. Assured by their Allies in France
that the latter could fit out the American infantry divisions
on their arrival with guns, horses, and transport, the
Americans packed their infantry tightly in the ships and left
to a later occasion the dispatch to France of guns, horses,
transport, labor units, flying service, rolling stock, and a
score of other things originally destined for transport with
the divisions. If subsequently--and indeed up to the day that
the armistice was signed--Gen. Pershing found himself short
of many indispensable things, and if his operations were
thereby conducted under real difficulties of which he must have
been only too sensible, the defects were not due to him and
his staff, nor to the Washington administration, nor to the
resolute Gen. March and his able fellow workers, but solely to
the self-sacrificing manner in which America had responded to
the call of her friends.
* * * * *
[Illustration: BRITISH AND AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES ON WESTERN
FRONT.]
The really amazing thing which America did was to place in France
in 19 months an army of the size and the ability of the American
Expeditionary Force. The war taught us that America can organize,
train, and transport troops of a superior sort at a rate which leaves
far behind any program for the manufacture of munitions. It upset
the previous opinion that adequate military preparedness is largely a
question of trained man power.
When the war touched us our strategical equipment included plans ready
drawn for the mobilization of men. There were on file at the Army War
College in Washington detailed plans for defending our harbors, our
coasts, and our borders. There were also certain plans for the training
of new troops.
It is worthy of note, however, that this equipment included no plan for
the equally important and equally necessary mobilization of industry
and production of munitions, which proved to be the most difficult
phase of the actual preparation for war. The experience of 1917 and
1918 was a lesson in the time it takes to determine types, create
designs, provide facilities, and establish manufacture. These years
will forever stand as the monument to the American genius of workshop
and factory, which in this period insured the victory by insuring the
timely arrival of the overwhelming force of America's resources in the
form of America's munitions.
B. C.
WASHINGTON, _May, 1919_.
BOOK I.
ORDNANCE.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORDNANCE PROBLEM.
To arm the manhood called to defend the Nation in 1917 and 1918, to
make civilians into soldiers by giving them the tools of the martial
profession--such was the task of the Ordnance Department in the late
war.
The off-hand thought may identify ordnance as artillery alone. It
may surprise many to know that in the American ordnance catalogue of
supplies during the recent war there were over 100,000 separate and
distinct items. Thousands of the items of ordnance were distinctly
noncommercial, meaning that they had to be designed and produced
specially for the uses of war.
While the principles of fighting essentially have changed not one whit
since the age when projectiles were stones hurled by catapults, nearly
every advance in mechanical science has had its reflection in warfare,
until to-day the weapons which man has devised to destroy the military
power of his enemy make up an intricate and an imposing list. When
America accepted the challenge of Germany in 1917, part of the range of
ordnance had already been produced in moderate quantities in the United
States, part of it had been developed by the more militaristic nations
of the world in the last decade or quarter century, and part of it was
purely the offspring of two and one-half years of desperate fighting
before America entered the great struggle. Yet all of it, both the
strange and the familiar, had to be put in production here on a grand
scale and in a minimum of time, that the American millions might go
adequately equipped to meet the foe. Let us examine the range of this
equipment, seeing in the major items something of the character of the
problem which confronted the Ordnance Department at the outset of the
great enterprise.
Starting with the artillery, there was first in order of size the baby
two-man cannon of 37 millimeters (about an inch and a half) in the
diameter of its bore--a European development new to our experience, so
light that it could be handled by foot troops in the field, used for
annihilating the enemy's machine-gun emplacements.
Then the mobile field guns--the famous 75's, the equivalent in size of
our former 3-inch gun, the 155-millimeter howitzer, the French 155
millimeter G. P. F. (Grand Puissance Filloux) gun of glorious record in
the war, and its American prototypes, the 4.7-inch, 5-inch, and 6-inch
guns--all of these employed to shell crossroads and harass the enemy's
middle area.
Beyond these were the 8-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers and the terrific
240-millimeter howitzer, for throwing great weights of destruction high
in air to descend with a plunge upon the enemy's strongest defenses.
Then there were the 8-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch, and 14-inch guns on
railway mounts, for pounding the depots and dumps in the enemy's back
areas. These weapons were so tremendous in weight when mounted as to
require from 16 to 24 axles on the car to distribute the load and the
recoil of firing within the limits of the strength of standard heavy
railway track.
All of these guns had to be produced in great numbers, if the future
requirements of the American forces were to be met, produced by the
thousands in the cases of the smaller ones and by the hundreds and
scores in the cases of the larger.
