America's Munitions 1917-1918
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Title: America's Munitions 1917-1918
Author: Benedict Crowell
United States. War Department
Release date: March 7, 2015 [eBook #48428]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICA'S MUNITIONS 1917-1918 ***
[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.
CHAPTER II.
GUN PRODUCTION.
The sole use of a gun is to throw a projectile. The earliest projectile
was a stone thrown by the hand and arm of man--either in an attack upon
an enemy or upon a beast that was being hunted for food. Both of these
uses of thrown projectiles persist to this day, and during all time,
from prehistoric days until now, every man who had a projectile to
throw was steadily seeking for a longer range and a heavier projectile.
The man who could throw the heaviest stone the longest distance was
the most powerfully armed. In the Biblical battle between David and
Goliath, the arm of David was strengthened and lengthened by a leather
sling of very simple construction. Much practice had given the young
shepherd muscular strength and direction, and his longer arm and
straighter aim gave him power to overcome his more heavily armed
adversary.
Later, machines were developed after the fashion of a crossbow mounted
upon a small wooden carriage which usually was a hollowed trough open
on top and upon which a heavy stone was laid. The thong of the crossbow
was drawn by a powerful screw operated by man power, and the crossbow
arrangement when released would throw a stone weighing many pounds
quite a distance over the walls of a besieged city or from such walls
into the camps and ranks of the besiegers. This again was an attempt by
mechanical means to develop and lengthen the stroke of the arm and the
weight of the projectile.
With the development of explosives, which was much earlier than
many people suppose, there came a still greater range and weight of
projectile thrown, although the first guns were composed of staves
of wood fitted together and hooped up like a long, slender barrel,
wound with wet rawhide in many folds, which, when dried, exerted a
compressive force upon the staves of the barrel exactly as do the steel
hoops of barrels used in ordinary commercial life to-day.
This, the first gun, sufficed for a long while until the age of iron
came. And then the same principle of gun construction was followed
as is seen in that historical gun, the "Mons Meg," in the castle at
Edinburgh. The barrel of that gun is made of square bars of iron,
placed lengthwise, and similar bars of iron were wrapped hot around the
staves to confine them in place and to give more resisting power than
was possible with the wooden staves and the rawhide hooping.
Thus, all during the age of iron, gun development went steadily
forward. Every military power was always striving by the aid of
its best engineers, designers, and manufacturers to get a stronger
gun, either with or without a heavier projectile, but in every case
striving for greater power. As a special development we find in March,
1918, the now famous long-range gun of the Germans, which was at that
time trained upon Paris, where it successfully delivered a shell
approximately 9 inches in diameter, punctually every 20 minutes for a
good part of each day until the gun was worn out. This occurred after a
comparatively small number of shots, probably not more than 75 in all.
The rapid wearing out was due to the immense demands of the long range
upon the material of the gun. The Germans in the shelling of Paris used
three of these long-range weapons and 183 shells are known to have
fallen in the city.
The Germans evidently calculated with great care and experience upon
the factors leading up to this famous long-range type of gun, which
had an effective shooting distance of approximately 75 miles, which
range, in the opinion of our experts, it is now quite easy for an
experienced designer and manufacturer to equal and excel at will. In
fact, one would hesitate to place a limit upon the length of range
that could be achieved by a gun that it is now possible to design and
build. In this connection it is interesting to note that the great
French ordnance works at Le Creusot in 1892 produced the first known
and well-authenticated long-range gun, which was constructed from the
design of a 12-inch gun, but bored down to throw a 6-inch projectile.
And instead of the usual 8 miles expected from the flight of a 6-inch
shell this early Creusot long-range gun gave a range of approximately
21 miles with a 6-inch projectile, using a 12-inch gun's powder charge.
Closely connected with the development of the gun itself, and a
necessary element of the gun's successful use, is the requirement that
the weapon itself be easily transported from point to point, where its
available range and capacity for throwing the projectile can be made
of maximum use. This requires a gun carriage which has within itself
various functions, the primary one being to establish the gun in the
desired position where it can be made most effective against the enemy.
Then, too, the gun carriage must have stability in order to withstand,
absorb, and care for the enormous recoil energies let loose by the
firing of the gun. It is obvious that the force which propels the
projectile forward is equal to the reacting force to the rear, and in
order to care for, absorb, and distribute to the earth this reacting
force to the rear the carriage must have within itself some very
peculiar and important properties. To this end there is provided what
is known as a "brake" which permits the gun, upon the moment of firing,
to slide backward bodily within the controlling apparatus mounted upon
a fixed carriage.
The sliding of the whole gun to the rear by means of the mechanism
of the brake is controlled, as to speed and time, by springs, by
compressed air, by compressed oil, etc., either all together or in
combinations of two or three of these agencies; so that the whole
recoil energy is absorbed and the rearward action of the gun brought to
rest in a fraction of a second and in but a very few inches of travel.
The strains are distributed from the recoil mechanism to the fixed
portion of the carriage that is necessarily anchored to the ground by
means of spades, which the recoil force of each shot sets more firmly
into the ground, so that the whole apparatus is thus steadily held in
place for successive shots.
In mobile artillery, again, rapid firing is a prime essential. The
75-millimeter gun of modern manufacture is capable of being fired at a
rate in excess of 20 shots a minute--that is, a shot every 3 seconds.
Rarely however, is a gun served as rapidly as this. The more usual rate
of fire is 6 shots a minute or 1 about each 10 seconds, and this rate
of fire can be maintained in the 75-millimeter gun with great accuracy
over a comparatively long period.
The larger guns are served at proportionately slower rates, until as
the calibers progress to the 14-inch rifles, which have been set up
upon railway mounts as well as on fixed emplacements for seacoast
defense, the rate of fire is reduced to one shot in three minutes for
railway mounts, and to one shot a minute for seacoast mounts, although
upon occasions a more rapid rate of fire can be reached.
Under rapid fire conditions, the gun becomes very hot, owing to the
heat generated by the combustion of the powder within the gun at
pressures as high as 35,000 pounds per square inch or more, which are
generated at the moment of fire. This heat is communicated through the
walls of the gun and taken off by the cooling properties of the air.
Nevertheless, the wall of the gun becomes so hot that it would scorch
or burn a hand laid upon it. The rapid fire and heating of the gun
lessens the effective life of the weapon, due to the fact that the hot
powder gases react more rapidly on hot metal than they do upon cold
metal; hence a gun will last many rounds longer if fired at a slow rate
than if fired at a rapid rate.
It may be helpful to keep in mind throughout that the sole purpose of
a gun is to fire a projectile, as was stated at the very beginning of
this chapter. All other operations connected with the life of a gun,
its manufacture, its transportation to the place where it is to be
used, its aiming, its loading and all its functions and operations are
bound up in the single purpose of actually firing the shot.
Consider now for a moment, the life of, let us say, one of the 14-inch
guns.
In the great steel mills it requires hundreds and perhaps thousands of
workmen to constitute the force necessary to handle the enormous masses
of steel through the various processes which finally result in the
finished gun.
From the first operation in the steel mill it requires perhaps as
long as 10 months to produce the gun ready for the first test. During
the 10 months of manufacture of one of these 14-inch rifles there has
been expended for the gun and its carriage approximately $200,000. Of
course, while it requires 10 months to make a final delivery of one
gun after its first operation is commenced, it should be remembered
that yet other guns are following in series and that in a well-equipped
ordnance factory two and perhaps three guns per month of this kind can
be turned out continuously, if required.
Remembering now that it requires 10 months to produce one such 14-inch
rifle and that its whole purpose is to fire a shot, consider now the
time required to fire this shot. As the primer is fired and the powder
charge ignited the projectile begins to move forward in the bore of
the gun at an increasingly rapid rate, so that by the time it emerges
from the muzzle and starts on its errand of death and destruction, it
has taken from a thirtieth to a fiftieth of a second in time, depending
upon certain conditions.
Assuming that a fiftieth of a second has been taken up and that the
life of a large high-pressure gun at a normal rate of firing is 150
shots, it is obvious then that in the actual firing of these 150 shots
only three seconds of time are consumed. Therefore, the active life of
the gun, which it has taken 10 months to build, is but three seconds
long in the actual performance of the function of throwing a shot.
However, after the gun has fired its life of 150 shots it is a
comparatively simple and inexpensive matter to bore out the worn-out
liner and insert a new liner, thus fitting the gun again for service,
with an expenditure of time and money much less than would be required
in the preparation of a new gun.
As the size of the powder charge decreases, a progressively longer life
of the walls of the bore of a gun is attained, so that we have had the
experience of a 75-millimeter gun firing 12,000 rounds without serious
effect upon the accuracy of fire. Large-caliber guns, such as 12-inch
howitzers, with the reduced powder charge required for the lower muzzle
velocities employed in howitzer attack, have retained their accuracy of
fire after 10,000 rounds.
From the fact that when in action guns are served with ammunition,
aimed, fired, and cared for by a crew of men carefully trained to
every motion involved in the successful use of the gun, it is most
essential that the design and the material shall be such, both as to
calculation in the design and as to manufacture in the material, as
will insure the maintenance of the morale of the crew that serves
the gun. Each man must be confident to the very last bit of fiber in
his make-up that his gun is the best gun in the world, that it will
behave properly, that it will protect him and his fellow soldiers who
are caring for the welfare of their country, that it will respond
accurately and well to every demand made upon it, that it will not
yield or burst, that it will not shoot wild, but that it will in every
respect give the result required in its operation.
To this end it has for generations been known that the requirements
of manufacture of ordnance material, particularly for the body of the
gun, are of the very highest order and call for the finest attainable
quality in material, workmanship, and design.
It is well known and admitted that the steel employed in the
manufacture of guns must be of the highest quality and of the finest
grade for its purpose. It requires the most expert knowledge of the
manufacture of steel to obtain this grade and quality. Until recently
this knowledge in America was confined to the Ordnance officers of
the Army and of the Navy and to a comparatively small number of
manufacturers--not more than four in all--and only two of these
manufacturers had provided the necessary equipment and appliances for
the manufacture of complete guns.
Until 1914 the number of guns whose manufacture was provided for in
this country as well as in the countries of Europe, excepting Germany,
was very small. It might be stated that the sum total of guns purchased
by the United States from the two factories mentioned did not exceed
an average of 55 guns a year in calibers of from 3-inch to 14-inch,
and that the stock of guns which by this low rate of increase of
manufacture had been provided for us was pitifully small with which to
enter a war of the magnitude of the one through which this country has
just passed.
The two factories in question not having been encouraged by large
purchases of ordnance material, as were similar industries in Germany,
were not capable of volume production when we entered the war. But
at the same time the gun bodies produced by these concerns at least
equaled in quality those built in any other country on earth; so that
while the big-gun-making art was in existence in this country and was
maintained as to quality, it was most insufficient as to the quantity
of the production available.
