Book III
America's Munitions 1917-1918
REPORT OF BENEDICT CROWELL
THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR DIRECTOR OF MUNITIONS
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.
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.
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.
* * * * *
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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 +------------+--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
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.
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.
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) | | | | | | | | | | 75-mm. gun carriage |Bethlehem Steel Co. | 2,868| 724| 124| 921 (British), complete | | | | | | | | | | 75-mm. gun carriage | do. | 968| 439| | 1,010 limber (British), | | | | | complete | | | | | | | | | | 75-mm. gun carriage |{ do. | 436| 436| | 441 limber, model 1918 |{American Car & Foundry | 3,661| 3,661| 980| 3,661 |Co. | | | | | | | | | 75-mm. gun caisson, |{Bethlehem Steel Co. | 1,666| 302| 4,957| 831 model 1918 |{American Car & Foundry |20,356|11,680| |18,301 |Co. | | | | | | | | | 75-mm. caisson limber, |{Bethlehem Steel Co. | 1,916| 1,210| | 1,916 model 1918 |{American Car & Foundry |20,675|15,526| 4,126|20,675 |Co. | | | | | | | | | |{Symington-Anderson Co. | 640| 416| }| { 416 75-mm. cannon, model |{Wisconsin Gun Co. | 160| 116| } 19| { 116 1916 |{Watervliet Arsenal | 264| 161| }| { 192 |{Bethlehem Steel Co. | 340| 2| }| { 2 | | | | | 75-mm. cannon (French) |{Symington-Anderson Co. | 4,300| 103| | 860 |{Wisconsin Gun Co. | 2,050| 9| | 190 | | | | | 75-mm. cannon (British) |Bethlehem Steel Co. | 2,868| 592| 124| 909 ------------------------+------------------------+------+------+------+------
4.7-INCH GUNS.
In the 4.7-inch field gun, model of 1906, America took to France a weapon all her own. It was a proven gun, too, developed under searching experiments and tests. There were 60 of these in actual service when we got into the war. The 4.7-inch guns, with their greater range and power, promised to be particularly useful for destroying the enemy's 77-millimeter guns.
The carriage model of 1906 for the 4.7-inch gun is of the long recoil type, the recoil being 70 inches in length. The recoil is checked by a hydraulic cylinder, and a system of springs thereupon returns the gun to the firing position. The gun's maximum elevation is 15 degrees, at which elevation, with a 60-pound projectile, the gun has a range of 7,260 meters, or 4½ miles. With a 45-pound projectile a range of 8,750 meters, or nearly 5½ miles, can be obtained at 15 degrees elevation. It is possible to increase this range to about 10,000 meters, or well over 6 miles, by depressing the trail into a hole prepared for it, a practice often adopted on the field to obtain greater range. The total weight of the gun carriage with its limber is about 9,800 pounds.
An order for 250 of the 4.7-inch carriages was placed with the Walter Scott Co., at Plainfield, N. J., July 12, 1917, upon the recommendation of committees of the Council of National Defense, who were assisting the Ordnance Department in the selection of industrial firms willing to accept artillery contracts. Of the 250 ordered from this concern, 49 were delivered up to the signing of the armistice.
The Rock Island Arsenal had also been employed previously in turning out 4.7-inch carriages; and the capacity of that plant, although small, was utilized. Under the date of July 23, 1917, the arsenal was instructed to deliver 183 carriages. Late in December, 1917, the Studebaker Corporation was given an order for 500. On September 30, 1918, Rock Island Arsenal was given an additional order for 120 carriages, while the Studebaker order was reduced to 380. Additional plant facilities had to be provided at both the Walter Scott Co. and the Studebaker Corporation.
Up to December 12, 1918, a total of 381 carriages of the 4.7-inch type had been completed and delivered. These carriages included the recoil mechanism. In the month of October, 1918, alone, 113 were produced, and this rate would have been continued had the armistice not been signed.
Cannon for the 4.7-inch units were turned out at the Watervliet Arsenal and the Northwestern Ordnance Co., Madison, Wis. Deliveries from the Watervliet Arsenal began in June, 1918, totaling 120 up to December, while the Northwestern Ordnance Co., starting its deliveries in August, had completed 98 by December.
Up to the 15th of November, 64 complete 4.7-inch units had been floated for our forces overseas.
Forgings for the 4.7-inch gun cannon were made by the Bethlehem Steel Co. and the Heppenstall Forge & Knife Co., of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Owing to the great difference in cross section between muzzle and breech end of the jacket, great difficulty was experienced in the heat treatment of these forgings, particularly on the part of manufacturers who had had no previous experience in the production of gun forgings.
In order to produce enough forgings to supply the finish-machining shops, an order for 50 jackets was later given to the Edgewater Steel Co., of Pittsburgh, Pa., where the jackets were forged. These were then sent to the Heppenstall Forge & Knife Co. for rough machining and finally returned to the Edgewater Steel Co. for heat treating. An order for 150 jackets was also given to the Tacony Ordnance Corporation.
Shortly before the signing of the armistice, the jacket was redesigned so that the heavy breech end was forged separately in the shape of a breech ring. This design, however, was not produced.
It was desired to develop a 4.7-inch gun carriage having the characteristics of the split-trail 75-millimeter gun carriage, model of 1916, so that greater elevation and wide traverse could be obtained. The Bethlehem Steel Co. was given a small order for 36 carriages of their own design prior to the war, and their pilot carriage had been undergoing tests at the proving ground. The design was, however, not sufficiently advanced to be used in the war.
