CHAPTER IV._America's Munitions 1917-1918

RAILWAY ARTILLERY.

As soon as war was declared against Germany the Ordnance Department,

in its search for an immediate equipment of strong artillery, surveyed

the ordnance supplies of the country and discovered some 464 heavy

guns which might be spared from the seacoast defenses, obtained from

the Navy, or commandeered at private ordnance plants where they were

being manufactured for foreign Governments. There were six guns of this

last-named class--powerful 12-inch weapons which had been produced for

the Chilean Government. It was seen that if all, or if a large part, of

these guns could be made available for service in France, America would

quickly provide for herself a heavy artillery equipment of respectable

proportions.

The guns thus available for mounting on railway cars ranged in size

from the 7-inch guns of the Navy to the single enormous 16-inch

howitzer which had been built experimentally by the Ordnance Department

prior to 1917. The list of these guns according to number, size,

length, and source whence obtained was as follows:

----------------+---------+----------+---------------------------

Number of guns. | Size. | Length. | Source whence obtained.

----------------+---------+----------+---------------------------

| Inches. |Calibers. |

12 | 7 | 45 | Navy.

96 | 8 | 35 | Seacoast defenses.

129 | 10 | 34 | Do.

49 | 12 | 35 | Do.

6 | 12 | 50 | In manufacture for Chile.

150 (mortars) | 12 | 10 | Seacoast defenses.

21 | 14 | 50 | Navy.

----------------+---------+----------+---------------------------

In addition to these there was the 16-inch howitzer, 20 calibers in

length, which had been built by the Ordnance Department before 1917.

The expression 14-inch gun, 50 calibers, means that the gun has a

barrel diameter of 14 inches and that the gun body is fifty times the

caliber of 14 inches, or 700 inches (58 feet 4 inches) long.

The Ordnance Department conceived that the only way to make these guns

available for use abroad would be to mount them on railway cars. These

guns were not vital in the defense of our coast under the conditions

of the war with Germany, but it was evident that they would make a

valuable type of long-range artillery when placed on satisfactory

railway mounts.

Mounting heavy artillery on railway cars, however, was not an idea born

of the recent war. The idea was probably originally American. The Union

forces at the siege of Richmond in 1863 mounted a 13-inch cast-iron

mortar on a reinforced flat car, this being the first authenticated

record of the use of heavy railway artillery.

In 1913 the commanding officer of the defenses of the Potomac, which

comprise Forts Washington and Hunt, was called upon to report on the

condition of these defenses. In reply, he advised that no further

expenditure be made on any one of the fixed defenses, but recommended

that a "strategic railroad" be built along the backbone of the

peninsula from Point Lookout to Washington, with spurs leading to

predetermined positions both on Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River,

so placed as to command approaches to Washington and Baltimore.

Further, he recommended that 4 major-caliber guns, 16 medium-caliber

guns, and 24 mine-defense guns be mounted on railroad platforms, with

ammunition, range finding, and repair cars making up complete units,

so that this armament could be quickly transported at any time to

the place where most needed. He suggested that this scheme be made

applicable to any portion of the coast line of the United States. His

argument was based upon the fact that guns in fixed positions, of

whatever caliber, violate the cardinal military principle of mobility.

The nations engaged in the war now ending developed to a high stage

the use of heavy artillery mounted on railway cars, bringing about a

combination of the necessary rigidity with great mobility, considering

the weight of this material.

Railway artillery came to be as varied in its design as field

artillery. Each type of railway mount had certain tactical uses

and it was not considered desirable to use the different types

interchangeably. The three types of cannon used on railway mounts were

mortars, howitzers, and guns. It was not practicable to use the same

type of railway mounts for the different kinds of cannon. Moreover,

these mounts differed radically from the mounts for such weapons at the

seacoast defenses.

The three general types of railway mounts adopted were those which gave

the gun all-around fire (360-degree traverse), those which provided

limited traverse for the gun, and those which allowed no lateral

movement for the gun on the carriage but were used on curved track, or

epis, to give the weapons traverse aim.

The smaller weapons, such as the 7-inch and the 8-inch guns and the

12-inch mortars, were placed on mounts affording 360-degree traverse.