These weapons would be ineffective without adequate supplies of
ammunition. In the case of the mobile held guns this meant a
requirement of millions of shell or shrapnel for the incessant
bombardments and the concentrated barrages which characterized the
great war. The entire weight of projectiles fired in such an historic
engagement as Gettysburg would supply the artillery only for a few
minutes in such intensive bombardments as sowed the soil of Flanders
with steel.
The artillery demanded an immense amount of heavy equipment--limbers,
caissons, auto ammunition trucks, and tractors to drag the heavy and
middle-heavy artillery. Some of them were fitted with self-propelled
caterpillar mounts which could climb a 40° grade or make as high as 12
miles an hour on level ground. These, the adaptations to warfare of
peaceful farm and construction machine traction, for the first time
rendered the greater guns exceedingly mobile, enabling them to go into
action instantly upon arrival and to depart to safety just as soon as
their mission was accomplished.
Then, too, this artillery equipment must have adequate facilities for
maintenance in the field, and this need brought into existence another
enormous phase of the ordnance program. There must be mobile ordnance
repair shops for each division, consisting of miniature machine shops
completely fitted out with power and its transmission equipment and
mounted directly on motor trucks. Then there must be semi-heavy repair
shops on 5-ton tractors, these to be for the corps what the truck
machine shop was to the division. Each army headquarters called for its
semipermanent repair shop for artillery and still larger repair shops
for its railway artillery.
And in addition to all these were the base repair shops in France,
which were erected on a scale to employ a force three times as large
as the combined organizations of all the manufacturing arsenals of
the United States in time of peace, having a capacity for relining
1,000 cannon and overhauling and repairing 2,000 motor vehicles, 7,000
machine guns, 50,000 rifles, and 2,000 pistols every month. This
equipment of artillery and its maintenance organization implies the
flow from American industry of enormous quantities of repair parts and
spare parts to keep the artillery in good condition.
Coming next to the more personal equipment of the soldier, we find the
necessity confronting the Ordnance Department to manufacture shoulder
rifles by the million and cartridges for them by the billion. The great
war brought the machine gun into its own, requiring in the United
States the manufacture of these complicated and expensive weapons by
the tens of thousands, including the one-man automatic rifle, itself an
arm of a deadly and effective type.
Simultaneously with the mass employment of machine guns in the field
came the development of the modern machine gun barrage, the indirect
fire, of which required sighting instruments of the most delicate
and accurate sort, and tripods with finely calibrated elevating and
traversing devices, so that the gunner might place the deadly hail
safely over the heads of his own unseen but advancing lines and with
maximum damage to the enemy. These thousands of machine guns required
water jackets to keep their barrels cool and specially built carts to
carry them.
The personal armament of the soldier also called for an automatic
pistol or a revolver for use in the infighting, when squads came in
actual contact with soldiers of the enemy. These had to be produced by
the hundreds of thousands.
The requirements of the field demanded hundreds of thousands of trench
knives, murderous blades backed by the momentum of heavily weighted
handles, which in turn were protected by guards embodying the principle
of the thug's brass "knucks" armed with sharp points.
Then there were the special weapons, largely born of modern trench
warfare. These included mortars, ranging from the small 3-inch Stokes,
light enough to go over the top and simple enough to be fired from
between the steadying knees of a squatting soldier, to the great
240-millimeter trench mortar of fixed position. The mortars proved
to be exceedingly effective against concentrations of troops, and so
there was devised for them a great variety of bombs and shell, not only
of the high explosive fragmentation type, but also containing poison
gas or fuming chemicals. Great quantities both of mortars and their
ammunition were required.
From the security of the trenches the soldiers first threw out
grenades, which burst in the enemy's trenches opposite and created
havoc. From the original device were developed grenades of various
sorts--gas grenades for cleaning up dugouts, molten-metal grenades
for fusing the firing mechanisms of captured enemy cannon and machine
guns, paper grenades to kill by concussion. Then there were the rifle
grenades, each to be fitted on the muzzle of a rifle and hurled by the
lift of gases following the bullet, which passed neatly through the
hole provided for it. The production of grenades was no small part of
the American ordnance problem.
In addition to these trench weapons were the Livens projectors, which,
fired in multiple by electricity, hurled a veritable cloud of gas
containers into a selected area of enemy terrain, usually with great
demoralization of his forces.
Bayonets for the rifles, bolos, helmets, periscopes for looking safely
over the edges of the trenches, panoramic sights, range finders--these
are only a few of the ordnance accessories of general application.
Then those innovations of the great war--the tanks--the 3-ton
"whippet," built to escort the infantry waves, the 6-ton tanks, most
used of all, and the powerful Anglo-American heavy tanks, each mounting
a 37-millimeter cannon and four machine guns.