-----------------------+-----------------------+--------+----------+--------- Unit. | Contractor. | Number | Number | Number | |ordered.|completed |completed | | | at the | up to | | |signing of|April 17, | | |armistice.| 1919. -----------------------+-----------------------+--------+----------+--------- 4.7-inch gun carriage, |{Rock Island Arsenal | 303| 183| 183 model of 1906 |{Studebaker Corporation| 380| 88| 175 |{Walter Scott Co. | 250| 49| 57 | | | | 4.7-inch gun-carriage |{American Car & | 433| 433| 433 limber |Foundry Co. | | | |{Maxwell Motor Co. | 479| 82| 250 | | | | 4.7-inch gun caisson |{American Car & | 1,848| 320| 848 |Foundry Co. | | | |{Ford Motor Co. | 1,001| 106| 400 | | | | 4.7-inch cannon |{Northwestern Gun Co. | | 56| |{Watervliet Arsenal | | 93| -----------------------+-----------------------+--------+----------+---------
Sixteen of these units, also 48 which were previously on hand, were floated for overseas up to November 11, 1918.
THE 5-INCH AND 6-INCH GUN MOUNTS.
In the war emergency America sought to put on the front every pound of artillery she could acquire from any source whatsoever. Accordingly, before any of the manufacturing projects were even started, the Ordnance Department conducted a preparedness inventory of the United States to see what guns already in existence we might find that could be improvised for use as mobile artillery in France. The search discovered a number of heavy cannon that could serve the purpose--part of them belonging to the Army, these being the guns at our seacoast fortifications; part belonging to the Navy, in its stores of supplies for battleships; and part of them being the property of a private dealer, Francis Bannerman & Son, of New York.
The guns for this improvised use were obtained as follows:
From the Coast Artillery, a branch of the Army, we obtained ninety-five 6-inch guns, 50 calibers in length, and twenty-eight 5-inch guns, 44.6 calibers; from the Navy stores came forty-six 6-inch guns, ranging from 30 to 50 calibers in length; from Francis Bannerman & Son, thirty 6-inch guns, 30 calibers long. This was a total of 199 weapons of great destructive power, awaiting only suitable mobile mounts to make them of valiant service on the western front. It was the task of the Ordnance Department to take these guns and as swiftly as possible mount them on field artillery carriages of an improvised type that could be most quickly built.
Minor changes had to be made on many of the guns obtained in this manner in order to adapt them for use on field artillery carriages. The various seacoast guns were retained as they were in length, because it was planned to return them eventually to the fortifications from which they had been taken. The Navy guns, all of the 6-inch size, were shipped to the Watervliet Arsenal to be cut down to a uniform length of 30 calibers.
The need for speed in manufacture demanded that the carriages for these guns should be of the simplest design consistent with the ruggedness required for field operations and the accuracy necessary for effectiveness. When tests of the first carriages produced were made it was found that requirements had been more than met.
Orders were placed on September 24, 1917, with the Morgan Engineering Co., of Alliance, Ohio, for 70 mounts for the 6-inch units. A few days later this number was increased to 74, while on the 28th of September, 1917, the same company was given an order for 18 additional 6-inch gun mounts and 28 mounts for the 5-inch guns. Orders for limbers were placed with the same company on December 1.
It was soon discovered that big transport wagons would be required to carry the long 6-inch seacoast guns separately because of their great weight. On February 15, 1918, the Morgan Engineering Co. was ordered to build these necessary transport wagons.
Difficulties in securing skilled labor, necessary materials, and tools delayed production of these mounts, but the eighteen 6-inch gun mounts ordered September 28, 1917, were completed in March, 1918, while the twenty-eight 5-inch gun mounts ordered on the same date were finished in April. In August, 1918, the seventy-four 6-inch gun mounts were turned out. The production of an additional order for thirty-seven 6-inch gun mounts was just beginning when the armistice was signed.
The 6-inch gun carriage, bearing the gun, weighs about 41,000 pounds. A maximum range of over 10 miles can be obtained by this weapon. The complete 5-inch gun unit weighs about 23,500 pounds and has a maximum range of more than 9 miles. In understanding the difficulties that faced the Ordnance Department in building carriages for these guns, it should be recalled that these big weapons were originally built for fixed-emplacement duty and were therefore much heavier than mobile types. This fact complicated the problem of designing the wheeled mounts. They proved to be more difficult to maneuver than the lighter types of guns.
--------+---------+----------+------------+------------ | | | Number | Number | | Number | completed | floated for Model. | Size. | ordered. | prior to | overseas. | | | Nov. 11. | --------+---------+----------+------------+------------ 1897 | 5-inch | 28 | 28 | 26 1917 | 6-inch | 74 | 74 | 68 1917-A | 6-inch | 18 | 18 | 4 1917-B | 6-inch | 37 | 1 | --------+---------+----------+------------+------------
155-MILLIMETER HOWITZERS.
It is a testimonial to the adaptability and skill of American industry that we were able to duplicate successfully in this country the celebrated 155-millimeter howitzer, before 1917 built only in the factory of its original designer, the great firm of Schneider et Cie., in France. This powerful weapon is a fine example of the French gun builders' art, in a country where the art of gun-making has been carried to a perfection unknown anywhere else.
The 155-millimeter howitzer's history dates back to the nineteenth century. In its development the French designers had so strengthened its structure, increased its range, and improved its general serviceability, that in 1914 it was ready to take its place as one of the two most-used and best-known weapons of the allies, the other being the 75-millimeter field gun.
As thus perfected the howitzer weighs less than 4 tons and is extremely mobile for a weapon of its size. It can hurl a 95-pound projectile well over 7 miles and fire several times a minute. The rapidity of fire is made possible by a hydropneumatic recoil system that supports the short barrel of the gun and stores up the energy of the recoil by the compression of air. With the gun pointing upward at an angle of 45 degrees, the recoil mechanism will restore it into battery in less than 13 seconds. The carriage of the gun is extremely light, being built of pressed steel parts that incorporate many ingenious features of design to reduce the weight. The shell and the propelling charge of powder are loaded separately.