The limited traverse mounts were used for the moderately long-range

guns and howitzers. The fixed type of mount was used for long-range

guns only, and included the sliding railway mounts, such as the

American 12-inch and 14-inch sliding mounts and the French Schneider à

glissement mounts.

The work of providing railway artillery--that is, taking the big,

fixed-position guns already in existence within the United States

and similar guns being produced and designing and manufacturing

suitable mounts for them on railway cars--grew into such an important

undertaking that it enlisted the exclusive attention of a large section

within the Ordnance Department. This organization eventually found

itself engaged in 10 major construction projects, which, in time, had

the war continued, would have delivered more than 300 of these monster

weapons to the field in France and, to a lesser extent, to the railway

coast defenses of the United States.

As it was, so much of the construction--the machining of parts, and so

on--was complete at the date of the armistice, that it was decided to

go ahead with all of the projects except three, these involving the

mounting of 16 guns of 14-inch size, 50 calibers long, the production

of 25 long-range 8-inch guns, 50 calibers, and their mounting on

railway cars, and the mounting of 18 coast-defense, 10-inch guns, 34

calibers long, on the French Batignolles type of railway mount.

Inasmuch as it will be necessary in this chapter to refer frequently

to the barbette, Schneider, and Batignolles types of gun mounts for

railway artillery, it should be made clear to the reader what these

types are.

The barbette carriage revolves about a central pintle, or axis, and

turns the gun around with it. When it was decided to put coast-defense

guns on railway cars, the guns were taken from their emplacements,

barbette carriages manufactured for them, and the whole mounted upon

special cars. The barbette mount revolves on a support of rollers

traveling upon a circular base ring. In the railway mount the base ring

is attached to the dropped central portion of the railway car. The

barbette railway mount is provided with struts and plates by which the

car is braced against the ground.

The Schneider railway mount is named after the French ordnance concern

Schneider et Cie, who designed it. In this mount the gun and its

carriage are fastened rigidly parallel to the long axis of the railway

car. Thus the gun itself, independently of any movement of the car, can

be pointed only up and down in a vertical plane, having no traverse or

swing from left to right, and vice versa. In order to give the weapon

traverse for its aim, special railway curved tracks, called epis, are

prepared at the position where it is to be fired. The car is then run

along the curve until its traverse aim is correct, and the vertical

aim is achieved by the movement of the gun itself. In the Schneider

mount there is no recoil mechanism, but the recoil is absorbed by the

retrograde movement of the car itself along the rails after the gun

is fired. This movement, of course, puts the gun out of aim, and the

entire unit must then be pushed by hand power back to the proper point.

In the Batignolles type, gun and cradle are mounted on a so-called top

carriage that permits of small changes in horizontal pointing right and

left. Thus with the railway artillery of the Batignolles type also,

track curves, or epis, are necessary for the accurate aiming. The

Batignolles mount partially cushions the recoil by the movement of the

gun itself in the cradle. But, in addition, a special track is provided

at the firing point and the entire gun car is run on this track and

bolted to it with spades driven into the ground to resist what recoil

is not taken up in the cradle. The unit is thus stationary in action,

and the gun can be more readily returned to aim than can a gun on a

Schneider mount.

THE 7-INCH RIFLES.

The conditions under which the war with Germany was fought virtually

precluded any chance of a naval attack on our shores which would

engage our fixed coast defenses. The British grand fleet, with the

assistance of fleets of the other allies and America, had the German

battle fleet securely bottled. On the other hand there was the prowling

submarine able at all times to go to sea and even to cross the ocean,

and some of the latest of these submarines were armed with long-range

medium-caliber guns. It was not beyond possibility that some sort of an

attack would be made on our shores by submarines of this character, yet

it was safe to believe that these craft would keep well out of range of

the guns at our stationary coast defenses.

To protect our coast from such attack the Ordnance Department conceived

the plan of mounting heavy guns on railway cars. They might then be

moved quickly to places on the seacoast needing defense. For this

purpose the Navy turned 12 of its 7-inch rifles over to the Ordnance

Department for mounting. Meanwhile our ordnance officers had designed

certain standard railway artillery cars, known as models 1918, 1918

Mark I, and 1918 Mark II, for 7-inch and 8-inch guns and 12-inch

mortars, respectively. These cars all had the same general features.