When the United States faced the war in April, 1917, arrangements
were at once entered into to obtain in the shortest space of time an
adequate supply of finished artillery of all calibers required by our
troops and to get this supply in time to meet our men as they should
set foot on the shores of France. Many thousands of forgings for guns,
and finished guns too, had been ordered by the allies of the few gun
makers in this country; and these makers were, at the time we got into
the conflict, fully occupied for at least a year ahead with orders from
the French and English ordnance departments. All of this production
was immediately useful and available for the combined armies of the
allies, and so it was allowed to go forward, the forgings preventing a
gap in the output of the finished articles from the British and French
arsenals which were then using the semifinished guns made in the old
factories in existence in this country in April, 1917.
Some idea of the volume of this production in this country will be
gained from the following table showing material supplied to the allies
between April, 1917, and the date of the signing of the armistice,
November 11, 1918.
Guns of calibers from 3-inch to 9.5-inch 1,102
furnished to the allies
Additional gun forgings furnished to the allies tubes 14,623
Shell and shell forgings furnished to the allies pieces 5,018,451
in this period
In supplying all of this material from our regular sources of
manufacture in this country to the finishing arsenals of the allies we
were but maintaining our position as a part of the general source of
supply. The plan of the French and British ordnance engineers at the
outbreak of the war in 1914 was to build their factories as quickly
and as extensively as could possibly be done. By the time the United
States entered the war all of these factories were in operation and
clamoring for raw material at a rate which was far in excess of that
which could be supplied by the home steel makers in Great Britain and
France. Consequently their incursions into the semifinished ordnance
material supplies in the United States were necessary. In sending these
large quantities of our own materials abroad, when we needed them
ourselves, we were distinctly adding to the rate and quantity of the
supply of finished ordnance for the use of our own Army in the field
as well as being at the same time of inestimable value to the allies.
This was because the French and British had agreed to supply our first
armies with finished fighting weapons while we were giving them the raw
materials which they needed so badly.
The four gunmakers in America meanwhile were being expanded into a
total of 19 makers. All of these 19 factories during the month of
October, 1918, were practically in full operation. Many of them were
producing big guns at a faster rate than that for which the plants
had been designed. In the month of October, 1918, with 3 of the 19
factories yet to have their machine-tool equipment completed, there
were produced 2,031 sets of gun forgings between the calibers of
3-inch and 9.5-inch, which is at the rate of upward of 24,000 guns
a year. This figure, of course, does not indicate anything of the
gun-finishing capacity of the country; yet this expansion may be
contrasted to the fact that our supply of finished guns prior to 1917
amounted only to 55 weapons a year.
_Monthly production of finished cannon, ranging in size from 75
millimeters to 240 millimeters, at the various machining and
assembling plants._[9]
------------------------+------+------------------------------------------
| 1917 | 1918
Caliber. +------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
| Dec. | Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May. | June.
+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
75-millimeter | 5 | 45 | 48 | 52 | 74 | 127 | 169
3-inch antiaircraft | 3 | 16 | 24 | 16 | 2 | | 11
4.7-inch | | | | | | | 6
155-millimeter howitzer | | | 3 | 10 | 16 | 28 | 75
155-millimeter gun | | | | | | |
8-inch howitzer | | | | 34 | 38 | 8 |
240-millimeter howitzer | | | | | | |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
Total | 8 | 61 | 75 | 112 | 130 | 163 | 261
========================+======+======+======+======+======+======+=======
| 1918 |
Caliber. +------+------+------+------+------+------| Total
| July.| Aug. | Sept.| Oct. | Nov. | Dec. |
------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
75-millimeter | 142 | 204 | 199 | 214 | 320 | 214 | 1,813
3-inch antiaircraft | 10 | 11 | 22 | 50 | 34 | 31 | 230
4.7-inch | 8 | 15 | 29 | 71 | 50 | 39 | 218
155-millimeter howitzer | 110 | 248 | 206 | 350 | 231 | 179 | 1,456
155-millimeter gun | 2 | | 14 | 51 | 22 | 40 | 129
8-inch howitzer | | 28 | 22 | 33 | 14 | 14 | 191
240-millimeter howitzer | | 1 | | | 1 | | 2
+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
Total | 272 | 507 | 492 | 769 | 672 | 517 | 4,039
------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
[9] Carriages, recuperators, and sights had to be added to these cannon
to make them complete units ready for service.
_Monthly production of cannon forgings._
------------------------+------+------------------------------------------
| 1917 | 1918
Caliber. +------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
| Dec. | Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May. | June.
------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
75-millimeter | 4 | 13 | 73 | 62 | 79 | 239 | 376
3-inch antiaircraft | | | 6 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 12
4.7-inch gun | | | 9 | 10 | 8 | 28 |
155-millimeter howitzer | 2 | 13 | 26 | 61 | 44 | 146 | 133
155-millimeter gun | | | | | 1 | 15 | 4
8-inch howitzer | | | | 34 | 38 | 8 |
240-millimeter howitzer | | | | | | |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
Total | 6 | 26 | 114 | 174 | 175 | 440 | 525
========================+======+======+======+======+======+======+=======
| 1918 |
Caliber. +------+------+------+------+------+------| Total
| July.| Aug. | Sept.| Oct. | Nov. | Dec. |
------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
75-millimeter | 574 | 678 | 754 |1,385 | 674 | 310 | 5,221
3-inch antiaircraft | 10 | 6 | 49 | 163 | 124 | 18 | 404
4.7-inch gun | 70 | 100 | 84 | 35 | 25 | 53 | 422
155-millimeter howitzer | 176 | 204 | 273 | 279 | 276 | 62 | 1,695
155-millimeter gun | 42 | 28 | 56 | 105 | 79 | 24 | 354
8-inch howitzer | | 28 | 22 | 33 | 14 | 14 | 191
240-millimeter howitzer | | 30 | 21 | 31 | 22 | 49 | 153
+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
Total | 872 |1,074 |1,259 |2,031 |1,214 | 530 | 8,440
------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
Our chain of gun factories, that were making this remarkable production,
were built as follows:
One at the Watertown Arsenal, Watertown, Mass., near Boston, for
the manufacture of rough machined gun forgings of the larger mobile
calibers. This factory was entirely built and equipped on Government
land with Government money and is splendidly able to produce rough
machined gun forgings of the highest quality at the rate of two sets a
day for the 155-millimeter G. P. F. rifles, and one set a day of the
240-millimeter howitzers.
At Watervliet Arsenal, Watervliet, N. Y., large extensions were made
to the existing plant that had always been the Army's prime reliance
for the finishing and the assembly of guns of all calibers, including
the very largest. This plant was extended to manufacture complete
four of the 240-millimeter howitzers each day, and two a day of the
155-millimeter G. P. F. guns.
At Bridgeport, Conn., there was constructed a complete new factory by
the Bullard Engineering Works for the United States to turn out four
155-millimeter G. P. F. guns a day.
At Philadelphia, the Tacony Ordnance Corporation, as agents for the
Government, erected complete a new factory officered and manned by
experts well-trained and experienced in the difficult art of the
manufacture of steel and gun forgings. On October 11, 1917, the grounds
for this great undertaking had been merely staked out for the outline
of the buildings. Seven months later, on May 15, 1918, the entire
group of buildings, comprising a complete steel works from making the
steel to the final completion of 155-millimeter gun forgings, was
entirely erected at a cost of about $3,000,000. This difficult and
rapid building operation was carried through successfully during the
extraordinarily severe winter of 1917-18. On June 29, 1918, the first
carload of gun forgings was accepted and shipped from this plant, so
we have the marvelous enterprise of building a complete steel works
from the bare ground forward to the shipment of its first forgings in a
total elapsed time of only eight and one-half months.
At another, the works of the Midvale Steel Co. in Philadelphia, large
extensions were made to enable some of the larger guns to be produced,
to be finished later at the Watervliet Arsenal.
At the Bethlehem Steel Co.'s plant, Bethlehem, Pa., as early as May,
1917, orders were placed and appropriations allotted for expansions
to this enterprise to enable a rapid output of a larger number of gun
forgings and finished guns.
Large extensions were made at the works of the Standard Steel Works
Co., Burnham, Pa., to increase their existing forging and heat treating
facilities, so that at this plant two sets of 155-millimeter howitzers
and one set of 155-millimeter gun forgings were produced each day.
At Pittsburgh, Pa., the plants of the Heppenstall Forge & Knife Co. and
the Edgewater Steel Co. were extended so as to provide for the daily
production at the first plant of forgings for one 3-inch antiaircraft
gun and one 4.7-inch gun, and at the second plant of forgings for one
155-millimeter G. P. F. gun and one 240-millimeter howitzer per day.
At Columbus, Ohio, the Buckeye Steel & Castings Co. in combination with
the works of the Symington-Anderson Co. at Rochester, N. Y., had their
facilities extended to provide for the manufacture each day of six sets
of forgings for the 75-millimeter guns.
At the Symington-Anderson Co. in Rochester, N. Y., there was provided
a finishing plant for the 75-millimeter gun with a capacity of 15
finished guns per day.
At Erie, Pa., one of the most remarkable achievements in rapid
construction and successful mechanical operation was performed by
the erection of a plant that was commenced in July, 1917, and out of
which the first production was shipped to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds
in February, 1918. The American Brake Shoe & Foundry Co. built and
operated this plant as agents for the Ordnance Department, and much
credit is due them for their energy and organizing capacity.
It is doubtful if history records any similar enterprise in which guns
were turned out in a plant seven months from the date of beginning the
erection of the factory. This plant was laid out to manufacture 10
of the 155-millimeter Schneider-type howitzers a day, and before the
signing of the armistice it had more than fulfilled every expectation
by regularly turning out up to 15 howitzers a day, or 90 a week.
At Detroit, Mich., the Chalkis Manufacturing Co. adapted an existing
plant, and additional facilities were erected for the manufacture of
three of the 3-inch antiaircraft guns each day.
At Madison, Wis., the Northwestern Ordnance Co. erected for the United
States an entire new factory, beautifully equipped for the manufacture
of four guns a day of the 4.7-inch model.
At Milwaukee, Wis., the Wisconsin Gun Co. put up for the Government an
entirely new works capable of finishing six 75-millimeter guns each
day. The plants at both Milwaukee and Madison acquitted themselves very
well and gave us guns of the highest quality.
At Chicago, the Illinois Steel Co. expanded existing facilities to
produce more of the necessary electric furnace steel, which was forged
into guns at several works producing gun forgings, both for the Army
and Navy.
At Indiana Harbor, Ind., the works of the Standard Forgings Co., whose
sole business had been the volume production of forgings with steam
hammers and hydraulic presses, were expanded to the enormous degree
of producing each day 10 sets of gun forgings for the 155-millimeter
howitzer and 25 sets a day for the 75-millimeter gun. It should be
stated that this was a triumph of organizing ability and that this
factory was one of our main reliances for these guns.
At Gary, Ind., the American Bridge Co. created what is perhaps the
finest gun-forging plant in the world, comprising four presses from
1,000 tons to 3,000 tons forging capacity and all the other necessary
apparatus for the production each day of two sets of 155-millimeter G.
P. F. guns and the equivalent of one and one-half sets a day of the
240-millimeter howitzers.