The American-built 155-millimeter howitzer was practically identical with that built in France. Any of the important parts of the American weapon would interchange with those which had come from the Schneider factory. We equipped the wheels of our field carriage, however, with rubber tires, and gave the gun a straight shield of armor plate instead of a curved shield.
In the spring of 1917 we bought the plans of the howitzer from Schneider et Cie. and began at once the work of translating the specifications into American measurements. This work monopolized the efforts of an expert staff until October 8, 1917.
In order to facilitate the reproduction here, we divided the weapon, as a manufacturing proposition, into three groups--the cannon itself, the carriage, and the recuperator or recoil system--and placed each group in the hands of separate contractors. There was, of course, the usual difficulty in finding manufacturers willing to undertake production of such an intricate device and who also possessed machine shops that had the equipment and talent required for such work, and in procuring for these shops the highly specialized machinery that would be necessary.
The American Brake Shoe & Foundry Co., of Erie, Pa., whose magnificent work in building a special plant has been described in the preceding chapter, took an order in August, 1917, for 3,000 howitzer cannon and by October, 1918, was producing 12 of them every day. The company turned out its first cannon in February, 1918, approximately six months after receiving the contract, having in the interim built and equipped a most elaborate plant. It is doubtful if the annals of industry in any country can produce a feat to match this.
In fact, the production of cannon by the Erie concern so outstripped the manufacture of carriages and other important parts for the howitzer that it was possible by September, 1918, for us to sell 550 howitzer bodies to the French Government. When the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, the company had completed 1,172 cannon.
In November, 1917, we placed orders for 2,469 carriages for this weapon, splitting the order between the Osgood-Bradley Car Co., of Worcester, Mass., and the Mosler Safe Co., of Hamilton, Ohio. Then followed a long battle to secure the tools and equipment, the skilled mechanical labor, and the necessary quantities of the best grades of steel and bronze, an effort in which the contracting companies were at all times aided by the engineers of the Ordnance Department. All obstacles were overcome and the first carriages were ready for testing in June, 1918. When the armistice was signed 154 carriages had been delivered, and production was moving so rapidly that one month later this number had been run up to 230.
The limbers were manufactured by the Maxwell Motor Car Co., which had orders to turn out 2,575 of them. The first deliveries of limbers came in September, 1918, and seven a day were being turned out in October, a total of 273 having been completed by the day of the armistice. A month later the number of completed limbers totaled 587.
It was in the making of the recuperator systems that the greatest problems were presented. No mechanism at all similar to this had ever been made in this country. No plant was in existence here capable of turning out such a highly complicated, precise, and delicate device.
Finally, after much Governmental search and long negotiation, the Dodge Bros., of Detroit, motor car builders, agreed to accept the responsibility. In this effort they built and equipped the splendid factory, costing $10,000,000, described elsewhere.
This howitzer recuperator is turned out from a solid forging, weighing 3,875 pounds, but the completed recuperator weighs only 870 pounds. Each cylinder must be bored, ground, and lapped to a degree of fineness and accuracy that requires the most painstaking care.
Difficulties of almost every sort were experienced with the forgings and other elements of the recuperators. The steel was analyzed and its metallurgical formulas were changed. The work of machining proceeded favorably until the very last operation--that of polishing the interior of the long bores to a mirrorlike glaze and still retaining the extreme accuracy necessary to prevent the leakage of oil past the pistons. Such precision had been theretofore unknown in American heavy manufacture. Until the many processes could be perfected, the deliveries were held back.
Even with the delivery of the first recuperator, difficulties did not vanish. This mechanism has no adjustments which can be made on the field, but depends for its wonderful operation upon the extreme nicety of the relation of its parts. It required the alteration of certain small parts before the first trial models could be made to function.
However, all obstacles and difficulties were finally overcome, and in the plant that had been erected during the bitter cold of one of our severest winters, and with practically entirely new machinery and workmen, production got under way, and the first recuperator was delivered early in July, 1918, nine months after the contract was signed. Production in quantity began to follow shortly after that month, and by November an average of 16 recuperators a day was being turned out. Of the 3,120 recuperators contracted for, 898 had been finished when the armistice was signed, and this quantity was increased to 1,238 one month later.
The steel required for the recuperators in these 155-millimeter howitzers, and also for those of the 155-millimeter guns, was of special composition; yet all the forge capacity in this country was being utilized in other war manufacture. New facilities for the manufacture of these forgings had to be developed by increasing the capacity of the Mesta Machine Co. of Pittsburgh, until it could meet our requirements. The Government itself contracted for these forgings and supplied them to Dodge Bros.
Each howitzer required some 200 items of miscellaneous equipment, such as air and liquid pumps and other tools. These were purchased from many sources, and many of these contractors had just as much difficulty with the small parts as the larger firms had with the more important sections of the howitzers.
Many of the problems involved in turning out the complete unit could not be known or understood until they were met with in actual manufacture. Mechanical experts representing Schneider et Cie. were on hand at all times to help solve difficulties as they arose.
The Government turned to France for an auxiliary supply of carriages for the American-built howitzers, placing orders for 1,361 with French concerns. Of this number 772 had been completed when the armistice was signed, and the French expected soon to turn out the carriages at the rate of 140 per month. It might also be noted here that we placed an order in England for 302 British 6-inch howitzers, a piece very like the French howitzer. The British contract was to be completed April 1, 1919.
The various parts of the 155-millimeter howitzer were assembled into complete units and tested at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. After being assembled and tested, the whole unit was taken apart and packed into crates especially designed for overseas shipment. One crate held two howitzer carriages with recuperators in less space than would have been occupied by one carriage on its wheels.
It will be noted that the first gun body of the 155-millimeter howitzers made in this country was delivered in February and the first recuperator in July. Before the recuperators were ready, the other parts of the howitzer had been proof-tried by using a recuperator of French manufacture.
