When war was declared, the Army Ordnance Department had ninety-seven
officers. It now has 5,000 in America and abroad, and in the first year
of the war had spent $4,756,500,000. To its peace-time task of
administering eleven small Government arsenals has been added the
problem of getting quick production of shells of all calibres, rifles,
ammunition, grenades, and bombs from some 1,400 private manufacturing
establishments. It has acquired a total of 2,475,219 square feet of
storage space, has 2,701,880 square feet more under construction, and
requires 23,000,000 square feet altogether to store its supplies. It has
miles of railroad sidings, all inclosed, including 50 miles of track
especially built, and it handles 10,000 carloads of explosives a month,
with the total steadily increasing. The complexity of the Ordnance
Department's task may be seen in the fact that the number of items made
and supplied to the troops totals about 100,000, ranging from the small
firing pin of a rifle to a complete 16-inch gun and emplacement, or a
motor truck or tractor. Reserves of all these spare parts must be
maintained and ready for distribution.
The Ordnance Department has had to create organizations, build new
plants, finance them and to design as well as to manufacture not only
the weapons themselves, but thousands of tools, gauges, and jigs
required for their manufacture. For instance, the French Government
offered the secret of the recoil mechanism in the carriages of its
famous .75 guns. To manufacture these it was necessary to machine steel
castings so accurately that they will not be off two-thousandths of an
inch in a distance of more than six feet.