At Baltimore, Md., the plant of the Hess Steel Corporation was enlarged
from its peace-time capacity and caused to produce at three times its
normal rate the special steels required for gun manufacture.
It will become evident that the collection of machinery, buildings,
and equipment necessary to produce these guns in the short space
of time required and at the rate of production stipulated, was an
enormous task in itself. It required the production of vast quantities
of raw materials and the congregating in one place of large numbers
of men capable of undertaking the exceedingly intricate mechanical
processes of manufacture. The success of this plan and its carrying
out is due largely to the loyalty of the manufacturers who unselfishly
came forward early in 1917 and agreed at the request of the Ordnance
Department to turn over their plants, lock, stock, and barrel, to
the requirements of the department; agreed also to undertake the
manufacture of products totally unfamiliar to them; agreed likewise to
lend all of their organizing ability and great material resources to
the success of the plants which the United States found necessary to
build in the creation of a new art, in new locations and in an extent
theretofore undreamed of.
THE MAKING OF A BIG GUN.
Steel, of course, and steel in some of its finest forms is the basis
of gun manufacture. The word "steel" for the purpose of producing guns
means much more than is ordinarily carried by the word in its everyday
and most commonly accepted use. Only steel of the very highest quality
is suitable for gun manufacture, as was indicated previously when
attention was directed to the complete reliance which the operating
crews must place in their guns and the severity of the uses to which
the big guns are put.
Let us take a hasty trip through a big gun plant, watching the
processes through which is finally evolved from the raw materials one
of our hardy and efficient big guns.
Entering an open-hearth furnace building at one of our big gun plants,
we find two large furnaces in which the raw materials are charged.
Each of these furnaces is 75 feet long and 15 feet wide, and in them
in a shallow bath or pool lies the molten steel. The pool is about 33
feet long by 12 feet wide and approximately 2½ feet deep. This pool, or
"bath" as it is termed, weighs approximately 60 tons and is composed of
pig iron and well-selected scrap steel from previous operations.
The furnace is at all times during the operation of melting these raw
materials in the bath kept at such a high temperature that the eye may
not look within at the molten mass without being 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 because the temperature is so exceedingly high
that it gives a light as white as that of the sun.
After 12 or 15 hours of refining treatment in this furnace the metal
is tested, analyzed in the chemical laboratory, and, if found to be
refined to the proper degree, it is allowed to flow out of the furnace
on the opposite side from that through which it entered. Flowing out
of the furnace the entire charge of 60 tons finds its way into a huge
ladle which is suspended from a traveling crane capable of safely
carrying this great weight.
The ladle is then transferred by the crane to a heavy cast-iron mold
which is built so as to contain as much of the 60 tons of molten metal
as is required for the particular gun forging under manufacture.
The mold, which we have before us now on our imaginary trip through the
gun plant, will provide an "ingot" from the molten metal that will be
40 inches in diameter and 100 inches high. On top of this ingot is a
brick-lined so-called "sinkhead." This sinkhead is that portion of the
molten metal that has been allowed to cool more slowly in the brick
lining than the ingot does in the cast-iron mold proper. The ingot with
the sinkhead will weigh approximately 60,000 pounds.
This sinkhead is to insure greater solidity to the portion of the ingot
which is used for the gun forging. Only that part of the ingot below
the sinkhead enters the forging. The sinkhead itself is cut off while
hot under the press in a subsequent operation and afterwards remelted.
Next the ingot is placed under a 2,000-ton forging press which handles
ingots up to 45 inches in diameter. There it is forged into a square
shape after coming from the mold in an octagonal form. Previous to its
being put under this press, however, a careful chemical analysis has
been made of the ingot to determine that it is satisfactory for gun
purposes, and then before being put under the press the whole ingot is
heated in the charge chamber and fired either by a gas or oil flame.
[Illustration: VIEW OF LADLE, CONTAINING 60 TONS OF MOLTEN STEEL
SUSPENDED FROM A TRAVELING CRANE.
The ladle is receiving metal from the furnace and the crane is
conveying the ladle to the mold.]
[Illustration: MOLTEN STEEL BEING POURED FROM LADLE INTO MOLD, WHICH IS
OF HEAVY CAST-IRON CONSTRUCTION, AT THE TACONY ORDNANCE CORPORATION.
Arrow points from letter A to a completed ingot from a mold.
The brick-lined sink head is a part of the mold and is to
insure greater solidity to the portion of the ingot which is
used for the gun forging; only the part below the sink head
entering the forging, the sink head itself being cut off hot
under the press in a subsequent operation.]
[Illustration: VIEW OF INGOT MOLD.]
[Illustration: A 2,000-TON FORGING PRESS AT THE TACONY ORDNANCE
CORPORATION PLANT.
This press can forge ingots up to 45 inches in diameter. The
ingot under the press is shown in a partly forged state. Note
that the original octagonal shape of the ingot as it came from
the mold has been forged down to a square shape and later will
be forged into a round shape. After coming from the mold, the
ingot has been subjected to a careful chemical analysis to
determine its fitness for use as a gun barrel.]
[Illustration: A 9,000 TON HYDRAULIC FORGING PRESS IN THE PLANT OF THE
MIDVALE STEEL CO.
This press is needed for such large caliber guns as the 14-inch and
16-inch guns. The piece of forging under the press is armor plate and
not a gun forging.]
[Illustration: THREE TUBES OF THE 155-MILLIMETER GUNS SUSPENDED AT
FURNACE.
Three tubes of the 155-millimeter guns suspended at furnace
ready for heating and quenching to give them the necessary
combination of hardness and toughness. The door of the furnace
is open. The tubes remain in this furnace for perhaps eight
hours at a temperature of 1,500° Fahrenheit or until a bright
yellow color, uniform in every part.]
[Illustration:
A TUBE FOR A 12-INCH GUN JUST OUT OF THE FURNACE, WHERE IT WAS
TEMPERED AT WHITE HEAT AND IS NOW READY FOR QUENCHING IN THE
PLANT OF THE MIDVALE STEEL CO.
The gun tube is 41 feet long.]
[Illustration: TUBE OF A 155-MILLIMETER GUN BEING TURNED, PRIOR TO
BORING, AT THE TACONY ORDNANCE CORPORATION PLANT.]
[Illustration: TUBE OF A 155-MILLIMETER GUN IN A LATHE BEING BORED.
The ingot out of which this tube was made, came from the mold
in an octagonal shape and later was forged into a square
shape and finally made round. It now, too, has the hole bored
partially into it. Through this hole, ultimately, will pass the
projectile.]
The forging press used for the larger caliber guns, such as 14-inch and
16-inch, is of a 9,000-ton weight capacity.
After the ingot forging has been reduced from squareness to a
cylindrical shape under the press, it is allowed to cool, then taken
to the machine shop, where it is turned and the hole through which the
projectile ultimately will pass is bored into it. This hole is somewhat
smaller than the diameter of the projectile, because in the finishing
operation, when the gun is assembled finally and put together, the hole
must be within one-one-thousandth of an inch of the diameter required,
which is all the tolerance that is allowed from the accuracy to which
the projectiles are brought. Otherwise the accuracy of the gun in
firing would be injured and the reliability of its aim would not be
satisfactory.
During all of these operations with the ingot, the steel is largely
in the soft condition in which it left the forging press. As is well
known, steel is capable of taking many degrees of "temper." Temper
is an old term that no longer is quite descriptive of the condition
desired or obtained, but it is sufficiently expressive of the condition
desired for the purposes here. This condition is one of a certain
degree of hardness--greater than that ordinarily carried by the soft
steel--combined with the greatest obtainable degree of toughness. This
combination of hardness and toughness produced to the proper degree
resists the explosive power of the powder and also causes the wear on
the gun in firing to be diminished and made as slight as possible.
To effect this combination of hardness and toughness it is necessary to
take the bored and turned tubes of the guns and suspend them by means
of a specially made apparatus in a furnace where they are heated for a
period of perhaps eight hours to a temperature of approximately 1,500°
F. or a bright-yellow color, uniform in every part of the piece.
After being subjected to this treatment for the time mentioned, the
tube is then conducted by means of a traveling crane apparatus to a
tank of warm water in which it is dipped and the heat rapidly taken
from it down to a point of practically atmospheric temperature. This
"quench" as it is called, produces the required degree of hardness
called for by the ordnance officers' design; but the piece has not yet
got the required degree of toughness. This toughness is now imparted
to the hard piece by heating it once more in another furnace to a
temperature of approximately 1,100° F., or a warm rosy red, for a
period of perhaps 14 hours. From this temperature, the piece is allowed
to cool naturally and slowly to the atmospheric temperature.
The ordnance inspectors at this point determine whether the piece has
the required properties in a sufficient degree, by cutting from the
tube a piece 5 inches long and ½ inch in diameter. The ends of this
piece are threaded suitably for gripping in a machine. The piece is
then pulled until the half-inch stem breaks. The machine registers
the amount of force required to break this piece and this gives the
ordnance engineer his test as to the degree of hardness and toughness
to which the piece has been brought by the heat treatment processes
just described.
A satisfactory physical condition having been determined by pulling
and breaking the test pieces described, the whole forging is sent to
the finishing shop where it is machined to a mirror polish on all
its surfaces. The diameters are accurately measured and the forgings
assembled into the shape of a finished gun.
In this process there is required a different kind of care and
accuracy. Up until this time the care has been to provide a metal of
proper consistency and quality. From this point forward the manufacture
of a gun requires the machining and fitting of this metal into a shape
and form so accurate that the full strength of the gun and the best
accuracy of fire may be attained.
To explain how and why hoops are placed upon the gun tubing and how
the various hoops are shrunk from the outside diameter of the gun will
require a few lines.
Cannon are made of concentric cylinders shrunk one upon another. The
object of this method of construction is twofold. The distinctly
practical object is the attainment throughout the wall of each cylinder
of the soundness and uniformity of metal which is more certainly to be
had in thin pieces than in thick ones; the other object is more closely
connected with the theory of gun construction.
When a hollow cylinder is subjected to an interior pressure the walls
of the cylinder are not uniformly strained throughout their thickness,
but the layer at the bore is much more severely strained than that at
the outside. This can be readily seen if we consider a cylinder of
rubber, for example, with a bore of 1 inch and an exterior diameter
of 3 inches, which are about the proportions of many guns. If we put
an interior air pressure on the cylinder until we expand the bore to
2 inches, the exterior diameter will not thereby be increased 1 inch.
But supposing that it were increased as much as the bore, that is, 1
inch, we would have the diameter, and therefore the circumference, of
the bore increased 100 per cent, and the circumference of the exterior
increased 33-1/3 per cent. That is, the layer at the bore would be
strained three times as much as that at the exterior, and the interior
layer would commence to tear before that at the exterior would reach
anything like its limit of strength. The whole wall of the cylinder
therefore would not be contributing its full strength toward resisting
the interior pressure, and there would be a waste of material as well
as a loss of strength. Let us now consider, instead of our simple
cylinder, a built-up cylinder composed of two concentric ones, the
inner one of a bore originally a little greater than 1 inch, and
the outer one of exterior diameter a little less than three inches,
originally; so that when the outer one is pressed over the inner one
(its inner diameter being originally too small for it to go over the
inner one without stretching) the bore of the inner one is brought to
1 inch, and the exterior of the outer one to 3 inches. We now have a
cylinder of the same dimensions as our simple one, but in a different
state; the layers of the inner one being compressed and those of the
outer one extended.