During the months of August and September, 1918, the first regiment equipped with 155-millimeter howitzers was made ready at Aberdeen. The big weapons were packed and on the dock for shipment overseas when the armistice was signed. These first ones were to be followed by a steady stream of howitzers. All arrangements had been made to assemble units and crate them for overseas at the Erie Proving Ground at Port Clinton, Ohio.
None of the 155-millimeter howitzers built here reached the American Expeditionary Forces, but French deliveries of the weapon up to the signing of the armistice totaled 747.
------------------------+------------------------+--------+---------+--------- Unit. | Contractor. | Number | Number | Number | |ordered.|completed|completed | | |Nov. 11, |Apr. 17, | | | 1918. | 1919. ------------------------+------------------------+--------+---------+--------- 155-mm. howitzer |Osgood Bradley Car Co. | 900| 136| 369 carriage | | | | | | | | 155-mm. carriage | do. | 49| | 0 replacement parts | | | | | | | | 155-mm. howitzer | do. | 250| | 93 carriage | | | | | | | | Do |American Rolling Mill | 1,270| 18| 26 |Co. (old Mosler Safe | | | |contract) | | | | | | | Do |Rock Island Arsenal | 172| | 0 | | | | 155-mm. howitzer | | | | carriage limbers |Maxwell Motor Co. | 2,575| 273| 700 | | | | Do |Rock Island Arsenal | 100| | 0 | | | | 155-mm. howitzer caisson|Ford Motor Co. | 8,937| 4,373| 8,937 | | | | 155-mm. howitzer cannon |American Brake Shoe & | | | |Foundry Co. | | 1,172| 1,789 ------------------------+------------------------+--------+---------+---------
THE 155-MILLIMETER G. P. F. GUNS.
The reproduction in the United States of the French 155-millimeter G. P. F. (the French designation) gun presents much the same story as that of the howitzer of equal size--a story of difficulties in translating plans, writing into them the precision of finishing measurements that the French factory usually leaves to the skill of the mechanic himself, difficulties in finding manufacturers willing to undertake the work, and then of providing them with suitable raw materials and machinery, and, above all, of locating the necessary skilled mechanics.
This strange, big monster of a weapon is of rugged design. The entire unit weighs 19,860 pounds. The gun has the extremely high muzzle velocity of 2,400 feet per second, a rate of propulsion that throws the 95-pound projectile 17,700 yards, or a little more than 10 miles.
The wheels of the carriage have a double tread of solid rubber tire. By an ingenious arrangement a caterpillar tread can be applied to the wheels in a few minutes whenever soft ground is encountered.
The center of gravity of the unit is low. The wheels are of small dimensions and the cradle is trunnioned behind in such a fashion as to reduce the height of the cannon. The carriage has a split trail, which allows for a large clearance for recoil at a high elevation and a large angle of traverse. The carriage when traveling is supported on semielliptical springs, as is also the carriage limber.
Two large steel castings make up the carriage of this unit. The bottom part of the carriage is supported by the axle, which carries the two sections of the split trail upon the hinge pins. The top part of the carriage is supported by and revolves upon the bottom carriage and carries in trunnioned bearings the recuperator. The principal difficulty in carriage manufacture was to obtain in this country the extremely large steel castings of light-section, high-grade steel.
The carriages, 1,388 in number, were ordered in November, 1917, from the Minneapolis Steel & Machinery Co. The first delivery of carriages was made in August, 1918, and in the last week of October they were being turned out at the rate of seven a day. Up to the armistice date 370 had been produced, of which 16 had been sent overseas.
We also placed orders in France for 577 of these carriages, of which 216 had been completed upon the signing of the armistice. The American monthly rate of production of carriages in October was 162.
The 155-millimeter gun itself is far from being simple to manufacture. It is of considerable length and is built of a number of jackets and hoops to give the required resistance to the heavy pressures exerted in firing, this being a high-velocity gun. Except for a slight change in the manner of locking the hoops to the jacket, our gun is identical with that of the French.
Orders for 2,160 cannon were given to the Watervliet Arsenal and the Bullard Engineering Works, at Bridgeport, Conn., in November, 1917. The Bullard Engineering Works had to construct new buildings and to purchase and install special equipment, and the Watervliet Arsenal had to extend its shops and also purchase and install much additional machinery--a job that took time at both places.
The first deliveries of cannon came from Watervliet Arsenal in July, 1918. During October 50 cannon were delivered, and it seemed certain that by early in 1919 the projected eight cannon per day would be the rate attained. We shipped 16 of the cannon overseas. By November 11 we had received 71 cannon, a number increased to 109 by December 12.
Limbers in the same quantity as carriages were ordered from the Minneapolis Steel & Machinery Co., which produced a limber to accompany each one of its delivered carriages. This limber has an extremely heavy axle, similar to the automobile front axle. Its size and weight caused difficulty in obtaining it as a drop forging.
To Dodge Bros. was assigned the task of producing the recuperators for this gun in their special plant. The 155-millimeter gun recuperators, however, were made secondary to the production of the recuperators for the 155-millimeter howitzers, which were the easier of the two sorts to build.
Forgings were available and work started on recuperators in April, 1918. No rapid completion of these intricate mechanisms was possible, however, as the first forgings encountered many delays in their machinings. In the cycle of operations, with everything speeded up to the limit, more than three months must elapse from the day the recuperator forging is received to the day when the completed mechanism can be turned over to the inspector as an assembled article.
It was in October, 1918, that the first 155-millimeter gun recuperator was delivered. The factory expected to reach a maximum capacity of 10 a day. The company built 12 more by December 1. After the armistice was signed the company's order was reduced to 880, which had all been completed by May 1, 1919.
In order to have recuperators available for use for the units shipped from the United States minus these mechanisms, 110 rough-machined recuperator forgings were shipped to France, where the work of machining and completing was done.
