Norwich bulletin., 1915-12-10
Stories of the War
Munition Plants at Sheffield.

An Associated Press representative has walked ten miles through the plants of Hadfield and Vickers on a tour arranged by the Minister of Mu- nitions. Sheffield is perhaps as much as any one place the British answer to the Krupp challenge.
 Sir Robert Hadfield, who conducted the party through his large shops, ex- plained that Herr Krupp von Bohlen was his guest five weeks before war was declared. Now the Hadfield plant is working day and night to counteract the Krupp influences.
 While engineers and metallurgists would find countless details to inter est them in such a visit. the news paperman merely graSps some notion of the intensity of output, the ceaseless pace, the driving power of this enor- nous establishment, all running with one aim. It is as if every blow of the machines. every turn of the shafts chimed in the chorus: Our aim is to kill Germans"
 At the Hadfield plant The Associ- ated Press man was permitted to re- peat the experiment conducted on the occasion of the Kings visit five weeks ago, the discharge of a 10cm shell at a Ain. plate at an angle of 50 de- grees. like the side of a ship. The Kings shot pierced the armor; the correspondents did not One of each
  there are acres and acres of shells completed and awaiting shipment. And new factories are in process of erection.
 Here at the Hadield plant, the home Of manganese steel and other note worthy inventions, all the ingenuity and capacity are harnessed to the intuition work and at the celebrated Vickers establishment it is nearly the same story.
 MT. Douglas Vickers conducted the party through the latter plant, long famous for its part in the Admiralty work. Everything is done here from receiving the pig to turning out the 15-in. guns like those of the Queen Elizabeth. You can devote hours to a tour though all the shops, viewing all the processes, or you can sit in the neat little theatre provided adjoin- ing the general offices and see on the cinematograph screen every. process pictured.
 In these Sheffield shops the manu- facture of munitions is not a new thing, as in many of the new muni- ton plans, and you can find many a wiseacre to remind you that there would have been no shortage Of shells if Sheffields advice had been taken. But the complaints are over now and everybody is driving, rushing, rushing at full energy to make up for lost time.
 It is not all impersonal either. For example, one engineer confided in the correspondent that ne was particular ly interested in studying the effect Of the German shell-fire on the Tiger. He had worked on her armor and they let him go to see the result. Tt was good armor; some armor as you say in the States" was his proud descrtp- ton of the result.
 Ruskin's observation about Sheffield. that it was a wretched picture. but in a lovely frame, did not hold good to- day; 1t was as clear and bracing amid the workshops as out on the surround ing moors. In no other of the muni- ton areas is there more activity. Shops are measured by acres, em- ployes estimated by thousands and output by millions. Essen is an swered by Sheffield, Krupp by Had field and Vickersi The intuition as- pect of the war takes on its grimmest aspect here.
 We make these shells at half the cost of the shells for the American navy" said one foreman before an acre or two of ftwelve-pounders.
 The war pressure must have in