If now we commence to put air pressure on the bore, we can put on a
certain amount before we wipe out the compression of the inner layer,
and bring it to a neutral state, and thereafter can go on putting on
more pressure until we stretch the inner layer 100 per cent beyond the
neutral state, as before; which would take just as much additional
pressure as the total pressure which we employed with our simple
cylinder. We have therefore gained all that pressure which is necessary
to bring the inner layer of our built-up cylinder from its state of
compression to the neutral state. If we have so proportioned the
diameter of junction of our inner and outer cylinders and so gauged
the amount of stretching required to get the outer one over the inner
one that we have not in the process caused any of the layers of the
outer one to be overstrained, the gain has been a real one, attained by
causing the layers of the outer cylinder to make a better contribution
of strength toward resisting the interior pressure. This is the theory
of the built-up gun.
The number of cylinders employed generally increases, up to a certain
limit, with the size of the gun, practical considerations governing;
and the "shrinkage," or amount by which the inner diameter of the outer
cylinder is less than the outer diameter of the one which it is to be
shrunk over, is a matter of nice calculation. Roughly speaking, it is
about one and one half one-thousandths of an inch for each inch of
diameter, varying with the position of the cylinder in the gun; and its
accurate attainment, throughout the length of the cylinder of a large
gun, is a delicate matter of the gun-maker's art and the machinist's
skill.
The method of assembly is to have the cold tube set upright and
prepared for a circulation of water within the bore of the tube to
keep it cool. Then the hoop, whose inside diameter is smaller than the
outside diameter of the tube on which it is to be shrunk, is measured
and carefully heated to a temperature of approximately 450° F., or just
about the temperature of a good oven for baking or roasting. This mild
temperature so expands the material in the hoop that the difference of
diameter is overcome and the hot hoop is expanded to a larger inside
diameter than the outside diameter of the cold tube on which the hoop
is to be placed. Next the hot, expanded hoop is placed in position
around the breech end of the tube, and slowly and carefully cooled,
so that in contracting from the high temperature to the low ordinary
temperature, the hoop shrinks toward its original diameter and thus
exerts an inclosing pressure or compressive strain upon the breech end
of the tube.
Now when the gun is fired the tube tends to expand under the pressure
and this expansion is resisted, first by the compressive force exerted
by the shrunken hoop and later by the hoop itself, so that the built-up
system is stronger and better able to resist the explosive charge of
the burning powder than would be the case if the gun were made in one
piece and of the same thickness of metal.
This brief explanation will show why so many pieces are provided for
the manufacture of the finished gun and the reason for the large number
of machine tools and machining operations necessary in order to carry
forward the manufacture of the finished article. Sometimes one or more
of the outer cylinders are replaced by layers of wire, wound under
tension.
Both our 4.7-inch gun, model 1906, with which our troops have been
equipped for a long time and which throws a projectile weighing 45
pounds a distance of about 6 miles, and the French 75-millimeter
(2.95-inch) gun, successfully used by the French since 1897, were
designed to be drawn by horses, and the guns are best used when drawn
by teams of 6 or 8 horses. As the horse has a sustained pulling power
of only 650 pounds, it is obvious that the weight to be drawn by the
team of 6 horses must not be more than 3,900 pounds. So there is
every incentive for making mobile artillery of this kind as light as
possible, consistent with the strength required for the work to be
done. Thus the pulling power of the horse coupled with his speed has
been the limiting factor in the design and weight of mobile field
artillery.
As one of our foremost United States ordnance engineers once said,
"the limited power of the horse is what has governed the weight of our
artillery," and that "if Divine Providence had given the horse the
speed of the deer and the power of the elephant, we might have had a
far wider and more effective range for our mobile artillery."
[Illustration: A SECTION OF THE MIDVALE STEEL CO. PLANT, SHOWING TYPES
OF 6-INCH, 7-INCH, AND 8-INCH, NICKEL-STEEL, BREECH-LOADING RIFLES.]
[Illustration: THREE FINISHED 8-INCH RIFLES, 45 CALIBERS, SET UP ON
TURRET MOUNTS IN THE PLANT OF THE MIDVALE STEEL CO. WHERE THEY WERE
MADE.
In the foreground are three large gun tubes partially
completed. This company started the manufacture of the first
piece of ordnance material in America in 1880.]
One of the answers of the United States ordnance engineers to this
problem, as developed in the recent war, has been the production of
a tractor to replace the horse, and this tractor has the speed of
the deer and the power of the elephant. The most powerful tractors
are mounted on track-laying devices and are colloquially known as
caterpillars. One of these powerful caterpillars, on which is mounted
an 8-inch howitzer with a range of 6 miles, which is manned and
operated by only two men, and which can go up hill and down hill, over
broken brushwood, trees, etc., was recently given a severe test at the
Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Here it was sent through a dense wood in
which it bumped square into a live locust tree that was 17 inches in
diameter at the bottom. This tree, almost the tallest in the wood, was
prostrated by the attack of the tractor, which rode over it and then
emerged from the wood, took up its position, and fired its shot almost
in as short a time as that which it takes to tell of the deed. Truly
the power of the elephant and the speed of the deer has been brought to
the aid of the ordnance engineer for any future warlike operations.
The number of workmen employed in gun production at once in this
country totaled 21,329, and fully that many more are estimated to have
been employed in the manufacture of gun carriages and fire-control
instruments. Consequently in turning out the complete big guns there
were fully 42,000 workmen engaged by the month of October, 1918.
Furthermore, these men became so skilled in their work that it may be
said that the difficult art of gun making has become firmly established
in this country and that the United States may now and at any time in
the near future rely on this trained body of artisans for the finest
kind of gun-metal manufacture.
PRODUCTION OF CANNON FORGINGS.
_Production of cannon forgings during the war at the various
plants._
------------------+------------------+-----+-------------------------------
Caliber. | Contractor. |1917 | 1918
| +-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
| |Dec. |Jan.|Feb. |Mar.|Apr.|May.|June.
------------------+------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
75-mm. field gun, |Bethlehem Steel | 2| 1| 32| 14| 13| 3| 75
model 1916 |Co., Bethlehem, | | | | | | |
|Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Forgings | 1| 5| 11| 10| 19| 5| 67
|Co., Indiana | | | | | | |
|Harbor, Ind. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Buckeye Steel | | | | | | 154|
|Co., Columbus, | | | | | | |
|Ohio | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
75-mm. field gun, | do. | | | | | | 44| 162
model 1897 | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Forgings | | | | | | | 10
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
75-mm. field gun, |Bethlehem Steel | 1| 7| 30| 38| 47| 33| 62
model 1917 |Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
3-inch anti- | do. | | | 6| 7| 5| 4| 12
aircraft gun | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Heppenstall Forge | | | | | | |
|& Knife Co., | | | | | | |
|Pittsburgh, Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
4.7-inch gun |Bethlehem Steel | | | 9| 10| 8| 28|
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Heppenstall Forge | | | | | | |
|& Knife Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
155-mm. howitzer |Bethlehem Steel | | 10| 26| 51| 9| 37| 25
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Forgings | 2| 3| | 10| 20| 55| 44
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Steel Co.| | | | | 15| 54| 64
| | | | | | | |
155-mm. gun |Bethlehem Steel | | | | | 1| 9|
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Edgewater Steel | | | | | | |
|Co., Pittsburgh, | | | | | | |
|Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Steel | | | | | | 6| 4
|Car Co., Burnham, | | | | | | |
|Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Tacony | | | | | | |
|Ordnance Co., | | | | | | |
|Philadelphia, Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|American Bridge | | | | | | |
|Co., Gary, Ind. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
8-inch howitzer |Midvale Steel Co. | 1| 5| 11| 10| 19| 5| 67
| | | | | | | |
240-mm. howitzer |Bethlehem Steel | | | | | | |
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Edgewater Steel | | | | | | |
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Tacony Ordnance | | | | | | |
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Watertown Arsenal | | | | | | |
------------------+------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
Total | | 6| 26| 114| 174| 175| 440| 525
------------------+------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
------------------+--------------------------------------------------+-----
Caliber. | Contractor. | 1918 |Total.
| +-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
| |July.|Aug.|Sept.|Oct.|Nov.|Dec.|
------------------+------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
75-mm. field gun, |Bethlehem Steel | 23| 7| 1| 180| 1| | 352
moodel 1916 |Co., Bethlehem, | | | | | | |
|Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Forgings | 29| 2| | | | | 149
|Co., Indiana | | | | | | |
|Harbor, Ind. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Buckeye Steel | 10| | | | | | 164
|Co., Columbus, | | | | | | |
|Ohio | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
75-mm. field gun, | do. | 419| 325| 322| 658| 181| 224|2335
model 1897 | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Forgings | 32| 275| 310| 471| 245| 39|1382
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
75-mm. field gun, |Bethlehem Steel | 61| 69| 121| 76| 247| 47| 839
model 1917 |Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
3-inch anti- | do. | 10| 6| 46| 112| 109| 5| 322
aircraft gun | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Heppenstall Forge | | | 3| 51| 15| 13| 82
|& Knife Co., | | | | | | |
|Pittsburgh, Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
4.7-inch gun |Bethlehem Steel | 70| 94| 66| 14| | 43| 342
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Heppenstall Forge | | 6| 18| 21| 25| 10| 80
|& Knife Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
155-mm. howitzer |Bethlehem Steel | 5| | 11| 52| 19| 32| 277
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Forgings | 89| 74| 169| 127| 157| 10| 760
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Steel Co.| 82| 130| 93| 100| 100| 20| 658
| | | | | | | |
155-mm. gun |Bethlehem Steel | 21| 7| 5| 4| 1| | 48
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Edgewater Steel | | 4| 13| 21| 24| 5| 67
|Co., Pittsburgh, | | | | | | |
|Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Standard Steel | 21| 14| 23| 41| 21| 9| 139
|Car Co., Burnham, | | | | | | |
|Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Tacony | | 3| 15| 31| 26| | 75
|Ordnance Co., | | | | | | |
|Philadelphia, Pa. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|American Bridge | | | | 8| 7| 10| 25
|Co., Gary, Ind. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
8-inch howitzer |Midvale Steel Co. | 29| 2| | | | | 149
| | | | | | | |
240-mm. howitzer |Bethlehem Steel | | 30| 16| 16| 19| 16| 97
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Edgewater Steel | | | 1| | | 14| 15
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Tacony Ordnance | | | 4| 15| 3| 12| 34
|Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Watertown Arsenal | | | |[10]| | 7| 7
------------------+------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
Total | | 872|1074| 1259|2031|1214| 530|8440
------------------+------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----
[10] Figures in first table indicate delivery of completed sets of
forgings only. Deliveries of finished and accepted gun forgings, not in
complete sets, were made in carload lots and in other large quantities
by various factories prior to the dates when their receipt of machine
tools enabled them to produce completed sets. For instance, Watertown
Arsenal made its first carload shipment of forgings on Oct. 28, 1918.