The translation of the French plans for this weapon furnished one of the most difficult pieces of work undertaken by the Ordnance Department. Without counting in the gun pieces, the carriage and limber is made up of 479 pieces, while the recoil mechanism itself has 372 pieces. A total of 150 mechanical tracings had to be made by our draftsmen for the carriage and test tools; 50 for the carriage limbers; 142 for the recoil mechanism; 74 for the tools and accessories; or a total of 416. It was extremely difficult to secure draftsmen who could do this work, and the translation, accomplished in a few weeks, is regarded as a remarkable achievement.
The cannon for this gun were tested at the Erie Proving Grounds and there packed for overseas shipment. We had many cannon and carriages awaiting shipment when the armistice was signed, the plan being to send them to France, where they would be equipped with recuperators.
--------------------+------------------+--------+---------+----------+-------- | | | Number | Number | Number Units. | Contractors. | Number |completed|completed |floated | |ordered.|Nov. 11, | Apr. 17, |Nov. 11, | | | 1918. | 1919. | 1918. --------------------+------------------+--------+---------+----------+-------- 155-mm. gun carriage|Minneapolis Steel | 1,446 | 370 | 800 | 16 model 1918 | & Machinery Co. | | | | (Filloux) | | | | | | | | | | 155-mm. gun carriage| do. | 1,446 | 370 | 800 | 16 limber, model 1918| | | | | (Filloux) | | | | | | | | | | 155-mm. gun cannon |Bullard Engine | 1,400 | 53 | 250 |} proper | Works | | | |} 16 Do |Watervliet Arsenal| 760 | 18 | 68 |} --------------------+------------------+--------+---------+----------+--------
8-INCH HOWITZERS
In the early days of the war the British designed an 8-inch field howitzer that proved itself on battle fields in France. Great Britain loaded her own plants with orders for this weapon and then turned to the United States for additional facilities. The Midvale Steel & Ordnance Co. at Nicetown, Pa., was manufacturing this unit for the British at the time we entered the war.
On April 14, 1917, exactly eight days after we had formally announced our purpose of warring with Germany, an order for 80 of these 8-inch howitzers was placed with the Midvale Steel Co. It was understood that production on our order was to be begun upon the completion of the British contract on which the Midvale Co. was then engaged. The order included the complete units, with carriages, limbers, tools, and accessories, all to be built in accordance with British specifications.
Contracts for the trails were sublet by the Midvale Co. to the Cambria Steel Co; for the wheels, to the American Road & Machinery Co.; for the limbers and firing platforms, to the J. G. Brill Co.; and for the open sights, to the British-American Manufacturing Co. Panoramic sights for these guns were furnished by the Frankford Arsenal.
So satisfactory did the production proceed that on December 13, 1917, the first of the 8-inch howitzers was proof-tried with good results. Early in January, 1918, the complete units began to come through at the rate of three a week, increasing to four a week in April and to six a week in May.
A subsequent contract with Midvale brought the total number of howitzers ordered from that plant up to 195. These weapons, all of the model known as the Mark VI, were all produced and accepted before the signing of the armistice, 96 of them being shipped overseas, with their full complement of accessories. Each completed unit cost in the neighborhood of $55,000. These weapons throw a 200-pound projectile 11,750 yards.
The progress of the war moved so swiftly, however, that there soon was need for artillery units of this same size but with longer range. Accordingly, a new design, known as the Mark VIII½, was brought out, having a range of over 13,000 yards. On October 2, 1918, we placed with the Midvale Co. an order for 100 of these 8-inch howitzers, specifying carriages of the new, heavier type.
When we entered the war the Bethlehem Steel Co., at Bethlehem, Pa., was producing for the British Government a howitzer with a bore of 9.2 inches. The Bethlehem Co. expected to complete these British contracts in July, 1917. The 9.2-inch howitzer was approximately the same size as the 240-millimeter howitzer which we were getting ready to put into production. However, in our desire to utilize every bit of the production facilities of the country, we ordered 100 of the 9.2-inch howitzer units from the Bethlehem Steel Co. and placed additional orders for 132 of these units in England. The British concerns delivered 40 howitzers before the armistice was signed.
-----------+------------+------------+--------+---------+--------+--------- | | | Number | Number | | Number Mark. | Size. |Contractor. |ordered.|completed| Number |completed | | | |Nov. 11, |floated.| to Apr. | | | | 1918. | |17, 1919. -----------+------------+------------+--------+---------+--------+--------- VI |8-inch |Midvale | 195 | 167 | 96 | 195 | howitzer | Steel Co. | | | | VIII½ | do. | do. | 100 | | | 34 Model 1917 |9.2-inch |Bethlehem | 100 | | | 1 | howitzer | Steel Co. | | | | -----------+------------+------------+--------+---------+--------+---------
THE 240-MILLIMETER HOWITZERS.
The scheme of production of the French 240-millimeter howitzers was entirely aimed at the year 1919; since even if American heavy manufacturing establishments had not been loaded with war orders, it would have been well-nigh impossible to turn out this mighty engine of destruction in quantities in any shorter period of time.
Although approximately the same size as the British 9.2-inch howitzer (the exact diameter of the bore of the 240 being 9.45 inches) and only a little larger than the 8-inch howitzer, the French gun was far more powerful than either. The 8-inch and the 9.2-inch howitzers had ranges in the neighborhood of 6 miles, while their shell weighed from 200 to 290 pounds. The 240, on the other hand, hurled a shell weighing 356 pounds and carrying a bursting charge of between 45 and 50 pounds of high explosive. Its range was almost 10 miles.
We produced the 8-inch and the 9.2-inch howitzers to fill the gap during the two years which must elapse before we could get into quantity production of the 240. The French and British governments in the fall of 1917 asserted their ability to equip our first 30 combat divisions in 1918 with heavy howitzers, so that if our production came along in the spring of 1919 it could meet the requirements of the war situation.