The war in the air put added demands upon ordnance. It required the
stripped machine gun firing cartridges so rapidly that their explosions
merged into a single continuous roar, yet each shot so nicely timed
that it passed between the flying blades of the propeller. There had
to be electric heaters for the gun mechanisms to prevent the oil
which lubricated them from becoming congealed in the cold of high
altitudes. The airplane guns required armor-piercing bullets for use
against armored planes, incendiary bullets to ignite the hydrogen of
the enemy's balloon or to fire the gasoline escaping through the wound
in the hostile airplane's fuel tank, and tracer bullets to direct the
aim of the aerial gunner. Other equipment for the airman included
shot counters, to tell him instantly what quantity of ammunition he
had on hand, and gun sights, ingeniously contrived to correct his aim
automatically for the relative speed and direction of the opposing
plane. These were all developments in ordnance brought about by the
great war, and in each case they involved problems for the production
organization to solve.
Then there were the drop bombs of aerial warfare, of many gradations
in weight up to 500 pounds each, these latter experimental ones
forecasting the day when bombs weighing 1,600 pounds would be dropped
from the sky; then bomb sights to determine the moment when the missile
must be dropped in order to hit its target, sights which corrected
for the altitude, the wind resistance, and the rate of speed of the
airplane; and then mechanisms to suspend the bombs from the plane and
to release them at the will of the operator.
The list might be stretched out almost indefinitely--through
pyrotechnics, developed by the exigencies in Europe into an elaborate
system; through helmets and armor, revivals from medieval times to
protect the modern soldier from injury; through the assortment of heavy
textiles, which gave the troops their belts, their bandoleers, their
haversacks, and their holsters; through canteens, cutlery for the mess
in the fields, shotguns, and so on, until there might be set down
thousands of items of the list which we know as modern ordnance.
It will be noted that the most important articles in this range are
articles of a noncommercial type. In other words, they are not the sort
of things that the industry of the country builds in time of peace,
nor learns how to build. Many other war functions came naturally to
a country skilled in handling food supplies for teeming populations,
in solving housing problems for whole cities, and in managing
transportation for a hundred million people; there was at hand the
requisite ability to conduct war enterprises of such character smoothly
and efficiently. Yet there was in the country at the outbreak of war
little knowledge of the technique of ordnance production.
The declaration of war found an American Ordnance Department whose
entire commissioned personnel consisted of 97 officers. Only 10 of
this number were experienced in the design of artillery weapons. The
projected army of 5,000,000 men required 11,000 trained officers
to handle every phase of ordnance service. While a portion of this
production would have to do with the manufacture of articles of
a commercial type, such as automobiles, trucks, meat cans, mess
equipment, and the like, yet the ratio of 97 to 11,000 gives an
indication of the amount of ordnance knowledge possessed by the War
Department at the outbreak of war as compared to what it would need to
equip the first 5,000,000 men for battle.
The Government could obtain commissary officers from the food industry;
it could turn bank tellers into paymasters, or convert builders into
construction quartermasters; find transportation officers in the great
railway systems, Signal Corps officers in the telegraph companies, or
medical officers in professional life. But there was no broad field
to which ordnance could turn to find specialized skill available. The
best it could do was to go into the heavy manufacturing industry for
expert engineers who could later be trained in the special problems of
ordnance.
Prior to 1914 there were but six Government arsenals and two large
private ordnance works which knew anything about the production of
heavy weapons. After 1914, war industry sprang up in the United
States, yet in 1917 there were only a score or so of firms engaged in
the manufacture of artillery ammunition, big guns, rifles, machine
guns, and other important ordnance supplies for the allies. When
the armistice was signed nearly 8,000 manufacturing plants in the
United States were working on ordnance contracts. While many of these
contracts entailed production not much dissimilar to commercial
output, yet here is another ratio--the 20 or more original factories
compared with the ultimate 8,000--which serves as an indication of the
expansion of the industrial knowledge of the special processes incident
to ordnance manufacture.
When we found ourselves in the war the first step was to extend our
ordnance knowledge as quickly as possible. The war in Europe had
developed thousands of new items of ordnance, many of them carefully
guarded as military secrets, with which our own officers were familiar
only in a general way. As soon as we became a belligerent, however,
we at once turned to the allies, and they freely and fully gave us of
their store of knowledge--plans, specifications, working models, secret
devices, and complete manufacturing processes.
With this knowledge at hand we adopted for our own program certain
French types of field guns and howitzers and British types of heavy
howitzers. The reproduction of the British types caused no unusual
difficulties, but the adoption of French plans brought into the
situation a factor the difficulties of which are apt not to be
appreciated by the uninitiated.
This new element for consideration was the circumstance that the entire
French system of manufacture in metals is radically different from our
own in its practices and is not readily adapted to American methods.