The model 1918 car was selected for the converted 7-inch Navy rifle.

The rifle was mounted on a pedestal set on the gun car in such a manner

as to give all-around fire, or 360-degree traverse. The pedestal mount

permitted the gun to be depressed at an angle suitable for firing from

high places along the coast down upon the low-lying submarines.

Contracts for the various parts for these cars and the pedestal gun

mounts were let to concerns engaged in heavy steel manufacture, but

the assembling was done by the American Car & Foundry Co., of Berwick,

Pa. Twelve of the 7-inch rifles were so mounted. As this equipment

was intended exclusively for use in this country, the gun cars were

equipped with the American type of car couplings.

THE 8-INCH GUNS.

For the 8-inch guns taken from seacoast fortifications the Ordnance

Department designed a barbette mount giving complete, 360-degree,

traverse, thus providing for fire in any direction. There were 96

such guns available for railway mounts. Orders for 47 gun cars with

carriages for mounting the weapons were placed with three concerns--the

Morgan Engineering Co., of Alliance, Ohio, the Harrisburg Manufacturing

& Boiler Co., of Harrisburg, Pa., and the American Car & Foundry Co.,

of Berwick. Two of the three contractors found it necessary to provide

additional facilities and machine-tool equipment at their plants in

order to handle this job.

The first railway mount for the 8-inch gun was completed and sent

to the Aberdeen Proving Ground for test in May, 1918. In early

June the test had shown that the weapon was efficient and entirely

satisfactory. Before the end of the year 1918 a total of 24 complete

units, with ammunition cars for standard-gauge track, shell cars for

narrow-gauge track, transportation cars, tools, spare parts, and all

the other necessary appurtenances of a unit of this character, had been

completed. Three complete 8-inch units were shipped overseas before the

armistice was signed.

When the armistice came the Harrisburg company had delivered 9 of these

mounts and the Morgan Engineering Co. an equal number, making 18 in

all. The former concern had reached an output of 5 mounts per month and

the latter 10 per month.

An interesting feature of this mount is that it can be used either on

standard-gauge or on narrow-gauge railroad track. The narrow gauge

adopted was that in standard use in the fighting zones in France, the

distance between the rails being 60 centimeters, or the approximate

equivalent of 24 inches. Each gun car was provided with interchangeable

trucks to fit either gauge. The artillery train necessary for the

maneuvering of the weapon was also similarly equipped to travel on

either sort of track.

As a rule the longer the barrel of a cannon, the greater its range. The

8-inch seacoast guns thus mounted were 35 calibers in length, that is,

thirty-five times 8 inches, or 23 feet 4 inches. The requirements of

our forces in the field in France called for guns of this same size

but of longer range. Consequently an 8-inch gun of 50 calibers--that

is, 10 feet longer than the seacoast 8-inch gun--was designed, and 25

of them were ordered. This project came as a later development in the

war, the guns being intended for use abroad in 1920. The railway mounts

for the weapons had not been placed in production when the armistice

came. Because of the incomplete status of this project in the autumn of

1918, the whole undertaking was abandoned.

10-INCH AND 12-INCH GUNS.

There were at the seacoast defenses and in the stores of the Army

a large number of 10-inch guns of 34 calibers. Of these 129 were

available for mounting on railway cars. It was proposed to mount these

weapons on two types of French railway mounts--the Schneider and the

Batignolles.

The project to mount 36 of these weapons on Schneider mounts was taken

up as a joint operation of the United States and French Governments,

the heavy forging and rough machining to be done in this country

and the finishing and assembling in the French shops. The American

contractors were three. The Harrisburg Manufacturing & Boiler Co.

undertook to furnish the major portion of the fabricated materials for

the carriages and cars. The Pullman Car Co. contracted to produce the

necessary trucks for the gun cars, while the American Car & Foundry Co.

engaged to build the ammunition cars.