Consequently we planned to equip our first army of 30 divisions with 8-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers in equal numbers of each. Our second army of 30 divisions should be wholly equipped with 240-millimeter howitzers; and our expected production of these, being beyond our own contemplated needs, would serve to replace such 8-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers as had been lost in the meantime.
As we adapted it from the French Schneider model, the 240-millimeter howitzer consisted of four main parts--the howitzer barrel, the top carriage, the cradle with recoil and mechanism, and the firing platform. Each of these four parts had its own transportation wagon and limber drawn by a 10-ton tractor. The weapon was set up with the aid of an erecting frame and a small hand crane.
Each of the main sections is composed of numerous smaller assembled parts made up of various grades of iron and steel and raw materials, all requiring the greatest precision in their manufacture and all having to pass rigid and exacting tests for strength and dimensions.
The production of even one of these enormous weapons would have been a hard job for any American industrial plant, but to manufacture over 1,200 of them, and that within the comparatively limited time allowed and under the abnormal industrial and transportation conditions then prevailing, was a task of tremendous difficulty and complexity.
On September 1, 1917, an order was placed with the Watertown Arsenal for 250 carriages for the American 240's, to be turned out complete with the recoil mechanism, transportation vehicles, tools, and accessories. To show the size of the job, an allotment of $17,450,000 was set aside to cover the estimated expenses at the arsenal.
Well equipped as the Watertown Arsenal was said to be at the time for the production of heavy gun carriages, it was found necessary, in order to handle this job, to construct a new erecting shop that had a capacity practically as large as all the other buildings of the plant put together. The number of employees at the arsenal was increased from 1,200 to more than 3,000.
The greatest difficulty experienced was in obtaining the large number of heavy machine tools required, and experts were sent out to scour the country in an effort to locate these tools wherever they might be available. Raw materials could not be procured in sufficient quantities, while numerous transportation delays impeded the work.
Finally, in October, 1918, the pilot carriage was completed and sufficient progress had been made on the entire contract to assure production of the required number of units in the early part of 1919.
A second carriage contract (Nov. 16, 1917) went to the Standard Steel Car Co., of Hammond, Ind. This called for the delivery of 964 carriages complete with transportation vehicles, limbers, tools, etc., but not with recuperators. These the Otis Elevator Co., of New York, undertook to deliver.
The Standard Steel Car Co. is one of the most important builders of railway cars, freight and passenger, in the country, and it possessed a large and well-equipped plant. Nevertheless, the company was compelled to construct several additional buildings and practically to double the capacity of its huge erecting shop in order to prepare adequately for the tremendous task undertaken.
As a means to save time, subcontracts were immediately placed with more than 100 firms throughout the East and Middle West for the production and machining of as many as possible of the component parts needed by the Standard Steel Car Co. Wherever practicable, the subcontractors working on similar contracts for the Watertown Arsenal were retained by the Indiana company, so that better prices might be obtained, parts standardized, and the whole production greatly facilitated.
Once the work was well under way the ramifications of this one contract, with its subcontracts for parts, materials, tools, building construction, etc., extended throughout practically the entire industrial facilities of the eastern and central sections of the country.
As in the case of the contract given the Watertown Arsenal, there were many difficulties in obtaining tools and raw materials. In a large majority of cases allocations, partly of iron and steel products, had to be obtained through the War Industries Board. When allocations had been granted, priority orders had to be secured, as the producers of these materials were already overworked with Government orders of varying importance.
With the pilot carriage complete in the early part of October, production on all the main parts had progressed by November to such an extent that a large output of finished carriages was assured for December and thereafter, had not the signing of the armistice intervened and ended the necessity for further expedition of the work.
Orders for howitzer bodies were placed as follows:
Sets. Bethlehem Steel Co., Nov. 21, 1917. 237 Edgewater Steel Co., Oct. 24, 1917. 175 Tacony Ordnance Corporation, Nov. 14, 1917. 175 Watertown Arsenal, Nov. 10, 1917. 80 American Bridge Co., Mar. 31, 1918. 800
The Watervliet Arsenal on November 20, 1917, was instructed to do the machining of forgings so as to turn out 250 gun bodies for the 240-millimeter howitzers, and three months later this order was doubled. On November 7, 1918, an additional 660 were ordered from Watervliet, making a grand total of 1,160 howitzer cannon of this caliber ordered machined and completed at the Watervliet Arsenal. The arsenal contracted to reach an output of 100 cannon a month and deliver the last of the 1,160 not later than September 30, 1919.
It was found necessary to erect an entirely new shop for the machining of these howitzers. This shop was completed in May, 1918. During the war period $13,164,706 was spent or allotted to the Watervliet Arsenal for increasing its facilities. Forgings were furnished to the arsenal by the Government, but the forging situation was never a delaying factor in the production of 240-millimeter howitzers.
In all, 158 sets, of 1,467 ordered, were delivered up to December 12, 1918. The pilot howitzer was delivered by the Watervliet Arsenal to the proving ground on August 24, 1918.
In the summer of 1918 the Watertown Arsenal contracted to build 252 additional recuperators for these howitzers. Work was started at once in the shops, and, though additional facilities had to be prepared and much new equipment added, the production of the first recuperator was begun without delay. It was found that the planing equipment at the arsenal was not sufficient to handle the work, and therefore a great deal of the rough planing was done by subcontractors.
The Watertown Arsenal was to furnish its own forgings, but it was quickly found that an additional source of supplies was required. The Carnegie Steel Co. had been given an order on December 27, 1917, for 1,300 recuperator forgings, and some of these were sent to the Watertown Arsenal.
The first recuperator was completed October 28, 1918, and 16 had been finished up to December 31, 1918, when 280 forgings were in the process of machining.
To handle its order for 1,039 recuperators, the Otis Elevator Co., of New York, found it necessary to rebuild a plant which it owned in Chicago. Forgings were furnished by the Government.