The English and the American engineers and shops use inches and feet
in their measurements, but the French use the metric system. This fact
means that there was not a single standard American drill, reamer,
tap, die, or other machine-shop tool that would accurately produce the
result called for by a French ordnance drawing in the metric system.
Moreover, the French standards for metal stocks, sheets, plates,
angles, I-beams, rivet holes, and rivet spacing are far different from
American standards.
It was discovered that complete French drawings were in numerous cases
nonexistent, the French practice relying for small details upon the
memory and skill of its artisans. But even when the complete drawings
were obtained, then the American ordnance engineer was confronted with
the choice of either revolutionizing the machining industry of the
United States by changing over its entire equipment to conform to the
metric system, or else of doing what was done--namely, translating the
French designs into terms of standard American shop practice, a process
which in numerous cases required weeks and even months of time on the
part of whole staffs of experts working at high tension.
Nor do the French know the American quantity-production methods. The
French artisan sees always the finished article, and he is given
discretion in the final dimensions of parts and in the fitting and
assembling of them. But the American mechanic sees only the part in
which he is a specialist in machining, working with strict tolerances
and producing pieces which require little or no fitting in the
assembling room. Consequently, in the translating of French plans it
was necessary to put into them what they never had before, namely,
rigid tolerances and exact measurements.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 1.
EXPENDITURE OF ARTILLERY AMMUNITION IN MODERN BATTLES.
-----+-----------+---------+--------+------------------------------
Year.|Battle. | Days' |Army. |Rounds of artillery ammunition
| |duration.| |expended.
-----+-----------+---------+--------+------------------------------
1863|Chickamauga| 2 |Union | 7,325
| | | |
1863|Gettysburg | 3 |Union | 32,781
| | | |
1870|St. Privat | 1 |German | 39,000
| | | |
1904|Nan Shan | 1 |Japanese| 34,047
| | | |
1904|Liao Yang | 9 |Russian |= 134,400
| | | |
1904|Sha Ho | 9 |Russian |= 274,300
| | | |
1915|Neuve | [1]3 |British |= 197,000
|Chapelle | | |
| | | |
1915|Souches | [2]1 |French |== 300,000
| | | |
1916|Somme | [3]7 |British |==================== 4,000,000
| | | |
1917|Messines | [3]7 |British |============== 2,753,000
|Ridge | | |
| | | |
1918|St. Mihiel | [2]4 |United |===== 1,098,217
| | |States |
-----+-----------+---------+--------+------------------------------
[1] Artillery preparation lasted 35 minutes.
[2] Artillery preparation lasted 4 hours.
[3] Artillery preparation intermittent 7 days.
One of the most striking developments of the present war has
been the great increase in the use of artillery to precede
infantry action in battle. This is illustrated by a comparison
of the expenditure of artillery ammunition in characteristic
battles of recent wars with that in important battles of the
present war. The special features of the several battles should
be kept in mind. Chickamauga was fought in a heavily wooded
region; Gettysburg and St. Privat over open farm land. The
latter battles, together with Nan Shan, and all the battles
of the present war considered below, involved artillery
preparation for assault upon armies in defensive position. The
expenditures, therefore, are roughly comparable.
The high mark of the use of artillery in offensive battle was
reached at the Somme and Messines Ridge, before the effective
use of tanks was developed.]
When an army of 100,000 men expands and becomes an army of 3,000,000,
it becomes a job just 30 times bigger to feed the 3,000,000 than it was
to feed the 100,000. A soldier of a campaigning army eats no more than
a soldier of a quiet military post. The same is true approximately in
the case of clothing an army. But the army's consumption of ammunition
in time of war is far out of proportion to its numerical expansion to
meet the war emergency.
For instance, an Army machine gun in time of peace might fire 6,000
rounds in practice during the year. This was the standard quantity of
cartridges provided in peace. Yet it is necessary to provide for a
single machine gun on the field in such a war as the recent one 288,875
rounds of ammunition during its first year of operation, this figure
including the initial stock and the reserve supply as well as the
actual number of rounds fired. Thus the machine gun of war increases
its appetite, so to speak, for ammunition 4,700 per cent in the first
year of fighting.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 2.
RATES OF ARTILLERY FIRE PER GUN PER DAY IN RECENT WARS.
------------------------+------------------+------------------------
War. | Army. | Approximate rounds per
| | gun per day.