CANNON MACHINING AND ASSEMBLING.
_Progress of the work of machining and assembling cannon at the
various factories during the war._
+------------+--------------+-----+-----------------------------------
| |1917 | 1918
| +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Caliber. | Contractor. |Dec. |Jan. |Feb. |Mar. |Apr. |May. |June.
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
75-mm. |Symington- | | | | | | |
field gun, |Anderson Co., | | | | | | |
model |Rochester, | | | | | | |
1916 |N. Y. | | | | | 1 | 51 | 81
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Wisconsin | | | | | | |
" |Gun Co., | | | | | | |
|Milwaukee, | | | | | | |
|Wis. | | | | | | 8 | 18
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Watervliet | | | | | | |
" |Arsenal, | | | | | | |
|Watervliet, | | | | | | |
|N. Y. | 4 | 38 | 18 | 14 | 26 | 35 | 8
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Bethlehem | | | | | | |
" |Steel Co. | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
75-mm. |Symington- | | | | | | |
field gun, |Anderson | | | | | | |
1897 |Co. | | | | | | |
model | | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Wisconsin | | | | | | |
" |Gun Co. | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
75-mm. |Bethlehem | | | | | | |
field gun, |Steel Co. | | | | | | |
model | | | | | | | |
1917 | | 1 | 7 | 30 | 38 | 47 | 33 | 62
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
3-inch |Chalkis | | | | | | |
antiaircraft |Manufacturing | | | | | | |
gun |Co., Detroit, | | | | | | |
|Mich. | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
3-inch |Watervliet | | | | | | |
antiaircraft |Arsenal | | | | | | |
gun, | | | | | | | |
15-pdr. | | 3 | 16 | 24 | 16 | 2 | | 11
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
4.7-inch, |Northwestern | | | | | | |
model |Ordnance Co., | | | | | | |
1906 |Madison, Wis. | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Watervliet | | | | | | |
" |Arsenal | | | | | | | 6
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
155-mm |American | | | | | | |
howitzer |Brake Shoe | | | | | | |
|& Foundry | | | | | | |
|Co., | | | | | | |
|Erie, Pa. | | | 3 | 10 | 16 | 28 | 75
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
155-mm. |Bullard | | | | | | |
gun |Engine | | | | | | |
|Works | | | | | | |
|Co., | | | | | | |
|Bridgeport, | | | | | | |
|Conn. | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Watervliet | | | | | | |
" |Arsenal | | | | | | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
8-inch |Midvale | | | | | | |
howitzer |Steel Co. | | | | 34 | 38 | 8 |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
240-mm. |Watervliet | | | | | | |
|Arsenal | | | 34 | 38 | 8 | |
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Total | | 8 | 61 | 75 | 112 | 130 | 163 | 261
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
+------------+--------------+-----------------------------------------
| | 1918
| +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Caliber. | Contractor. |July.| Aug.|Sept.| Oct.| Nov.| Dec.|Total.
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
75-mm. |Symington- | | | | | | |
field gun, |Anderson Co., | | | | | | |
model |Rochester, | | | | | | |
1916 |N. Y. | 61 | 88 | 48 | 74 | 12 | | 416
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Wisconsin | | | | | | |
" |Gun Co., | | | | | | |
|Milwaukee, | | | | | | |
|Wis. | 20 | 38 | 27 | 5 | | | 116
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Watervliet | | | | | | |
" |Arsenal, | | | | | | |
|Watervliet, | | | | | | |
|N. Y. | | 8 | | 5 | 5 | 5 | 166
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Bethlehem | | | | | | |
" |Steel Co. | | 1 | 1 | | | | 2
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
75-mm. |Symington- | | | | | | |
field gun, |Anderson | | | | | | |
1897 |Co. | | | | | | |
model | | | | 1 | 52 | 50 | 136 | 239
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Wisconsin | | | | | | |
" |Gun Co. | | | 1 | 2 | 6 | 26 | 35
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
75-mm. |Bethlehem | | | | | | |
field gun, |Steel Co. | | | | | | |
model | | | | | | | |
1917 | | 61 | 69 | 121 | 76 | 247 | 47 | 839
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
3-inch |Chalkis | | | | | | |
antiaircraft |Manufacturing | | | | | | |
gun |Co., Detroit, | | | | | | |
|Mich. | 1 | 7 | 19 | 48 | 29 | 30 | 134
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
3-inch |Watervliet | | | | | | |
antiaircraft |Arsenal | | | | | | |
gun, | | | | | | | |
15-pdr. | | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 96
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
4.7-inch, |Northwestern | | | | | | |
model |Ordnance Co., | | | | | | |
1906 |Madison, Wis. | | 5 | 7 | 31 | 23 | 32 | 98
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Watervliet | | | | | | |
" |Arsenal | 8 | 10 | 22 | 40 | 27 | 7 | 120
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
155-mm |American | | | | | | |
howitzer |Brake Shoe | | | | | | |
|& Foundry | | | | | | |
|Co., | | | | | | |
|Erie, Pa. | 110 | 248 | 206 | 350 | 231 | 179 |1,456
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
155-mm. |Bullard | | | | | | |
gun |Engine | | | | | | |
|Works | | | | | | |
|Co., | | | | | | |
|Bridgeport, | | | | | | |
|Conn. | 1 | | 14 | 28 | 18 | 36 | 97
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
|Watervliet | | | | | | |
" |Arsenal | 1 | | | 23 | 4 | 4 | 32
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
8-inch |Midvale | | | | | | |
howitzer |Steel Co. | | 28 | 22 | 33 | 14 | 14 | 191
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
240-mm. |Watervliet | | | | | | |
|Arsenal | | 1 | | | 1 | | 2
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Total | | 272 | 507 | 492 | 769 | 672 | 517 |4,039
+------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Chapter III
MOBILE FIELD ARTILLERY.
The chance observer might assume that once the Ordnance Department
had succeeded in putting in production the cannon of various sizes
described in the preceding chapter the battle of providing artillery
was as good as won. But such was not the case. Even after the ponderous
tubes had come finished from the elaborate processes of the steel
mills, the task of the ordnance officers had only just begun. Each one
of these guns had to be rendered mobile in the field and it had to be
equipped with a mechanism to take up the retrograde shock of firing
(the "kick") and to prevent the weapon from leaping out of aim at each
discharge.
Mobility to a gun is given by the carriage on which it rides. The
device which absorbs the recoil and restores the gun to position is
called the recuperator (in the case of the hydropneumatic French
design) or the recoil mechanism. Carriage and recuperator, or recoil
mechanism, together are known as the mount.
The forging, boring, reinforcing, machining, and finishing of the
gun body is not half the battle of manufacturing a modern military
weapon; it is scarcely one-third of it. No ordnance officer of 1917-18
will ever forget the heartbreaking experiences of manufacturing the
mounts, a work which went along simultaneously with the production of
the cannon themselves. The manufacture of carriages often presented
engineering and production problems of the most baffling sort. As
to the recuperators, a short analysis of the part they play in the
operation of a gun will indicate something of the nature of the project
of building them in quantities.
The old schoolbook axiom that action and reaction are equal has a
peculiar emphasis when applied to the firing of a modern piece of
high-power artillery. The force exerted to throw a heavy projectile 7
miles or more from the muzzle of a gun is equally exerted toward the
breach of the weapon in its recoil. Some of these forces handled safely
and easily by mechanical means are almost beyond the mind's grasp.
Not long ago a touring car, weighing 2 tons, traveled at the rate of
120 miles an hour along a Florida beach. Conceive of such a car going
337 miles an hour, which is much faster than any man ever traveled;
then conceive of a mechanism which would stop this car, going nearly
6 miles a minute, stop it in 45 inches of space and half a second
of time, without the slightest injury to the automobile. That is
precisely the equivalent of the feat performed by the recuperator of a
240-millimeter howitzer after a shot.
Conceive of a 150,000-pound locomotive traveling at 53.3 miles an hour.
The action of the 240-millimeter recuperator after a shot is equivalent
to stopping that locomotive in less than 4 feet in half a second
without damage.
The forging for the 155-millimeter howitzer's recuperator is a block
of steel weighing nearly 2 tons--in exact figures, 3,875 pounds. This
must be bored and machined out until it weighs, with the accessory
parts of the complete recuperator placed on the scales with it, only
870 pounds. It is scarcely fair to a modern hydropneumatic recuperator
to say that it must be finished with the precision of a watch. It must
be finished with a mechanical nicety comparable only to the finish of
such a delicate instrument as a navigator's sextant or the mechanism
which adjusts the Lick telescope to the movement of the earth. No heavy
articles ever before turned out in American workshops required in their
finish the degree of microscopic perfection the recuperators called for.
We adopted from the French, the greatest of all artillery builders,
four recuperators--one for the 75-millimeter gun, one for the
155-millimeter gun, another for the 155-millimeter howitzer, and the
fourth for the 240-millimeter howitzer. These mechanisms had never been
built before outside of France. Indeed, one could find pessimists ready
to say that none but French mechanics could build them at all and that
our attempt to duplicate them could end only in failure. Yet American
mechanical genius "licked" every one of these problems, as the men
in the greasy overalls say, and did it in little more than a year of
time after the plans came to the workshops. There was not one of these
beautiful mechanisms, in France the product of patient handiwork on the
part of metal craftsmen of deep and inherited skill, that eventually
did not become in American workshops a practical proposition of
quantity production.
The problem of building French recuperators in the United States, in
short, may be regarded as the crux of the whole American ordnance
undertaking in the war against Germany, the index of its success. It
presented the most formidable challenge of all to American industrial
skill. There were men whose opinion had to be considered and who were
convinced that it was impracticable to attempt to produce French
recuperators here. Although the superiority of these recoil devices
in their respective classes were universally conceded, Germany had
never been able to make them, while England, with the cooperation of
the French ordnance engineers freely offered, did not attempt them.
The French built them one by one, as certain custom-built and highly
expensive automobiles are produced. When American factories proposed to
produce French recuperators not only but to manufacture them by making
parts and assembling them according to the modern practice of quantity
production, the ranks of the skeptics increased.
Yet, as we have said, the thing was done. The first of these
recuperators ever produced outside of the French industry were produced
in America and manufactured by typically American quantity methods.
The first of these recuperators to come into quantity production was
that for the 155-millimeter howitzer. Rough forgings began to be turned
out in heavy quantities by the Mesta Machine Co. in the spring of 1918,
while the Watertown Arsenal, the other contractor, reached quantity
production in rough forgings in September, 1918. At their special
recuperator plant at Detroit the Dodge Bros. turned out the first
finished 155-millimeter howitzer recuperator in July, 1918, and went
into quantity production with them in September, producing 495 in the
month of November alone, and turning out up to the end of April, 1919,
the great number of 1,601 of them.