On May 1, 1918, the Otis Elevator Co. started its rough machining. Hard spots were found in the metal, causing great trouble at first, but this difficulty was overcome by changes in the heat treatment. The Carnegie Steel Co. was then instructed to rough-machine the forgings before sending them to the Otis Elevator Co. An order was also given to the Midvale Steel Co. to rough-machine 24 forgings. Early in November, 1918, the Otis Elevator Co. finished its first recuperator.
One 240-millimeter howitzer unit was completed at the time of the signing of the armistice, out of a total of 1,214 contracted for; but had war conditions continued, the expectation was for a monthly capacity of 80 units by 1919. Actual deliveries are given below:
--------------------+-------------------+--------+---------+--------- | | |Number |Number Units. | Contractors. |Number |completed|completed | |ordered.|Nov. 11, |Apr. 17, | | |1918. |1919. --------------------+-------------------+--------+---------+--------- 240-mm. unit, |} Watertown | 250 |{ [11]1 | [11]41 complete, except |} Arsenal | |{ [12]4 | [12]25 howitzer |} | | | 240-mm. howitzer | Standard | 964 | 5 | 67 carriage units, | Steel Car Co. | | | except recuperators | | | | Windlasses | Dodge | 1,125 | 33 | 350 | Manufacturing Co | | | Rammer trucks | do. | 1,205 | 2 | 375 Shot trucks | do. | 3,214 | 2 | 1,000 240-mm. howitzer | Watervliet | | 2 | 19 cannon | Arsenal | | | --------------------+-------------------+--------+---------+---------
[11] Carriage alone.
[12] Carriages with recuperators.
FIGHTING THE AIRPLANE WITH ARTILLERY.
The American development of antiaircraft artillery had, previously to 1917, been confined almost exclusively to the task of designing and constructing stationary units of defense for our coast fortifications. It was naturally expected that it would be at those points that we would first, if ever, have to meet an attack from the air. Very little attention had been paid mobile artillery of this sort.
Before April, 1916, the Ordnance Department had designed a high-powered 3-inch antiaircraft mount for the fixed emplacement at coast fortifications. The gun on this mount fired a 15-pound projectile with a muzzle velocity of 2,600 feet a second. It is still to-day the most powerful antiaircraft weapon of its caliber. Between May, 1916, and June 18, 1917, orders for 160 of these mounts were placed with the Watertown Arsenal and the Bethlehem Steel Co. Up to April 10, 1919, a total of 116 of these had been completed and sent for emplacement at the points selected.
By the end of 1916, however, it was foreseen that it would be necessary to provide antiaircraft artillery of a mobile type as part of the equipment for any field forces that might be sent abroad. Since that contingency seemed entirely possible at that time, and as it appeared to be impossible to provide a suitable design that would have a sufficient period of time in which to get proper consideration and test, it was decided to improvise a simple structural steel design that would permit quick construction and on which a 75-millimeter field gun, that was already in production, could be mounted.
This design was completed May 1, 1917, and an order for 50 placed with the Builders Iron Foundry. Deliveries on these were made during the fall of 1917, and the carriages were at once shipped to France for equipment with French field guns and recuperators that had been already procured for the purpose.
In its mobility the improvised antiaircraft gun mount was far from perfect. It was necessary to disassemble it partly and mount it on trailers. The need for a mount that could be moved easily and speedily had been realized before our entrance in the war, and a design embodying these qualities was completed as early as December, 1916.
This truck was designed to be equipped with the American 75-millimeter field gun, model of 1916. Before the drawings were completed an order for the pilot mounts of this type was placed with the Rock Island Arsenal. The war came on, and it was decided not to wait for a test of the mounts before starting general manufacture. Accordingly the New Britain Machine Co., in July, 1917, was given an order for 51 carriages. No further orders were placed for carriages of this sort, as it was not thought best to go too heavily into production of an untried mount.
It may be noted here that our first 26 antiaircraft guns were mounted on White 1½-ton trucks.
It was also realized that the field guns with which these mounts were to be equipped did not have the power and range that the war experience was showing to be necessary. The only reasons that the field guns of the 75-millimeter caliber were used in this way was because they were the guns most quickly available and because the French were already using them for this purpose.
To meet the need of more powerful antiaircraft weapons, a need becoming more pressing each day, a 3-inch high-powered antiaircraft gun was designed and mounted on a four-wheel trailer of the automobile type. This mount permitted elevations of the gun from 10 degrees to 85 degrees and also allowed for "all around" firing. An order for 612 of these carriages was given to the New Britain Machine Co. in July, 1917, shortly after the contract for the 51 truck mounts had been placed with that concern.
Because of the urgency of the situation it was necessary to construct these carriages without the preliminary tests on a pilot carriage. This, of course, is a very undesirable practice, but under the existing conditions no other procedure would have been practicable. The French antiaircraft auto truck mount, which had the French 75-millimeter field gun with its recuperator placed upon a special antiaircraft mount, was not adopted at the time, because, in July, 1917, the whole question of the possibility of constructing French recuperators in this country was still entirely unsettled. It was imperative then that we develop our own designs.
All of the 51 truck mounts for the antiaircraft guns were delivered during the fall and early winter of 1918, and 22 of them were in France before December, 1918.
Delivery of the first carriage for the 3-inch high-powered gun mounted on the trailer carriage was made in August, 1917. It had been rushed ahead of general production in order to be given some sort of a test. No further deliveries were made, but manufacture reached a point where production in quantity could begin.
A representative of the Ordnance Department was sent to France and England in December, 1917, to gather all the information possible on antiaircraft artillery. As a result of his investigations it was determined that it would be best to procure the greater part of our fire-control equipment in France, since the instruments developed there were in some cases of a highly complicated nature and their manufacture entirely controlled by private parties. Orders were placed for enough of these instruments for the equipment of the first 125 batteries.