------------------------+------------------+------------------------
1854-1856, Crimean |British and French|== [4]5
| |
1859, Italian |Austrian |.3
| |
1861-1865, Civil |Union |== 4
| |
1866, Austro-Prussian |{Austrian |= 2.2
|{Prussian |.8
| |
1870-71, Franco-Prussian|German |= [5]1.1
| |
1904-5, Russo-Japanese |Russian |== 4
| |
1912-13, Balkan |Bulgarian |==== 7
| |
PRESENT WAR | |
| |
September, 1914 |French |==== [5]8
| |
Jan. 1-Oct. 1, 1918 |Italian |==== [5]8
| |
Jan. 1-Nov. 11, 1918 |United States |=============== [5]30
| |
Jan. 1-Nov. 11, 1918 |French |================= [5]34
| |
Jan. 1-Nov. 11, 1918 |British |================== [5]35
------------------------+------------------+------------------------
[4] Siege of Sebastopol.
[5] Field gun ammunition only.
The rates are based upon total expenditure and average number
of guns in the hands of field armies for the period of the wars.
A large part of the heavy expenditure of artillery ammunition
in the present as compared with other modern wars can be
attributed to the increased rate of fire made possible by
improved methods of supply in the field and by the rapid-fire
guns now in use. In wars fought before the introduction of
quick-firing field guns, four or five rounds per day was the
greatest average rate. Even this was reached only in the
siege of Sebastopol, where armies were stationary and supply
by water was easy, and in the American Civil War, which was
characterized by advanced tactical developments. The guns of
the allied armies in France fired throughout the year 1918 at
a rate about seven times greater than these previously high
rates.]
In the case of larger weapons the increase in ammunition consumption
is even more startling. Prior to 1917 the War Department allotted to
each 3-inch field gun 125 rounds of ammunition per year for practice
firing. Ammunition for the 75-millimeter guns (the 3-inch equivalent)
was being produced to meet an estimated supply of 22,750 rounds for
each gun in a single year, or an increased consumption of ammunition in
war over peace of 18,100 per cent.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 3.
EXPENDITURE OF ARTILLERY AMMUNITION IN RECENT WARS.
PAST WARS COMPARED WITH ONE MONTH OF PRESENT WAR.
---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------
Year. | War. | Army. | Rounds expended during war.
---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------
1859 |Italian |Austrian | 15,326
| | |
1861-1865|Civil |Union |========== 5,000,000
| | |
1866 |Austro-Prussian|{Prussian| 36,199
| |{Austrian| 96,472
| | |
1870-71 |Franco-Prussian|German |== 817,000
| | |
1904-5 |Russo-Japanese |Russian |== 954,000
| | |
1912-13 |Balkan |Bulgarian|= 700,000
| | |
1918 |Present |British |In one
| |and |month.[6]
| |French |========================= 12,710,000
---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------
EXPENDITURES FOR ONE YEAR, CIVIL AND PRESENT WARS.
---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------
1864[7] |Civil |Union |= 1,950,000
| | |
1918[8] |Present |United |== 8,100,000
| |States |
| | |
1918[8] |Present |British |====================== 71,445,000
| | |
1918[8] |Present |French |========================= 81,070,000
---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------
[6] Average, year ended Nov. 10, 1918.
[7] Year ended June 30, 1864.
[8] Year ended Nov. 10, 1918.
The industrial effort necessary to maintain modern armies in
action may be measured to a certain extent by their expenditure
of artillery ammunition. European wars of the past 100 years
were for the most part decided before peace-time reserves had
been exhausted. The American Civil War, however, required
for its decision an industrial mobilization at that time
unprecedented, which, like the use in that war of intrenchments
by field armies, was more truly indicative of the trend of
modern warfare than were the conditions of the more recent
European wars.]
Thus when a peace army of 100,000 becomes a war army of 3,000,000 its
ammunition consumption becomes not 30 times greater, but anywhere from
48 to 182 times 30 times greater--an increase far out of proportion to
its increase in the consumption of food, clothing, or other standard
supplies. Modern invention has made possible and modern practice has
put into effect a greatly augmented use of ammunition. Figures 1, 2,
and 3 show graphically how ammunition expenditure has increased in
modern times.
Another circumstance that complicated the ordnance problem was the
increasing tendency throughout the great war to use more and more the
mechanical or machine methods of fighting as opposed to the older and
simpler forms in which the human or animal factor entered to a greater
extent.
At the time the United States entered the war the regulations
prescribed 50 machine guns as the equipment for an infantry division.
When the armistice was signed the standard equipment of a division
called for 260 heavy machine guns and 768 light automatic rifles. Of
the heavy machine guns with a division, only 168 were supposed to
be in active service, the remainder being in reserve or in use for
antiaircraft work. However, the comparison in the two standards of
equipment shows the tendency toward machine methods in the wholesale
killing of modern warfare and indicates the fresh demands made upon the
ordnance organization to procure this additional machinery of death.
Moreover, when the fighting came to an end the A. E. F. was on the
point of adding to its regimental and divisional equipment a further
large number of automatic rifles.
