The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-18
Machine Guns and Small Arms Were Turned Out
 by the Millions
By AssooIated rress

Washington, May lL-Machine guns and
 small arms produced by the millions. am-
 intuition turned out by billions of rounds,
 and tanks built by thousands when the
 armistice> ended hostilities, furnish the
 subject of chapters made public today Of
 the war departments history of the ma
 terial' side of winning the war.
 The story of machine gun production, about which such a hot controversy
 waged in Congress as result of the failure of the American army to adopt for standard general use the Lewis weapon used successfully abroad is told as follows:
 The manufacturing facilities for ma chine guns in this country were much
 more limited in extent than the public
 had any notion of them twhen the United States entered the war; or today. We had at the outbreak of the war only two
 factories which were acrually producing
 machine guns in any quantity at all.
 Tt was therefore evident that we had
 to build up almost completely new ca-
 paeity for production. Nevertheless, we
 took advantage of whar facilities were at hand. and at once. in ract within a week after the declaration of war, were plac- ing orders for machine guns In this connection the reader should bear con- tinually in mind that throughout the de- velopment of machine gun manufacture
 we utilized all existing facilities to the limit in addition to building up new sources of supply.
 Tn other words, whenever concerns
 were engaged in the manufacture of ma chine guns, whatever Ineir make or type, we did not stop the production Of mak- ing other weapons; but we had them con- tinue the manufacture In which they
 were engaged giving mem orders which would enable them to expand their fa- Ytx,Aa r<f tion."
 The statement shows that the two Browning guns, the heavy and the light automatic rifle (of the type now in use by the troops in France) were pro- nounced by the special test board which held a conference in May, 1917, the most effective guns of the1r types known to the members in addition to being de- signed for the purpose of quantity pro duction At the same test improved lewis guns also proved highly efficient and were recommended by the board. Subsequently the Lewis guns were shift ed to aircraft work because of special adaptability and on recommendation CT General Pershings staff.
 The work of the light Brownings Is declared to have been spectacular as compared with any existing weapons of the character that when they were dem-
 
 American expeditionary force promptly decided to increase the equipment of in- fantry troops by 50 per cent, adding enor- mously to the production burden at home. The heavy Brownings functioned so well that an official repor< IS quoted of the work of r guns which were tested im- mediately after they had been engaged with the enemy in severe action and ! while they still were encrusted with rust n1 heariup rH Without being cleaned in any way each 1 gun fired belt of 250 cartridges without | a malfunction.
 1 The demand for light Brownings was I so heavy that when the armistice was signed the department was driving for ward production to the end that British. Bel Nan and French troops might be 1 equipped with this weapon, these three
 nations having asked ror supplies of this latest American addition to the fighting | equipment
 l Other production struggles described in l todays chapters incluce items varying in | size from trench knives to the Acton ! Mark VIII tanks of British design, of | which 1500 were being constructed in CO., | operation with the British, and 1450 ad- 1 ditional wholly by American enterprise Only one of these had been delivered up 1 to January 1, 1919 but it is noted that | the work on each programme or compo- nent parts was 50 per cent complete when the armistice was signed. Orders ! for all but 100 of these tanks have been cancelled
 | On November Il, GA tanks of the French i six-ton type had been delivered, and by | January 31 of this year 291. Of these, six were shipped abroad. Orders for 1000 l Mark I light tanks were cancelled, as l were orders for 15,ofe three-ton tanks. l l5 of which had been completed on Mo- veuher ii