Next in order of time to be conquered as a factory problem was the
155-millimeter gun recuperator. The rough forgings at the Carnegie
Steel Co., the sole contractor, were in quantity production in the
spring of 1918. The first of these recuperators finished came from the
Dodge plant in October, 1918; and although 30 issued from the plant
and were accepted before the end of the year, quantity production may
be said to have started on January 1, 1919, when the factory began
producing them at the rate of more than four a day. In March the high
mark of 361 recuperators was reached, and the total production up to
the end of April was 880.
The heavy 240-millimeter howitzer recuperator was third to come into
quantity production. The rough forgings were being turned out in
quantity in the spring of 1918 by the Carnegie Steel Co., while the
Watertown Arsenal, the other contractor, produced a number of these
rough forgings in August, 1918. The two contractors for finishing and
turning out the complete recuperators were the Otis Elevator Co., at
its Chicago plant, and the Watertown Arsenal. The arsenal produced the
pilot recuperator in October, 1918. In January the Otis Elevator Co.
produced its first four, while quantity production began in February,
1919, both contractors that month sending out 19 recuperators, a number
which may be regarded as good quantity when the size of this mechanism
is taken into consideration. Both plants together in April turned out
the large number of 89 recuperators for the 240.
Last to come through to quantity production was the hardest of the four
to build, the one that promised to defy American industry to build it
at all--the 75-millimeter gun recuperator. The two contractors for the
rough forgings for this recuperator were the Carbon Steel Co. and the
Bucyrus Co. The Carbon Steel Co. was in large series production of them
in the spring of 1918, and the Bucyrus Co. reached the quantity basis
of manufacture in October, 1918. In that month alone both contractors
together turned out 1,305 sets of forgings.
The machining and finishing of the 75 recuperator was in the hands
of the Rock Island Arsenal and the Singer Manufacturing Co., which
built a costly plant especially for the purpose at Elizabethport,
N. J. The first recuperator of this size to appear and be accepted
under the severe tests came from the arsenal in October. Thereafter
the production ceased for a while. The contractors indeed built
recuperators in this period, but the recuperators could not pass the
tests. The machining and production of parts seemed to be as perfect as
human skill could accomplish, but still the devices would not function
perfectly. Adjustments, seemingly of the most microscopical and trivial
sort, had to be made--there was trouble with the leather of the valves
and with oil for the cylinders. These matters, which could scarcely
cause any delay at all in the production of less delicate machinery,
indicate the infinite care which had to be employed in the manufacture
of the recuperators. At length the producers smoothed out the obstacles
and learned all the secrets and necessary processes, and then the
75-millimeter recuperators began to come--2 in January, 1919, and then
13 in February, 20 in March, and 23 in April.
It should be remembered that by quantity production in this particular
is meant the production in quantity of recuperators of such perfect
quality as to pass the inspection of the Government and to be accepted
as part of our national ordnance equipment. In this inspection the
Government was assisted by French engineers sent from the great
artillery factories in France which had designed the recuperators and
which until the successful outcome of the American attempt were their
sole producers. Such inspection naturally required that the American
recuperators should be the equals of their French prototypes in every
respect.
Because the production of French recuperators stands at the summit of
American ordnance achievement, here at this point, before there is
given any account of the manufacture of field artillery, the theme
of this chapter, a performance table is inserted to show the records
written by the various concerns engaged in making these devices.
_American acceptances of recuperators by firms on Army ordnance
orders only._
=========================+=================================================
| 1918
+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
Item, process, and firm. | To |July.|August.|Septem-|Octo-|Novem-|Decem-
|July 1.| | | ber. | ber.| ber. | ber.
-------------------------+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
75-mm. gun recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Carbon Steel Co. | 259 | 259 | 254 | 750 |1,005| 300 | 552
| | | | | | |
Bucyrus Co. | | | 29 | 78 | 300| 173 | 111
+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
Total | 259 | 259 | 283 | 828 |1,305| 473 | 663
+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+======+======
Finish machining and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Singer Manufacturing | | | | | | |
Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Rock Island Arsenal | | | | | 1| |
+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
Total | | | | | 1| |
+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+======+======
155-mm. howitzer | | | | | | |
recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Mesta Machine Co. | 676 | 646 | 648 | 899 |1,080| 226 |
| | | | | | |
Watertown Arsenal | | | | 160 | 80| 80 |
+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
Total | 676 | 646 | 648 | 1,059 |1,160| 306 |
+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+======+======
Machining complete and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Dodge Bros. | | 1 | 27 | 249 | 285| 495 | 403
| | | | | | |
155-mm. gun recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Carnegie Steel Co. | 212 | 213 | 229 | 269 | 401| 389 | 21
| | | | | | |
Finish machining and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Dodge Bros. | | | | | 1| 10 | 19
+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+======+======
240-mm. howitzer | | | | | | |
recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Carnegie Steel Co. | 286 | 99 | 115 | 61 | 70| 79 |
| | | | | | |
Watertown Arsenal | | | 21 | | | |
+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
Total | 286 | 99 | 136 | 61 | 70| 79 |
+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+======+======
Finish machining and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Otis Elevator Co. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Watertown Arsenal | | | | | 1| |
+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+------+------
Total | | | | | 1| |
=========================+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+======+======
=========================+===========================+========+=====+========
| 1919 | Total, |Total| Total,
+------+------+------+------+Nov. 11,|1918.|Apr. 30,
Item, process, and firm. | Jan- |Febru-|March.|April.| 1918. | | 1919.
|uary. | ary. | | | | |
-------------------------+------+------+------+------+--------+-----+--------
75-mm. gun recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Carbon Steel Co. | 407 | 49 | | | 2,600 |3,379| 3,835
| | | | | | |
Bucyrus Co. | | 68 | | | 435 | 691| 759
+------+------+------+------+--------+-----+--------
Total | 407 | 117 | | | 3,035 |4,070| 4,594
+======+======+======+======+========+=====+========
Finish machining and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Singer Manufacturing | | | | | | |
Co. | | | 3 | 8 | | | 11
| | | | | | |
Rock Island Arsenal | 2 | 13 | 17 | 15 | 1 | 1| 48
+------+------+------+------+--------+-----+--------
Total | 2 | 13 | 20 | 23 | 1 | 1| 59
+======+======+======+======+========+=====+========
155-mm. howitzer | | | | | | |
recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Mesta Machine Co. | 49 | | 31 | | 4,000 |4,175| 4,255
| | | | | | |
Watertown Arsenal | 25 | 1 | | | 268 | 320| 346
+------+------+------+------+--------+-----+--------
Total | 74 | 1 | 31 | | 4,268 |4,495| 4,601
+======+======+======+======+========+=====+========
Machining complete and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Dodge Bros. | 141 | | | | 796 |1,460| 1,601
| | | | | | |
155-mm. gun recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Carnegie Steel Co. | | | | | 1,480 |1,734| 1,734
| | | | | | |
Finish machining and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Dodge Bros. | 116 | 270 | 361 | 103 | | 30| 880
+======+======+======+======+========+=====+========
240-mm. howitzer | | | | | | |
recuperator: | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Forging-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Carnegie Steel Co. | | | | | 678 | 710| 710
| | | | | | |
Watertown Arsenal | | | | | 21 | 21| 21
+------+------+------+------+--------+-----+--------
Total | | | | | 699 | 731| 731
+======+======+======+======+========+=====+========
Finish machining and | | | | | | |
assembling-- | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Otis Elevator Co. | 4 | 14 | 41 | 62 | | | 121
| | | | | | |
Watertown Arsenal | | 5 | 19 | 27 | 1 | 1| 52
+------+------+------+------+--------+-----+--------
Total | 4 | 19 | 60 | 89 | 1 | 1| 173
=========================+======+======+======+======+========+=====+========
The process of manufacture of recuperators requires four
steps--forging, rough machining, finish machining, and assembling. In
the case of 155-millimeter howitzer recuperators all the machining
was done by one firm; in the other cases rough machining was done by
various firms, including, in the case of the 155-millimeter gun and
240-millimeter howitzer recuperators, the firms doing the forging.
Complete records of rough machining are not available.
In discussing here, therefore, the production of field artillery in the
war period, we are concerned chiefly with carriages and recuperators,
for they offered the major difficulties. Since the production of gun
bodies for these various units has been taken up in the preceding
chapter, such reference to them as is necessary will be brief. For the
sake of additional clearness in the mind of the reader inexpert in
these things, the line should be sharply drawn between field artillery
and the so-called railway artillery, which was also mobile to a limited
degree. The mobile field artillery consisted of all rolling guns or
caterpillar guns up to and including the 240-millimeter howitzer in
size; and also included the antiaircraft guns of various sizes. All
mobile guns of larger caliber than the 240-millimeter howitzer were
mounted on railroad cars.
The list of the mobile field artillery weapons in manufacture here
during the war period was as follows:
The little 37-millimeter gun, the so-called infantry cannon, one of
which two husky men could lift from the ground--a French design;
The 75-millimeter guns--three types of them--the French 75, adopted
bodily by the United States; our own 3-inch gun redesigned to the
French caliber; and the British 3.3-inch gun, similarly redesigned;
The 4.7-inch gun of American design;
The 5-inch and 6-inch guns, taken from our coast defenses and naval
stores and placed on mobile mounts;
The 155-millimeter gun, a French weapon with a barrel diameter of
approximately 6 inches;
The 155-millimeter howitzer, also French;
The 8-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers, British designs, being manufactured
in the United States when war was declared;
The 240-millimeter howitzer, French and American; and, finally,
The antiaircraft guns.
In modern times, but prior to 1917, the United States had designed
types of field-artillery weapons and produced them in quantities shown
by the following tabulation:
Pieces.
2.95-inch mountain gun 113
3-inch gun 544
4.7-inch gun 60
5-inch gun 70
6-inch howitzer 40
7-inch howitzer 70
---
Total 897
A comparison of this list with the enumeration above of weapons
put in production during the war against Germany indicates that we
greatly expanded our artillery in types. That we were able to do this
at the outset and go ahead immediately with the production of many
weapons strange and unknown to our experience, without waiting to
develop models and types of our own, is due solely to the generosity
of the governments of France and Great Britain, with whom we became
associated. We manufactured in all eight new weapons, taking the
designs of three of them from the British and of five from the French.
It might seem to the uninitiated that the way of the United States to
a great output of artillery would be made smooth by the action of the
British and French Governments in agreeing to turn over to us without
reservation the blue prints and specifications that were the product of
years of development in their gun plants. Yet this was only relatively
true. In numerous instances we were not able to secure complete
drawings until months after we had entered the war, due to the practice
of continental manufacturers that intrusts numerous exact measurements
to the memories of the mechanics working in their shops. Consequently
it required several months to complete drawings, and when we received
them our troubles had only begun.
First there came the problem of translating the plans after we received
them. All French dimensions are according to the metric system. A
millimeter is one one-thousandth part of a meter, and a meter is 39.37
inches. An inch is approximately 0.0254 meter. Thus to translate French
plans into American factory practice involves hundreds of mathematical
computations, most of them carried out to decimals of four or five
places. Moreover, the French shop drawings are put down on an angle
of projection different from what is used in this country. This
fact involved the recasting of drawings even when the metric system
measurements were retained. When it is considered that such a mechanism
as the recuperator on the 155-millimeter gun involves the translation
of 416 drawings, the fact that the preparation of French plans for our
own use never took more than two months is remarkable, particularly so
since it was hard to find in the United States draftsmen and engineers
familiar with such translation work.
