Norwich bulletin., 1919-06-07
OUR BIG GUN PLANS AND PRODUCTION

this type in 1919. Over the same period the number of gun forgings produced totalled $40.
 The report points out that the gun program in reality depended up- on the ability to produce the recon ! mechanisms. This picture Of what such mechanisms are called upon to do is drawn
 Not long ago touring car, weighing two tons, travelled at rate of 120 miles an hour along a Florida beach. Conceive of such car going 337 miles an hour. which IS much faster than any man ever ,tfaV- eled; then conceive of mechanism which would stop this car, going nearly six miles a minute, stop it in 45 inches of space and half second of time, without the slightest injury to the automobile. That is precisely
 the equivalent of the feat performed 1 by a recuperator by a 240mm how i itzer after a shot,
 Summarizing the production of ! guns by the United States as com ! pared with France and Great Britain 1 the report says that between April, 1917, and November 1918, the 1 United States produced POS complete
 artillery units as against II e56 by i France and S.065 by Great Britain
 and during those 19 months turned out APIS gun bodies as against 19,- l 492 by France and II S52 by Great Britain.
 And our artillery capacity it
 adds, twas then. in the autumn of
 1918 only getting under way Big guns are dealt with separate ly. A survery of the country inn mediately after the war declaration
 located ASA weapons ranging from Finch to 14-inch calibre which 1 could be spared from coast defenses
 or by the navy to be placed on rail- way mounts for use in France. There
 was also available one giant 16-inch howitzer built by the army before 1917. From the seacoast defenses
 were taken 96 S-inch; 129 10-inch: 49 12-inch rifles and 150 12inch rnortars, while the navy supplied F finch rifles and 21 14-inch. and high power 12-inch rifles building commandeered. Practically all of for the Chilean government were
 these were intended for the railway mounts of various types and the great majority of them together with
 new guns of these sizes would have 1 reached France in time for the
 campaigns of 1919 and 1920 had the
 war continued.
 LII dll LHeTc were III process DTO-
 jects to support the American army
 with 300 of these tremendous guns
 all of which were well advanced
 when the fighting ended In addition
 to the navy's contribution of 14-inch
 rifles on railway mounts, three army
 S-inch units went overseas. By the
 end of 1918 "A units had been com
 pleted and the guns and mounts fully demonstrated. An interesting
 feature of the mount was that it haG
 trucks which would permit it to op- crate over either standard railroads
 or the narrow gauge lines at the front
 Railway mounts for 36 1o-incf
 rifles from the coast defenses also were ordered in cooperat ton with the
 French. machine work and assembly l. to be done in France. They were to be delivered at General Pershing's | request by March, 1919
 ) One of the projects embarked up
 on was the mounting of 40 of the 12-inch mortars for use in the 191! l | campaign. This proved to be tht l largest job of the whole artillery program and required the construc. , tion by the government of a wholly , new plant which was completed or June l, 1918. The first mount was ! nniSheQ Tn August Of that year anC passed all tests, and when the arm istice was signed the castings, forg ings and structural parts for Q
 mounts were on hand. In April O this year 45 complete units had beer delivered and the whole 91 gun! ; could have been mounted by June The department ordered 16 mount f for 14-inch rifles, deliveries to begil , [ in February, 1919. These were in, ad dition to the five guns of this sig manned in France bg the navy Th armistice served to cancel the con
 tract.
 The 16-inch howitzer largest O , the whole gun family, was success \ fully mounted upon a railway car riage and following it's passage o