Meanwhile, fire-control instruments of various types were in the process of development in this country; but, as they were largely based upon theoretical construction derived from study of the French practices, it was deemed best not to manufacture any of these instruments in quantity, as better instruments of French design were available. Drawings of the French instruments were brought back by the Ordnance officer on his visit to France and were available in this country in the spring of 1918, when manufacture of some of them began in the United States.
At the signing of the armistice our forces in France were equipped almost wholly with antiaircraft artillery loaned to us and supplied by the French. This, of course, does not include the 101 improvised and truck mounts completed during 1917. Production here, however, had reached such a point that shipment of material would have begun in quantity in January, 1919.
The estimated requirements of antiaircraft artillery for 2,000,000 men in 48 divisions is only 120 guns. Other material, of course, would have been required previously for defense of depots, railheads, etc., dependent in a great measure upon the activities of German bombers. It is estimated that about 200 guns would have sufficed for this purpose.
To summarize, 50 of the so-called improvised 75-millimeter antiaircraft guns and mounts had been ordered and completed up to the time of the signing of the armistice; 51 of the 75-millimeter antiaircraft mounts, model of 1917, had been ordered and 46 completed; while 612 of the 3-inch antiaircraft trailer carriage mounts, model of 1917, had been ordered, of which 1 had been actually delivered at the signing of the armistice, the balance to come at the rate of 26 per month starting in December.
Artillery--Production of complete units, by months.
[Deliveries in the United States on U. S. Army orders only.]
-----------------------+-----+------------------------------ | To | 1918 |Jan.,+----+----+----+----+----+----- |1918.|Jan.|Feb.|Mar.|Apr.|May.|June. -----------------------+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----- 75-mm. gun, model 1897 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 75-mm. gun, model 1916 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 21 75-mm. gun, model 1917 | 1 | 11 | 36 | 28 | 58 | 22 | 61 75-mm. antiaircraft gun| 0 | 49 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 3-inch antiaircraft gun| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 4.7-inch gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 155-mm. howitzer | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 5-inch seacoast gun | 0 | 0 | 1 | 27 |[13]|[13]| [13] 6-inch seacoast gun | 0 | 0 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 45 | 23 155-mm. gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 8-inch howitzer | 7 | 12 | 17 | 20 | 22 | 2 | 0 9.2-inch howitzer[14] | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 240-mm. howitzer | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 8-inch seacoast gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 10-inch seacoast gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 12-inch gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 12-inch seacoast mortar| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 -----------------------+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----- Total | 8 | 72 | 68 | 89 |86 | 76 | 106 -----------------------+-----+----+----+----+----+----+-----
-----------------------+--------------------------------+----- | 1918 | +-----+----+-----+----+----+-----+Total. |July.|Aug.|Sept.|Oct.|Nov.| Dec.| -----------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+-----+----- 75-mm. gun, model 1897 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 75-mm. gun, model 1916 | 2 | 60 | 42 | 51 | 11 | 45 | 251 75-mm. gun, model 1917 | 61 | 55 | 130 |211 |110 | 55 | 839 75-mm. antiaircraft gun| 2 | 16 | 2 | 18 | 6 | 3 | 100 3-inch antiaircraft gun| 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 4.7-inch gun | 15 | 15 | 28 | 72 | 50 | 44 | 224 155-mm. howitzer | 1 | 8 | 39 | 63 | 65 | 100 | 276 5-inch seacoast gun | [13]|[13]| [13]|[13]|[13]| [13]| 28 6-inch seacoast gun | 4 | 1 | [13]|[13]|[13]| [13]| 92 155-mm. gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 16 8-inch howitzer | 0 | 23 | 27 | 33 | 13 | 15 | 191 9.2-inch howitzer[14] | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |[14]0 240-mm. howitzer | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 8-inch seacoast gun | 0 | 0 | 3 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 22 10-inch seacoast gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 12-inch gun | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 12-inch seacoast mortar| 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 2 | 13 -----------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+-----+----- Total | 85 |180 | 271 |464 |276 |277 |2,058 -----------------------+-----+----+-----+----+----+-----+-----
[13] Project complete.
[14] No deliveries made by Bethlehem Steel Co. on U.S. Army orders until after signing of the armistice because of priority given to British orders placed before the American declaration of war.
By "complete units" is meant gun body complete, carriage, and recoil mechanism or recuperator. Units are given as complete when their component parts were complete, although the actual assembly of these parts at a common point, testing, and final delivery usually required from two weeks' to two months' additional time.
The 5-inch, 6-inch, 10-inch, and 12-inch seacoast guns and the 12-inch seacoast mortars were taken from the fortifications and modified for use with mobile carriages, all above 6 inches for railway mounts.
The 75-millimeter gun, model 1897, was the approved model for active service in France. Model 1916 and model 1917 were used for training purposes both in the United States and in France.
_Production of mobile artillery (complete units), Apr. 1, 1917, to Nov. 11, 1918._
[Including all produced for France and Great Britain in United States.]
------------------------------------------+------------+--------- | Produced. | Shipped | |Overseas. ------------------------------------------+------------+--------- 75-mm. guns (or British 18-pounder) | 970 | 181 3-inch and 75-mm. antiaircraft guns | 97 | [15]26 4.5-inch howitzers | 97 | 97 4.7-inch guns | 157 | 64 155-mm. (5-inch and 6-inch seacoast guns) | 121 |[16]114 155-mm. howitzers | 144 | 0 7-inch guns on caterpillar mounts | [17]10 | 0 Railway artillery | 20 | 11 Heavy howitzers | [18]418 | 322 +------------+--------- Total | 2,034 | 815 ------------------------------------------+------------+---------
[15] Does not include 51 improvised mounts for which guns were furnished by French.
[16] Includes sixteen 155-mm. guns and carriages shipped without recuperators.
[17] Built for the Marine Corps.
[18] Includes sixteen 8-inch howitzers built for the Marine Corps.