Once our specifications were worked out from the French plans, it then
became necessary to find American manufacturers willing to bid on the
contracts. The average manufacturer would look at these specifications,
realize what a highly specialized and involved sort of work would be
required in the production of the gun carriages or recoil mechanisms,
and shake his head. In numerous instances no such work had ever before
been attempted in the United States.
However, as the result of efforts on the part of the Government an
increased capacity for producing mobile field artillery was created as
follows:
At Watertown, N. Y., the New York Air Brake Co., as agent for the
United States, constructed a completely new factory to turn out 25 gun
carriages a month for the 75-millimeter guns, model 1916--the American
3-inch type modified to the French dimensions.
At Toledo, Ohio, increased facilities were put up at the plant of
the Willys-Overland Co. to manufacture a daily output of 17 French
75-millimeter gun carriages, model 1897.
At Elizabethport, N. J., the Singer Manufacturing Co. erected for
the Government a complete new factory for finishing daily 17 French
75-millimeter recuperators.
At New Britain, Conn., the plant of the New Britain Machine Co. was
adapted and increased facilities were created for the manufacture of
two 3-inch antiaircraft gun carriages a day.
At Detroit, Mich., Dodge Bros., as agents for the Government, erected
an entirely new factory, costing in the neighborhood of $11,000,000
to give the final machining to the rough-machine forgings for five
recuperators daily for the 155-millimeter gun and to machine completely
the parts for twelve recuperators daily for the 155-millimeter
howitzer. Their huge new plant for this purpose established a record
for rapidity of construction in one of the most severe winters of
recent history.
At the plant of the Studebaker Corporation at Detroit, facilities were
extended for turning out three carriages a day for the 4.7-inch guns.
At Plainfield, N. J., extended facilities were created at the factory
of the Walter Scott Co. for manufacturing 20 carriages a month for the
4.7-inch guns.
At Worcester, Mass., at the plant of the Osgood Bradley Car Co.
increased facilities were built for the daily manufacture of five
carriages for the 155-millimeter howitzers.
At Hamilton, Ohio, at the works of the American Rolling Mill Co.,
extensions were made to provide for the manufacture each day of three
carriages for the 155-millimeter howitzers.
The plant of the Mesta Machine Co., at West Homestead, Pa., near
Pittsburgh, was extended to the enormous capacity of turning out the
forgings for 40 recuperators a day for the 155-millimeter howitzers.
Extensively increased facilities were made at the shops of the Standard
Steel Car Co., at Hammond, Ind., for the daily output of two carriages
for the 240-millimeter howitzers.
Increased facilities were created in the plant of the Otis Elevator
Co., Chicago, Ill., for the finish machining of the equivalent in parts
of two and one-half recuperators a day for the 240-millimeter howitzers.
Large extensions were made to the plant of the Morgan Engineering Co.,
Alliance, Ohio, for the manufacture monthly of 20 improvised mounts for
the 6-inch guns taken from the seacoast fortifications.
The facilities of the United States arsenals at Watertown, Mass., and
at Rock Island, Ill., for the manufacture of field-gun carriages and
recuperators were greatly increased.
This carriage construction for the big guns required the closest kind
of fine machine work and fittings where the brake or recuperator
construction entered the problem, and the great plants built for this
purpose of turning out carriages and recuperators were marvels for the
rapidity of their construction, the speed with which they were equipped
with new and intricate tools, and the quality of their output.
Every mobile gun mount must be equipped with a shield of armor plate.
The size of the artillery project may be read in the fact that our
initial requirement for armor for the guns ran to a total of 15,000
tons to be produced as soon as it could be done. Now, we had no real
source for getting armor in such large quantities, because the previous
demands of our artillery construction had never called for it. The
prewar manufacturers of artillery armor were three in number--the
Simmons Manufacturing Co., of St. Louis; Thomas Disston & Sons, of
Philadelphia; and the Crucible Steel Co. To meet the new demand two
armor sources were developed--the Mosler Safe Co. plant of the Standard
Ordnance Co. and the Universal Rolling Mill Co. The process of building
this armor had been a closely guarded secret in the past, a fact
entailing extended experiments in the new plants before satisfactory
material could be obtained.
The new artillery program required the manufacture of 120,000 wheels
of various types and sizes for the mobile carriages. The Rock Island
Arsenal and two commercial concerns prior to the war had been building
artillery wheels in limited quantities. One completely new plant had
to be erected for the manufacture of wheels, while seven existing
factories were specially equipped for this work. We had to develop new
sources of supply of oak and hickory and to erect dry kilns especially
for the wheel project.
The largest order for rubber tires in the history of the American
rubber industry was placed as one relatively small phase of the
artillery program, the order amounting to $4,250,000. Rubber tires
on the wheels of all the heavier types of artillery carriages, so
that the units might be drawn at good speed by motor vehicles, was
essentially an American innovation. No tires of this size had ever been
manufactured in this country. Consequently it was necessary for the
firms who got the orders to build machinery especially designed for the
purpose.
With practically all of the manufacturers of the American metal-working
industries clamoring for machine tools, and with some branches of the
Government commandeering the machine-tool shops in whole sections of
the country, it is evident that the necessity for the heavier types
of machine tools required by the manufacturers of artillery material
offered a weighty problem at the outset. In fact, the machine-tool
supply was never adequate at any time, and the shortage of this
machinery hampered and impeded to a great degree the speed of our
artillery production.
The Nation was raked with a fine-toothed comb for shop equipment.
The Government went to almost any honorable length to procure this
indispensable tooling. For instance, when the Dodge plant at Detroit
was being equipped to manufacture the 155-millimeter recuperators, the
Government agents discovered trainloads of machinery consigned to the
Russian government and awaiting shipment. These tools were commandeered
on the docks. One huge metal planer had dropped overboard while it was
being lightered to the ocean tramp that was to carry it to a Russian
port. Government divers fixed grappling hooks to this machine, and it
was brought to the surface and shipped at once to the Dodge plant.
The 3-inch gun which we had been building for many years prior to the
war was a serviceable and efficient weapon; but still we were unable to
put it into production immediately as it was. Our earliest divisions
in France, under the international arrangement, were to be equipped
by the French with 75-millimeter guns; while we, on this side of the
water, reaching out for all designs of guns of proven worth, expected
to manufacture the 75's in large numbers in this country. The French 75
in its barrel diameter is a fraction of an inch smaller than our 3-inch
gun, the exact equivalent of 75 millimeters being 2.95275 inches. Thus,
if we built our own 3-inch gun (and the British 3.3-inch gun, as we
intended) and also went ahead with the 75-millimeter project on a great
scale, we should be confronted by the necessity of providing three
sorts of ammunition of almost the same size, with all the delays and
confusion which such a situation would imply. Consequently we decided
to redesign the American and British guns to make their bores uniformly
75 millimeters, thus simplifying the ammunition problem and making
available to us in case of shortage the supplies of shell of this size
in France.
With all of the above considerations in mind, it is evident now, and it
was then, that we could not hope to equip our Army with American-built
artillery as rapidly as that Army could be collected, trained, and sent
to France; and this was particularly true when in the spring of 1917
the Army policy was changed to give each 1,000,000 men almost twice
as many field guns as our program had required prior to that date.
Consequently, when on June 27, 1917, the Secretary of War directed the
Chief of Ordnance to provide the necessary artillery for the 2,000,000
men who were to be mobilized in 1917 and the first half of 1918, the
first thought of our officers was to find outside supplies of artillery
which we could obtain for an emergency that would not be relieved
until our new facilities had reached great production.
We found this source in France. The French had long been the leading
people in Europe in the production of artillery, and even the great
demands of the war had not succeeded in utilizing the full capacity
of their old and new plants. Two days later, on June 29, 1917, the
French high commissioner, by letter, offered us in behalf of France
a daily supply of five 75-millimeter guns and carriages, beginning
August 1, 1917. The French also offered at this time to furnish us with
155-millimeter howitzers; and on August 19, 1917, the French Government
informed Gen. Pershing that each month, beginning with September, he
could obtain twelve 155-millimeter Filloux guns and carriages from the
French factories.
Before the signing of the armistice 75-millimeter guns to the number
of 3,068 had been ordered from the French, and of this number 1,828
had been delivered. Of 155-millimeter howitzers, 1,361 had been
ordered from the French and 772 delivered before November 11, 1918.
Of 155-millimeter guns, 577 had been ordered from the French and 216
delivered previous to the granting of the armistice.
From British plants we ordered 212 Vickers-type 8-inch howitzers, and
123 had been delivered before the armistice had been signed; while of
9.2-inch howitzers, Vickers model, 40 of an order for 132 had been
completed. In addition to this, 302 British 6-inch howitzers were in
manufacture in England for delivery to us by April 1, 1919. These
figures, with the exception of those relating to the order for British
6-inch howitzers, do not include the arrangements being made by this
Government during the last few weeks of hostilities for additional
deliveries of foreign artillery.
As to our own manufacture of artillery, when we had conquered all
the difficulties--translated the drawings, built the new factories,
equipped them with machine tools and dies, gages, and other fixtures
needed by the metal workers, and had mobilized the skilled workers
themselves--we forged ahead at an impressive rate. When the armistice
was signed we were turning out 412 artillery units per month. Compare
this with Great Britain's 486 units per month in the fall of 1918 and
measure our progress, remembering that England had approximately three
years' head start. Compare it with the French monthly production of 659
units per month, and remember that France was the greatest artillery
builder in the world. When it came to the gun bodies themselves we
obtained a monthly output of 832, as against Great Britain's 802 and
France's 1,138. And our artillery capacity was then, in the autumn of
1918, only coming into production.
In the war period--April 6, 1917, to November 11, 1918--we produced
2,008 complete artillery units, as against 11,056 turned out by France
and 8,065 completed by Great Britain in the same period. In those 19
months we turned out 4,275 gun bodies, while in the same months France
produced 19,492 and Great Britain 11,852.
THE 37-MILLIMETER INFANTRY FIELD GUNS
The smallest weapon of all the field guns we built was the French
37-millimeter gun, the diameter of its bore being about 1½ inches
in our measurements, the figure being 1.45669 inches. This was the
so-called infantry field gun, to be dragged along by foot soldiers when
they are making an advance. Its chief use in the war was in breaking
up the German concrete pill boxes, machine gun nests, and other strong
points of enemy resistance. In service it was manned by infantrymen
instead of artillerists, a crew of eight men handling each weapon,
the squad leader being the gunner. One of the men of the crew was the
loader, and he was likewise able to fire the piece. The other six men
served as assistants.
The 37-millimeter outfit as it exists to-day consists of the gun,
with a split trail, mounted on axle and wheels. By means of a trailer
attachment on the ammunition cart it can be drawn by one horse or one
mule. The ammunition cart itself is merely a redesigned machine-gun
ammunition vehicle. The wheels and axle can easily be removed and left
a short distance in the rear of the place where it is desired to set up
the gun. The whole outfit weighs only 340 pounds and is about 6 feet
long.
