Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1918-10-17
MAKING GUNS FOR
UNCLE SANS men
PRODUCTION IN YEARS TIME
Plants for Manufacture OF Ordnance
Have Increased More Than 80 Per
Cent Since Beginning Of
the War.

The foundries of 16 steel plants In
the United States are today doing
capacity business. Throughout the
night the work will so 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 its turn. The blast
pf 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 ut Bethlehem and Md
vale represented almost our entire re-
sources for the making Of cannon
f0rgings. Today those two plants con.
stitute less than 10 per cent of our
total facilities for making such prod.
ucts.
In n year q 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 r new. Making
gun forgings is different from making
steel f0rgings 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 a score
of other factories gun carriages, recoil
mecl.anisms and other parts Of artil-
lery are being made. For the making
of those parts, new industries have
likewise been created. AS an instance
q new industry was established to
manufacture glass of q quality avail
able for use In telescope sights on can
non. Such glass had never been made
In the United States before.
T'a'iVtSdPPeu DIT start,
When we entered the war we were
handicapped by Il lack Of technical
knowledge. We had been n peaceful
people; we had not trained our scien-
lists and engineers in the art Of mu-
nitions making. Therefore, we had
but enc ordnance expert for every 200
In Germany. We went into this war
with an ordnance bureau consisting of
81 officers and $40 enlisted men. Not
all of those % officers were ordnance
experts. Some of them We're 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 Il 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 a thorough reshap.
Ing to adapt itself to the extraordinary
new conditions. The ordnance bu.
teuu in the first part of the war did q
total business Of $4.70O,0O0,O 900. In
peace times its average annual ex.
pendltures were $l4,000,000.
Large as these figures seem, astound.
ing as this rate of expansion must ap
pear, they give only IL scant idea OF
the difficulties faced by the ordnance
department In Its year Of preparatory
work. Ordnance Is n highly technical
subject. The few who knew 1t 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 les.
than 100 officers was split up into {,
Gun.carriagc division, a cannon divi
sion, u smali-arms division. and so on
each division being charged with tn,
design md production OF some part Of
ordnance material. Manufacture o.
ordnance material was carried on al
most entirely in government ~arsenals
The problem OF production was no,
difficult. A few officers could follow Z,
gun through from the day that It wa.
first sketclied out On paper until 1t wa!
turned over to Il field artillery regi
ment. But when the ordnance DEPART
ment was called upon to put through ,
program involving expenditures ant
contracts totaling more than $500,
OW.OOO In Il single year. the old way @
doing business had to end and the OLE
form Of organization had to be ubun
dOned.
Organized the Forces.
10 meet the new problem. most O
She ordnance experts-the regula,
Army officers-werc assembled In WIN
. known % the engineering bureau O
the ordnance department, and to thi,
bureau was given the task OF design
Ing ordnance material. How much de
signing work there IL to be done II
ehs ordnance department Ia suggeste,
~ the fact that 10000 blue prints
DAY are turned out In washington
fns the information Of manufacturer
OF ordnance material.
The next big task Of the ordnane,
department. after designing the ma
serial. was to place contracts and pur
chase orders. II WINS extremely difi