The day of the horse was passing in the great war as far as
his connection with the mobile artillery was concerned, and
the gasoline motor was taking his place, this tendency being
accelerated particularly by America, the greatest nation of all in
automotivity. Trucks and tractors to pull the guns, motor ammunition
trucks displacing the old horse-drawn caissons and limbers, even
self-propelling platforms for the larger field guns, with track laying
or caterpillar mounts supplying not only mobility for the gun but
aiming facilities as well; these were the fresh developments. Some of
these improvements were produced and put in the field, the others were
under development at the signing of the armistice. The whole tendency
toward motorization served to complicate ordnance production in this
country, not only in the supply of the weapons and traction devices
themselves, but in the production of increased supplies of ammunition,
since these improvements also tended to increase the rapidity with
which bullets and shell were consumed.
The total cost of the ordnance alone required to equip the first
5,000,000 Americans called to arms was estimated to be between
$12,000,000,000 and $13,000,000,000. This was equal to about half of
all the money appropriated by Congresses of the United States from
the first Continental Congress down to our declaration of war against
Germany, out of which appropriations had been paid the cost of every
war we ever had, including the Civil War, and the whole enormous
expenses of the Government in every official activity of 140 years. To
equip with ordnance an army of this size in the period projected meant
the expenditure of money at a rate which would build a Panama Canal
complete every 30 days.
Above are sketched some of the difficulties of the situation. In
our favor we had the greatest industrial organization in the world,
engineering skill to rank with any, a race of people traditionally
versatile in applying the forces of machinery to the needs of mankind,
inventive genius which could match its accomplishments with those of
the rest of the world added together, a capacity for organization that
proved to be astonishingly effective in such an effort as the nation
made in 1917 and 1918, enormous stores of raw materials, the country
being more nearly self-sufficient in this respect than any other nation
of the globe, magnificent facilities of inland transportation, a vast
body of skilled mechanics, and a selective-service law designed to
take for the Army men nonessential to the Nation's industrial efforts
for war and to leave in the workshops the men whose skill could not
be withdrawn without subtracting somewhat from the national store of
industrial ability.
It only remains to sketch in swift outlines something of the
accomplishments of the American ordnance effort. In general it may be
said that those projects of the ordnance program to which were assigned
the shorter time limits were most successful. There never was a time
when the production of smokeless powder and high explosives was not
sufficient for our own requirements, with large quantities left over
for both France and England.
America in 19 months of development built over 2,500,000 shoulder
rifles, a quantity greater than that produced either by England
or by France in the same period, although both those countries in
April, 1917, at the time when we started, had their rifle production
already in a high stage of development. (See fig. 4.) However, the
Franco-British production of rifles dropped in rate in 1918 because
there was no longer need for original rifle equipment for new troops.
In the 19 months of war American factories produced over 2,879,000,000
rounds of rifle and machine-gun ammunition. This was somewhat less than
the production in Great Britain during the same period and somewhat
less than that of France; but America began the effort from a standing
start, and in the latter part of the war was turning out ammunition at
a monthly rate twice that of France and somewhat higher than that of
Great Britain. (See fig. 4.)
Between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, America produced as many
machine guns and automatic rifles as Great Britain did in the same
period and 81 per cent of the number produced by France; while at the
end of the effort America was building machine guns and machine rifles
nearly three times as rapidly as Great Britain and more than twice as
fast as France. (Fig. 4.) When it is considered that a long time must
elapse before machine-gun factories can be equipped with the necessary
machine tools and fixtures, the effort of America in this respect may
be fairly appreciated.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 4.
PRODUCTION OF RIFLES, MACHINE GUNS, AND AMMUNITION, FRANCE AND
UNITED STATES COMPARED WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
AVERAGE MONTHLY RATE, JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER, 1918.
_Machine guns and machine rifles:_ Per cent of rate for Great Britain.
Great Britain 10,947 ========== 100
France 12,126 =========== 111
United States 27,270 ========================= 249
_Rifles:_
Great Britain 112,821 ========== 100
France 40,522 ==== 36
United States 233,562 ===================== 207
_Rifle and machine-gun ammunition:_
Great Britain 259,769,000 ========== 100
France 139,845,000 ===== 54
United States 277,894,000 =========== 107
TOTAL PRODUCTION, APRIL 6, 1917, TO NOVEMBER 11, 1918
_Machine guns and machine rifles:_ Per cent of rate for Great Britain.
Great Britain 181,404 ========== 100
France 229,288 ============= 126
United States 181,662 ========== 100
_Rifles:_
Great Britain 1,971,764 ========== 100
France 1,416,056 ======= 72
United States 2,506,742 ============= 127
_Rifle and machine-gun ammunition:_
Great Britain 3,486,127,000 ========== 100
France 2,983,675,000 ========= 86
United States 2,879,148,000 ======== 83
British and French production of rifles during 1918 was at a
lower rate than had been attained because there was no longer
need for original equipment of troops.]