The gun rests on its front leg which is dropped to form a tripod with
the two legs of the split trail. The gun proper can be removed from the
trail and the sponge staff can be inserted in the barrel through the
opened breech. Two men can bear this part of the weapon in advancing
action. Two other men are able to carry the trail, when its legs are
locked together, while the four other members of the squad bring along
the boxes of ammunition.
The ammunition cart holds 14 ammunition boxes, each containing
16 rounds. A spare-parts case, strapped to the trail, contains a
miscellaneous assortment of such parts as can readily be handled in the
field. A tool kit in a canvas roll is also transported on the cart,
along with entrenching tools and other accessories.
Equipped with a telescopic sight for direct fire and a quadrant, or
collimating sight, for indirect fire, great accuracy is obtained by
this small piece of artillery. The length of the barrel of the gun
proper is 20 calibers, which means that it is 20 times 37 millimeters
in length, or about 29 inches. The length of the recoil when the gun is
fired is 8 inches.
Two types of ammunition were provided for this gun at first; but,
as the low-explosive type was not so effective as desired, it was
abandoned entirely in favor of the high-explosive type contained in
a projectile weighing 1¼ pounds. This projectile is loaded with 240
grains of T. N. T. and detonated by a base percussion fuse. The range
of the gun is 3,500 meters, or considerably more than 2 miles. Only
three to six shots from this gun were found to be necessary to demolish
an enemy machine gun emplacement or other strongly held position.
In the great war the 37-millimeter gun found itself and proved its
usefulness. The original model had been designed at the Puteaux Arsenal
in France in 1885; but it was not until after 1914 that the weapon was
produced in quantities.
In this country we took up the production of 37-millimeter guns in
October, 1917. While our shops were tooling up for the effort, 620 of
these weapons were purchased from the French and turned over to the
American Expeditionary Forces. For the purposes of greater speed in
manufacture our executives took the gun apart and divided it into three
groups, known as the barrel group, the breech group, and the recoil
group. Additional to these, as a manufacturing proposition, were the
axle and wheels and the trail.
The barrel group went to the Poole Engineering & Machine Co., of
Baltimore, Md., who subcontracted for some of the parts to the Maryland
Pressed Steel Co., of Hagerstown, Md. The breech group was manufactured
by the Krasberg Manufacturing Co., of Chicago. The C. H. Cowdrey
Machine Works, of Fitchburg, Mass., turned out the recoil mechanisms.
The axles and wheels were built by the International Harvester Co.,
of Chicago. The trails were turned out by the Universal Stamping &
Manufacturing Co., also of Chicago.
When crated for overseas shipment, the gun, ammunition cart, and all
accessories, weighed 1,550 pounds and occupied about 15 cubic feet of
space.
The first delivery of completed 37-millimeter guns from our factories
was made in June, 1918, and at the cessation of hostilities
manufacturers were turning out the guns at the rate of 10 per day.
Between June and November 122 American-built 37-millimeter guns were
shipped abroad, and more were ready to be sent over when the armistice
was signed. The gun had been so successful in use abroad that our
original order of 1,200 had been increased to 3,217 before the signing
of the armistice, including the 620 purchased from the French.
The various groups of this gun were shipped to the plant of the
Maryland Pressed Steel Co., Hagerstown, Md., for assembly and were
there tested at a specially built proving ground, 8 miles from the
factory.
Three 37's were issued to each infantry regiment, making one for each
battalion. The required equipment for a division was, therefore, 12
weapons.
[Illustration: THE 37-MILLIMETER INFANTRY CANNON.]
[Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF 75-MILLIMETER FIELD GUN, MODEL 1918
(AMERICAN).]
_Figures on 37-millimeter gun production._
Guns procured from the French Government 620
Guns ordered manufactured in United States, October, 1917 1,200
Increase in order, September, 1918 1,397
Total number ordered in United States 2,597
Total number of guns completed prior to the signing of the armistice 884
Guns delivered for overseas shipment prior to the signing of the 300
armistice
Guns shipped to various camps in this country 26
Guns shipped to other points in this country 4
On hand at Hagerstown Arsenal, proof fired 425
Completed and ready for proof firing 129
THE 75-MILLIMETER GUNS.
Next in order in the upward scale of sizes we come to the 75-millimeter
gun, which was by far the most useful and most used piece of artillery
in the great war. In fact the American artillery program might be
divided in two classes, the 75's in one class, and all other sizes
in the other, since it may be said practically that for every gun of
another size produced we also turned out a 75. In number the 75's made
up almost half of our field artillery. The 75-millimeter gun threw
projectiles weighing between 12 and 16 pounds and it had an effective
range of over 5½ miles.
We approached the war production of this weapon with three types
available for us to produce--our own 3-inch gun; its British cousin
the 3.3-inch gun or 18-pounder; and the French 75-millimeter gun, with
its bore of 2.95275 inches. The decision to adopt the 75-millimeter
size and modify the other two guns to this dimension, giving us
interchangeability of ammunition with the French, was an historic
episode in the American ordnance development of 1917.
While in 1917 the French with their excess manufacturing capacity
began work on our first orders for 1,068 guns of this size to supply
our troops during the interim until American factories could come into
production, we were preparing our factories for the effort. Roughly
speaking the 75 consists of a cannon mounted on a two-wheeled support
for transportation purposes. This support also provides a means for
aiming by suitable elevating and traverse mechanisms. As previously
explained, a recoil mechanism is also provided to absorb the shock
of firing, allowing a certain retrograde movement of the cannon and
then returning it in position for the next shot--returning it "into
battery," as the artillerists say. By its recuperator device the field
gun of to-day is chiefly distinguished from its brother of the latter
part of the nineteenth century. Without a recuperator the gun would
leap out of aim at each shot and would have to be pointed anew; but one
with a recuperator needs to be pointed only at the beginning of the
action.
When we entered the war we found ourselves with an equipment of 544
field guns of the old 3-inch model of 1902. This gun had a carriage
provided with the old-style single trail. By 1913, however, we had
been experimenting with the split trail and it had been strongly
recommended by our ordnance experts; and in 1916 we had placed orders
for nearly 300 carriages of the split-trail type, which had come to be
known as Model 1916. Of these orders 96 carriages were to come from the
Bethlehem Steel Co., and the remainder from the Rock Island Arsenal.
Meanwhile for some time the Bethlehem Steel Co. had been engaged in
turning out carriages for the British 3.3-inch guns. Here was capacity
that might be utilized to the limit; and, accordingly, in May, 1917,
we ordered from the Bethlehem Co. 268 of the British carriages. At the
same time we ordered from the same company approximately 340 of our own
Model 1916 carriages at a cost of $3,319,800. A few weeks later the
decision had been made to make all our guns of this sort conform to the
French 75-millimeter size, and these British and American carriages
contracted for in May were ordered modified to take 75-millimeter
guns. The carriages needed little modification and the guns not much.
Subsequently, in rapid succession we placed orders with the Bethlehem
Steel Co., calling for the construction of an additional 1,130 of the
British carriages, all of them to be adapted to 75-millimeter guns.
Next it was the concern of the Ordnance Department to find other
facilities for manufacturing carriages for these weapons. The artillery
committee of the Council of National Defense located the New York Air
Brake Co. as a concern willing to undertake this work; and in June,
1917, this company signed a contract to produce 400 American model 1916
carriages at a cost of $3,250,000.
By December we had the drawings for the French carriages of this
size and made a contract with the Willys-Overland Motor Car Co. to
produce 2,927 of them. The table at the end of this section shows the
production attained at these various plants.
The manufacture of carriages for the 75's produced concrete results, as
our factories here were turning them out for us at the rate of 393 per
month when the fighting ceased, and our contract plants in France were
making 171 per month. In all we received from American factories 1,221
carriages. At the rate of increase we would have been building 800
carriages per month by February, 1919.
It may be said we were thoroughly impressed with the difficulties
attached to the transplanting to this country of the manufacture of
French 75-millimeter recuperators. It was a question whether this
device could possibly be built by any except the French mechanics
trained by long years in its production. At first it seemed that we
could secure no manufacturer at all who would be willing to assume
such a burden. Not until February, 1918, were complete drawings and
specifications of the recuperator received from France. At length
the Singer Manufacturing Co., builders of sewing machines, consented
to take up this new work, and on March 29 the company contracted to
produce 2,500 recoil systems for the 75-millimeter gun carriages. In
April, 1918, the Rock Island Arsenal was instructed to turn out 1,000
of these recuperators.
[Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF THE FRENCH 75-MILLIMETER GUN.
This type of gun has been used by the French Army since 1897,
and was the gun most used by the Allies in the Great War. This
gun throws a shell weighing 12.3 pounds a distance of 8,400
meters or shrapnel weighing 16 pounds a distance of 9,000
meters. The weight of the gun and carriage is 2,657 pounds. The
service muzzle velocity of the shell is 1,805 feet per second,
while for shrapnel it is 1,755 feet per second.]
[Illustration: THE 75-MILLIMETER FIELD GUN, MODEL 1917 (BRITISH).
This gun throws a shell weighing 12.3 pounds a distance of
8,300 meters, and 16 pounds of shrapnel a distance of 8,900
meters. The weight of the gun and carriage is 2,887 pounds.
Its muzzle velocity for shell is 1,750 feet a second and for
shrapnel 1,680 feet a second.]
The production of gun bodies for the 75-millimeter units was
quite satisfactory. The Bethlehem Co., the Wisconsin Gun Co., the
Symington-Anderson Co., and the Watervliet Arsenal were the contractors
who built the gun bodies. Gun bodies of three types, but all of the
same 75-millimeter bore, were ordered--the American type (the modified
3-inch gun), the British type (the modified 3.3-inch gun), and the
French type.
Our ordnance preparation would have given us enough 75's for the
projected army of 3,360,000 men on the front in the summer of 1919,
together with appropriate provision for training in the United States.
Of the 75's built in this country, 143 units were shipped to the
American Expeditionary Forces before the armistice went into effect.
Meanwhile the French had delivered to our troops 1,828 units of this
size. The total equipment of 75's for our Army in France from all
sources thus amounted to 1,971 guns with their complete accessories.
------------------------+------------------------+------+------+------+------
Unit. | Contractor. |Number|Number|Number|Number
| | or- | comp-|float-| com-
| |dered.| leted| ed |leted
| | | at |over- |up to
| | | sign-| seas |April
| | |ing of| to | 17,
| | | armi-| Nov. |1919.
| | |stice.| 11, |
| | | |1918. |
------------------------+------------------------+------+------+------+------
75-mm. gun carriage, |{Rock Island Arsenal | 472| 159| }| { 185
model 1916 |{Bethlehem Steel Co. | 455| 14| } 34| { 25
|{New York Air Brake Co. | 400| 33| }| { 97
| | | | |
75-mm. gun carriage |Willys-Overland Co. | 2,927| 291| | 1,299
(French) | | | | |
| | |
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