Eight sets of fabricated parts to be assembled in France had been

produced before the armistice was signed. Gen. Pershing had requested

the delivery in France of the 36 sets of parts by March 2, 1919. After

the armistice was signed there was a natural letdown in speed in nearly

all ordnance factories, but even without the spur of military necessity

the contracting concerns were able by April 7, 1919, to deliver 22 of

the 36 sets ordered. Had the war continued through the winter there is

little question but that all 36 sets of parts would have been in France

on the date specified.

The 10-inch seacoast gun, Batignolles mount project, was placed

exclusively in the hands of the Marion Steam Shovel Co., of Marion,

Ohio. It had been proposed also to mount 12-inch seacoast guns on this

same type of equipment, and this work, too, went to the Marion concern.

There were to be produced 18 of the 10-inch units and 12 of the larger

ones.

[Illustration: 8-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY, BARBETTE TYPE.

This view shows gun in act of hurling projectile parallel to track.]

[Illustration: 8-INCH SEACOAST RIFLE, WITH RECOIL MECHANISM, SET UP ON

A SPECIALLY DESIGNED RAILWAY MOUNT.

This gun, thus mounted on a railway car, is capable of an all-around

fire and can deliver a shot in any direction from its location on the

car.]

[Illustration: 12-INCH RIFLE IN ACT OF FIRING.

The force of the recoil sends the entire car back on track about 5

feet.]

[Illustration: 12-INCH RIFLE ELEVATED TO ITS MAXIMUM POSITION.

It is capable of hurling a 700-pound shell 25 miles. This is a modified

Schneider type of carriage.

TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH RIFLE ON SLIDING TYPE RAILWAY MOUNT.]

The Marion Steam Shovel Co. had had a large experience in producing

heavy construction and road-building equipment. The concern encountered

numerous difficulties at the start in translating the French drawings

and in substituting the American standard materials for those specified

by the French. These difficulties, combined with struggles to obtain

raw materials and the equipment for the increased facilities which had

to be provided at the factory, so delayed production that no mount

for either the 10-inch or 12-inch guns had been delivered at the

time of the armistice. The first mount of these classes--one with a

12-inch gun--reached the Aberdeen proving ground about April 1, 1919.

The 10-inch project, calling for 18 mounts, was canceled soon after

November 11, 1918. The work on the dozen mounts for 12-inch guns,

however, had progressed so far that the Ordnance Department ordered the

completion of the entire equipment.

As has been stated, the Government found in this country six 12-inch

guns being made for the Republic of Chile. Their length of 50 calibers

gave them a specially long range. It was decided to place the Chilean

guns on a sliding mount. In a mount of this type the retrograde

movement of the car along the track as and after the gun is fired takes

up and absorbs the energy of fire.

The first sliding railway mount used on the allied side in the great

war was of French design. But our manufacturers had so much trouble

with French designs that when the project came up of mounting the

Chilean guns in this fashion it was decided that it would be quicker

to design our own mount. Consequently the French design was taken in

hand by our ordnance engineers and redesigned to conform to American

practice, with the inclusion in the design of all original ideas

developed by the Ordnance Department in its creative work during the

war period up to that time. The manufacturers who looked at the French

design of the sliding railway mount estimated that it would take from

12 to 18 months before the unit could be duplicated in this country and

first deliveries made. They looked at the American design and estimated

that they could build it in 3 months.

It was decided to build three mounts of this character and thus have

a reserve of one gun for each mount to serve as replacement when the

original guns were worn out. Contracts were placed in the early summer

of 1918, and all three mounts were delivered before the armistice

was signed, the first mount being completed within 85 days after the

order was placed. For these mounts the American Bridge Co. furnished

the main girders or side pieces, the Baldwin Locomotive Co. built the

railway trucks, and the Morgan Engineering Co. manufactured the many

other parts and assembled the complete units. The speed in manufacture

was made possible by the fact that the plant engineers of the three

companies helped the ordnance officers in designing the details.

With such intimate cooperation, the concerns were able to begin the

manufacture of component parts while the drawings were being made.

