The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1918-10-11
MAKING GUNS FOR
UNCLE SANS MEN
Day and Night Forces at Work
on Weapons for Fighters.
PRODUCTION IN YEARS TIME.
Plants for Manufacture of Ordnance
Rave Increased More Than 90 Per
Cent Since Beginning of
the War.

From the Committee on Public Informa-
ton, Washington, d. Co.
The foundries of 16 steel plants in
the United States are today doing
capacity business. Throughout the
night the work will go on with slight
interruption. The whistles that blow
to announce closing time to one army
of workers will be a summons to an
other shift to take it's turn. The blast
of chimneys will continue to roar, and
the glittering white-hot streams of
molten metal will flow into the moldS.
A year ago only two of these sixteen
foundries where cannon forgings are
now being made were in existence.
The foundries at Bethlehem and Mid
vale represented almost our entire re-
sources for the making of cannon
forgings. Today those two plants con-
stitute less than 10 per cent Of our
total facilities for making such prod
ucts.
In one year a new industry has been
created in this country. 1t is new not
only in the sense that the IA foundries
have been built, but that the processes
Of manufacture are new. Making
gun forgings is different from making
steel forgings for any other purpose.
The heated steel must be pressed and
not hammered. The methods of heat
treating the steel, of cooling it, and of
annealing the molten metal are all diff
ferent. Yet, within one year, this new
industry has been built up in this
country, and today it provides the
wherewithal for the carrying out of an
artillery program the like of which
has not been projected in any other
country.
Nor is that all. In more than score
of other factories gun carriages, recoil
mechanisms and other parts of artil-
lery are being made. For the making
of those parts, new industries have
likewise been created. AS an instance
new industry was established to
manufacture glass of quality avail
able for use in telescope sights on cam
non. Such glass had never been made
in the United States before.
Handicapped at Start.
When we entered the war we were
handicapped by lack of technical
knowledge. We had been a peaceful
people; we had not trained our scien-
fists and engineers in the art of mu-
nitions making. Therefore, we had
but one ordnance expert for every 200
in Germany. We went into this war
with an ordnance bureau consisting of
81 officers and 800 enlisted men. Not
all of those 81 officers were ordnance
experts. Some of them were only on
detail to the ordnance department.
In fact, not more than eight of them
were charged with the designing work
in the manufacture Of artillery. Be.
fore a year had elapsed, the ordnance
department had grown into an organi-
cation of 5000 officers, 10000 enlisted
men and 10000 civilian employees.
1t has undergone thorough reshap-
ing to adapt itself to the extraordinary
new conditions. The ordnance bu-
reau in the first part of the war did a
total business of $4,700O00,0O0. In
peace times it's average annual ex-
penditures were $14,000,0O0.
Large as these figures seem, astound-
ing as this rate of expansion must ap-
pear, they give only scant idea OF
the difficulties faced by the ordnance
department in its year Of preparatory
work. Ordnance is highly technical
subject. The few who knew it thor
oughly have had the double task OF
furnishing ideas and perfecting de-
signs and Of imparting their knOwl.
edge to others. They had to be work
ers and teachers in the same day
The old ordnance department of less
than 100 officers was split up into q
gun-carriage division, cannon divi.
sion, small-arms division, and so on
each division being charged with the
design and production of some part OF
ordnance material. Manufacture OF
ordnance material was carried on al
most entirely in government arsenalS
The problem of production was not
difficult. A few officers could follow O
gun through from the day that it was
first sketched out on paper until 1t was
turned over to a field artillery regi.
ment. But when the ordnance depart.
ment was called upon to put through a
program involving expenditures and
contracts totaling more than $4,000,
100000 in single year, the old way OF
doing business had to end and the old
form of organization had to be aban.
doned.
Organized the Forces.
To meet the new problem, most OF
the ordnance experts-the regular
army officers-were assembled in what
is known as the engineering bureau OF
the ordnance department, and to this
bureau was given the task of design
ing ordnance material. How much de
signing work there is to be done in
the ordnance department is suggested
by the fact that 10000 blue prints q
day are turned out in Washington
for the information of manufacturers
Of ordnance material.
The next big task of the ordnance
uepdTtIueul, dllSI rucSiSuiuS tHC mo
terial, was to place contracts and pur.
chase orders. 1t was extremely diff
cult to find plants where ordnance ma
terial could be made, and in a great
many cases it was necessary to have
factories built, or to have them equip
ped throughout with new machinery
and tools. Sometimes the ordnance de.
partment could not find anything more
to begin with than group of men who
knew manufacturing methods. II
would persuade them to undertake the
making of some part. would finance