Prior to November 11, 1918, America produced in the 75-millimeter size
alone about 4,250,000 high-explosive shell, over 500,000 gas shell, and
over 7,250,000 shrapnel. Of the high-explosive shell produced 2,735,000
were shipped to France up to November 15, 1918. In all 8,500,000 rounds
of shell of this caliber were floated--nearly two-thirds of it being
shrapnel. American troops on the line expended a total of 6,250,000
rounds of 75-millimeter ammunition, largely high-explosive shell of
French manufacture drawn from the Franco-American ammunition pool.
American high-explosive shell were tested in France by the French
ordnance experts and approved for use by the French artillery just
before the armistice.
[Illustration: THE MUNITIONS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.
The Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac River in the background.]
[Illustration: A PARK OF AMERICAN-BUILT 155-MILLIMETER HOWITZERS AT
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN-BUILT G. P. F. 155-MILLIMETER GUNS STORED AT
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND.]
[Illustration: GUNS OF VARIOUS SORTS AND SIZES RETURNED FROM FRANCE BY
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES JUST AS THEY WERE UNLOADED FROM TRAIN AT
ABERDEEN.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN-BUILT ORDNANCE MATERIAL, PARKED ON ABERDEEN
PROVING GROUND.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN-BUILT ORDNANCE STORES AT ABERDEEN PROVING
GROUND.]
[Illustration: A PARK OF AMERICAN-BUILT CAISSONS, BACK FROM FRANCE, AT
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND.]
[Illustration: CHARGING FLOOR OF AN OPEN-HEARTH FURNACE.
The charging floor of an "open-hearth" furnace building,
showing two furnaces on the side into which the raw materials
are "charged." Each of these furnaces is 75 feet long and 15
feet wide, and the melted steel lies in a shallow bath inside
the three doors, into one of which the man is looking. The pool
or "bath," as it is termed, is 33 feet long by 12 feet wide
and approximately 2½ feet deep, weighs approximately 60 tons,
and is composed of pig iron and well-selected scrap steel from
previous operations, which are placed in the furnace through
the three doors shown, the furnace being all the time at a
temperature so high that the naked eye may not look within
the furnace, but must be protected with blue glass or smoked
glass, exactly as when looking at the noonday sun. The eye
can see nothing in the atmosphere of the bath in which the
steel is being melted and refined, due to the exceedingly high
temperature, which gives a light as white as that of the sun.]
[Illustration:
FIGURE 5.
PRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY AMMUNITION, FRANCE AND UNITED STATES
COMPARED WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
[Types for use in A. E. F.]
MONTHLY RATE AT END OF WAR.
_Unfilled rounds_: =Per cent of rate for Great Britain.=
Great Britain 7,748,000 ==================== 100
France 6,661,000 ================= 86
United States 7,044,000 ================== 91
_Complete rounds_:
Great Britain 7,347,000 ==================== 100
France 7,638,000 ===================== 104
United States 2,712,000 ======= 37
TOTAL PRODUCTION, APRIL 1, 1917, TO NOVEMBER 11, 1918.
_Unfilled rounds_: =Per cent of rate for Great Britain.=
Great Britain 138,357,000 ==================== 100
France 156,170,000 ======================= 113
United States 38,623,000 ====== 28
_Complete rounds_:
Great Britain 121,739,000 ==================== 100
France 149,827,000 ========================= 123
United States 17,260,000 === 14]
In artillery ammunition rounds of all calibers America at the end of
the war was turning out unfilled shell faster than the French and
nearly as fast as the British; but, due to the shortage in adapters
and boosters, a shortage rapidly being overcome at the end of the war,
the rate of production of completed rounds was only about one-third
that of either Great Britain or France. In total production during her
19 months of belligerency America turned out more than one-quarter
as many unfilled rounds as Great Britain did in the same time and
about one-quarter as many as came from the French munition plants. In
completed rounds alone did America lag far behind the records of the
two principal allies during 1917 and 1918. (Fig. 5.)
The production of completed rounds of artillery ammunition was gaining
rapidly, beginning with the early summer of 1918, and in the month
of October was approaching half the rate of manufacture in Great
Britain or in France. Figure 6 shows graphically the rate at which the
artillery ammunition deliveries were expanding.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 6.
COMPLETE ROUNDS OF ARTILLERY AMMUNITION PRODUCED FOR THE ARMY
EACH MONTH DURING 1918 (FIGURES IN THOUSANDS OF ROUNDS).