All three weapons with their entire equipment, including supplies,

spare parts, ammunition cars, and the whole trains that make up such

units, were ready for shipment to France in November, 1918. Each mount

as it stands to-day is 105 feet long and weighs 600,000 pounds. The

load of the gun and the peak load put on the carriage when the gun

is fired are so great that it requires four trucks of 8 wheels each,

32 car wheels in all, to distribute the load safely over ordinary

standard-gauge track.

THE 12-INCH MORTARS.

In years past the Ordnance Department had procured a large number of

12-inch mortars for use at seacoast defenses. These great weapons are

10 calibers in length, or 10 feet in linear measurement, the diameter

of the barrel being just an even foot. Of the number stationed at the

coastal forts and in reserve it was decided that 150 could be safely

withdrawn and prepared for use against Germany. When Gen. Pershing was

informed of the proposal, he asked that 40 of these weapons mounted on

railway cars should be delivered to the American Expeditionary Forces

for use in the planned campaign of 1919. In order that there might be

an adequate supply of them, the Ordnance Department let contracts for

the mounting of 91 of these mortars on railway equipment, a project

which would give the United States a formidable armament and still

provide a reserve of 59 mortars to replace the service mortars on the

carriages after repeated firing had worn them out.

This job proved to be one of the largest in the whole artillery

program. The entire contract was let to the Morgan Engineering

Co., of Alliance, Ohio. In order to handle the contract, a special

ordnance plant, costing $1,700,000 for the building alone, had to be

constructed at the company's works at Alliance. The work was so highly

specialized that machine tools designed for the particular purpose had

to be produced. The Government itself bought these tools at a cost of

$1,800,000. Although work on this plant was not started until December

10, 1917, and although thereafter followed weeks and weeks of the

severest winter weather known in recent years, with all the delays in

the deliveries of materials which such weather conditions bring about,

the plant was entirely complete on June 1, 1918, not only, but the

work of producing the mounts had started in it long before that, some

machines getting to work as early as April.

The gun car used for mounting the mortar carriage was of the same

design as that for the 7-inch and 8-inch guns, except that each truck

had six wheels. The carriage built upon this car was of the barbette

type, and it allowed the gun to be pointed upward to an angle as

high as 65° and provided complete traverse, so that the mortar could

be fired in any direction from the car. A hydropneumatic system for

absorbing the recoil of the mortar after firing was adopted. This

recuperator in itself was a difficult problem for the manufacturer to

solve, being the first hydropneumatic recuperator of the size ever

built in this country.

[Illustration: 12-INCH SEACOAST GUN ON A CREUSOT RAILWAY MOUNT.

This huge weapon in this position is ready to fire half a ton of shot a

distance of 25 miles. It requires only two men to operate the powerful

elevating apparatus necessary to bring the gun into quick-firing

position.]

[Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH MORTAR ON RAILWAY MOUNT.

Lower view shows the mortar in its extreme position of recoil.]

In spite of the weight and elaborate character of this unit it was put

into production in an astonishingly short space of time. The pilot

mount came through on August 22, 1918, less than nine months after

the spade was first struck in the ground to begin the erection of the

ordnance plant. By the end of August the pilot mortar had successfully

passed its firing tests at Aberdeen, functioning properly at angles of

elevation from 22 degrees to 65 degrees and in any direction from the

mount. While this unit was put through hurriedly for these tests, the

preparation for the rest of the deliveries was made on a grand scale,

looking toward quantity production later on. When the armistice was

signed, every casting, forging, and structural part for every one of

the 91 railway mounts was on hand and completed at the works of the

Morgan Engineering Co., and thereafter the process was merely one of

assembling, although in a unit of such size the assembling job alone

was one of great magnitude. Even at the reduced rate of production

incident to the relaxation of tension after the armistice was signed,

the company delivered 45 complete units to the Government up to April

7, 1919, or five more than Gen. Pershing said he would require during

the whole campaign of 1919. Careful estimates show that if the war had

continued the company would have delivered the mounts at the rate of

15 per month beginning on December 15, 1918, a rate which would have

completed the entire project for 91 mounts by the middle of June, 1919.

As in the case of the 8-inch railway guns, the 12-inch mortars were

provided with interchangeable wheel trucks allowing the unit to travel

and work either on standard-gauge track or on the 60-centimeter,

narrow-gauge track of the war zone in France.

14-INCH GUNS.

The War Department did not have any 14-inch guns which could be spared

from the seacoast defenses for use abroad. The Ordnance Department,

therefore, inaugurated the project for the construction of 60 guns

of 14-inch caliber. For the construction of such guns complete new

plants were required, as all available facilities were already taken

over for other projects considered more important. This contract was

to have been turned out by the Neville Island ordnance plant. The Navy

Department in May, 1918, expressed willingness to turn over to the Army

certain 14-inch guns, 50 calibers, then under construction and of which

it was estimated that 30 would be completed by March, 1919.

It was decided to place some of these 14-inch guns on American sliding

railway mounts, and 16 such mounts were ordered from the Baldwin

Locomotive Works, deliveries to begin February 1, 1919. The 16 units

were to be delivered prior to April, 1919, but due to the signing of

the armistice work was suspended on the contracts, since the mounts

were designed for use in France. The contract was canceled in March,

1919.

The Navy itself placed five of these guns on railway mounts of another

design to be operated in France by naval forces on shore. Eleven such

mounts were built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works under the supervision

of the Navy Ordnance Bureau, and six of them were afterwards turned

over to the Army.

THE 16-INCH HOWITZER.

Without discussing here the 12-inch howitzers, 20 feet long, which the

Ordnance Department ordered produced and mounted on railway trucks, a

development for use abroad in 1920, we come, finally, to the largest

weapon of all in the railway artillery program, the 16-inch howitzer,

the barrel of this mighty weapon being 26 feet 6 inches long. The

American 16-inch howitzer had been forged out and finished prior to the

date of America's entrance into the war. It was proposed to place this

weapon on a railway mount and make it available for use on the western

front.

The Ordnance Department completed the design for the mount on February

10, 1918. In order to turn out the unit in the shortest possible time,

the project was placed with three manufacturers, each of whom was to

produce different parts. The American Bridge Co. received the order to

build the structural parts, the Baldwin Locomotive Works contracted for

the trucks, while the Morgan Engineering Co. undertook to assemble the

unit and also to build the top carriage and other mechanical parts. The

contractors did a speedy job in producing the mount for this howitzer.

In nearly all railway artillery of this size it is necessary to provide

bracing when the gun is set up in position for firing. The 16-inch

howitzer mount was unique in that the weapon could be fired from the

trucks without any track preparation whatsoever. An exhaustive test at

the Aberdeen proving grounds demonstrated that this piece of artillery

ranked with the highest types of ordnance in use by any country in the

world.

In the meantime orders had been placed for 61 additional howitzers. The

American Expeditionary Forces asked that 12 of these enormous weapons

be sent overseas as soon as they could be produced, a job which would

have extended over a period of months, if not years. Since none of the

additional howitzers had been produced when the armistice was signed,

the project of building mounts for them never got under way. The pilot

howitzer and mount were not shipped abroad.

[Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF 14-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY.

This type was evolved entirely by the Ordnance Department. It is an

excellent weapon for coast defense and hurls a 1,200-pound projectile

more than 18 miles.]

[Illustration: 16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.

A 1,600-pound projectile being loaded into the 16-inch howitzer from

which it will be sent on a journey of approximately 13 miles.]

[Illustration: 16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.

This view shows howitzer in the act of firing.]

In the design of railway equipment for high-angle weapons such as

howitzers, two loads must be considered by the builders in order to

provide a gun car of sufficient strength to hold its freight. One of

these loads, the lighter one, consists merely of the ordinary weight

of the gun and its carriage upon the car wheels. The other load, the

so-called firing load, consists of the weight of the unit plus the

additional weight of the down-thrust of the howitzer when it recoils.

In the case of the 16-inch howitzer the firing load is 748,231 pounds.

The weight of 748,231 pounds must be distributed along the tracks by

the numerous sets of wheels at the instant the gun is fired.