Jan. == 130
Feb. == 138
Mar. ====== 500
Apr. =========== 906
May. ============ 1034
June. ================ 1319
July. ============= 1051
Aug. ======================== 1984
Sept. ============================== 2548
Oct. ==================================== 3026
Nov. =============================== 2570
Dec. ======================== 2024]
In artillery proper the war ended too soon for American industry to
arrive at a great production basis. The production of heavy ordnance
units is necessarily a long and arduous effort even when plants are
in existence and mechanical forces are trained in the work. America
in large part had to build her ordnance industry from the ground
up--buildings, machinery, and all--and to recruit and train the working
forces after that. The national experience in artillery production in
the great war most like our own was that of Great Britain, who started
in from scratch, even as we did. It is interesting, then, to know how
Great Britain expanded her artillery industry, and the testimony of the
British ministry of munitions may throw a new light on our own efforts
in this respect. In discussing artillery in the war the British
ministry of munitions issued a statement from which the following is an
excerpt:
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.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 7.
COMPLETE UNITS OF MOBILE ARTILLERY PRODUCED FOR THE ARMY EACH
MONTH DURING 1918.
Jan. ====== 73
Feb. ===== 68
Mar. ======= 89
Apr. ======= 86
May. ====== 76
June. ======== 106
July. ======= 85
Aug. ============== 180
Sept. ===================== 271
Oct. ==================================== 465
Nov. ===================== 266
Dec. ====================== 279]
Thus it took England three and a half years to equip her army
completely with artillery and ammunition on the scale called for at the
end of the war. On this basis America, when the armistice came, had two
years before her to equal the record of Great Britain in this respect.
As to the production of gun bodies ready for mounting, the attainments
of American ordnance were more striking. At the end of the fighting
America had passed the British rate of production and was approaching
that of the French. In totals for the whole war period (Apr. 6, 1917,
to Nov. 11, 1918) the American production of gun bodies could scarcely
be compared with either that of the British or that of the French, this
due to the fact that it required many months to build up the forging
plants before production could go ahead.
In completed artillery units the American rate of production at the end
of the war was rapidly approaching both that of the British and that
of the French. In total production of complete units in the 19 months
of war, American ordnance turned out about one-quarter as many as came
from the British ordnance plants and less than one-fifth as many as
the French produced in the same period. Figure 8 represents visually
America's comparative performances in the production of gun bodies and
complete artillery units.
[Illustration:
FIGURE 8.
PRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY, FRANCE AND UNITED STATES COMPARED WITH
GREAT BRITAIN.
AVERAGE MONTHLY RATE AT END OF WAR.
_Gun bodies (new)_: =Per cent of rate for Great Britain.=
Great Britain 802 ==================== 100
France 1,138 ============================ 142
United States 832 ===================== 104
_Complete units_:
Great Britain 486 ==================== 100
France 659 =========================== 136
United States 412 ================= 85
TOTAL PRODUCTION, APRIL 1, 1917, TO NOVEMBER 11, 1918.
_Gun bodies (new)_: =Per cent of rate for Great Britain.=
Great Britain 11,852 ==================== 100
France 19,492 ================================= 164
United States 4,275 ======= 36
_Complete units_:
Great Britain 8,065 ==================== 100
France 11,056 =========================== 137
United States 2,008 ===== 25]
Stress has sometimes been laid upon the fact that the American Army was
required to purchase considerable artillery and other supplies abroad,
the latter including airplanes, motor trucks, food and clothing, and
numerous other materials. Yet, balanced against this fact is that every
time we spent a dollar with the allied governments for ordnance, we
sold ordnance, or materials for conversion into munitions to the allied
governments to the value of five dollars. The interallied ordnance
agreement provided that certain munitions plants in the United States
should continue to furnish supplies to the allies, and that additional
plants for the allies should be built up and fostered by us. Thus,
while we were purchasing artillery and ammunition from the allies we
were shipping to them great quantities of raw materials, half-completed
parts, and completely assembled units, and such war-time commodities
as powder and explosives, forgings for cannon and other heavy devices,
motors, and structural steel. The following table shows the ordnance
balance sheet between America and the allied governments:
_Purchase and sales from Apr. 6, 1917, to Nov. 11, 1918._
Purchases: By Army Ordnance Department from $450,234,256.85
Allied governments
===============
Sales:
By Army Ordnance Department to Allied governments 200,616,402.00
By United States manufacturers other than Army
Ordnance Department to Allied governments 2,094,787,984.00
----------------
Total 2,295,404,386.00
The credit for the ordnance record can not go merely to those men who
wore the uniform and were part of the ordnance organization. Rather it
is due to American science, engineering, and industry, all of which
combined their best talents to make the ordnance development worthy of
America's greatness.