The mount for the howitzer is so constructed that this load is partly

taken up by the slide of the gun car along the track. In addition, the

howitzer is equipped with a hydraulic recoil cylinder. Thus the unit

has a double recoil system. The car trucks in the tests comfortably

transmitted, through a series of equalizer springs, this enormous load

upon an ordinary rock-ballast track, without any distortion to the

track or roadbed or impairment to the working parts of the unit. After

each discharge the whole huge mount moves backward along the track for

a distance of 20 or 30 feet.

Each railway artillery project called for the manufacture of a great

equipment of ammunition cars, fire-control cars, spare-parts cars,

supply cars, and the like, a complete unit being a heavy train in

itself. Such armament-train cars, together with numerous other

accessories and necessary equipment, were designed by the Ordnance

Department and produced for each mount. In all, 530 ammunition cars

were produced up to April, 1919. Most of them were shipped abroad, but

118 were retained for use in this country. Since the overseas cars

were to be used with French railway equipment, it was necessary to fit

them out with French standard screw couplers, air brakes, and other

appliances for connecting up with French railway cars.

The matter of traction power for these gun and armament trains near the

front set a problem for the Ordnance Department to solve. It was out

of the question to use steam engines near the enemy's lines, since the

steam and smoke would betray the location of artillery trains at great

distances. The Ordnance Department adopted a gas-electric locomotive

of 400 horsepower to be used to pull railway artillery trains at the

front, and was on the point of letting a contract to the General

Electric Co. for the manufacture of 50 of them when the armistice was

signed.

NEVILLE ISLAND.

It seems fitting at this point to say something about the Neville

Island ordnance plant, on an island in the Ohio River near Pittsburgh,

which would have produced weapons of the character of those used with

railway mounts and would have turned them out in large numbers had

the armistice not come to put an end to this enormous project. The

plant was being erected for the Government by the United States Steel

Corporation without profit to itself. The estimated cost of this plant

when finished was $150,000,000. Designed to supply the needs of the

Army for artillery of the heaviest types, the Neville Island plant was

being constructed on such a scale that it would surpass in size and

capacity any of the famous gun works of Europe, including the Krupps.

It was being equipped to handle huge ordnance undertakings, such as

the monthly completion of 15 great 14-inch guns and the production of

40,000 projectiles monthly for 14-inch and 16-inch guns. The plans

of the Government contemplated the production of 14-inch guns to the

number of 165 in all and their shipment to France in time to be in the

field before May 1, 1920. An initial order for 90 of these weapons had

been placed at the arsenal while it was being erected.

Besides 14-inch guns the plant was being equipped to turn out 16-inch

and even 18-inch weapons. The immense size of the machinery necessary

for such production can be understood when it is noted that an

18-inch gun weighs 510,000 pounds and a 14-inch gun 180,000 pounds.

It requires from 12 to 18 months to produce guns of this size, yet

Neville Island was being developed on a scale to build hundreds of them

simultaneously. The entire plant was to cover 573 acres and was to

employ 20,000 workmen when in full operation.

At the signing of the armistice work was suspended at Neville Island,

and four months later the whole project was abandoned.

------------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+------+----------------

Type. | Total |Nov. 11,| to | for |avail-| Remarks.

| | | 1919. | during | |

| | | | 1919. | |

------------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+------+----------------

7-inch | 12 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 12 |Produced for

| | | | | |

8-inch, | 47 | 18 | 33 | 36 | 96 |

gun, | | | | | |

| | | | | |

10-inch, | 36 |[19]8 |[19]22 | 36 | 111 |Fabricated

| | | | | |

Do | 18 | 0 | | 0 | 18 |Project

| | | | | |

12-inch, | 12 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 49 |French

| | | | | |

12-inch, | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 6 |Guns obtained

| | | | | |

14-inch, | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 21 |

on | | | | | |

| | | | | |

12-inch, | 91 | 1 | 45 | 49 | 150 |

| | | | | |

16-inch | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |61 guns

on | | | | | |

| | | | | |

14-inch, | 16 | 0 | | | |Protect

guns on | | | | | | Mar. 11,

| | | | | |

12-inch, | 1 | 0 | | | |If war had

on | | | | | | contemplated.

------------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+------+----------------

[19] Sets, fabricated parts.