Evening star., 1950-09-10
Similar Arms
Goal Of West
Many Problems
In Stondordizing
By Clarke Beech

Most of the military equipment
of the North Atlantic treaty
ma tions will be completely
standardized within a few years,
because more than half of what
they have will be either American
or American-type, made in Europe.
This estimate was given pri-
vately by a high-ranking officer
in the upper echelons of the mill
tary aid program.
Standardization is one of the
prime aims of the military leaders
who are trying to weld together
the North Atlantic nations into a
fighting force.
The final objective is to equip
all the Western Allies with the
same weapons and materiel, but
this is very long-range program
1t couldn't be done Immediately
without seriously curtailing arms
production while the nations con-
vert their plants. The most urgent
present objective is to produce as
fast as possible whatever arms the
various countries are prepared to
turn out.
Standardization involves other
vastly complex problems.
The Western nations must de-
eide which tanks. which rifles,
which artillery are best. Such tests
require years.
Then the internal economy Of
the nations must be considered
and the matter OF patents and
such problems as abandoning the
techniques, the machinery and
highly developed know-how OF
well-established manufacturers.
Agree on Gun Calibers
Imagine the problems that
would be involved If 1t should be
decided that the MI rife now
standard in the United States
forces were dropped in favor of a
European rifle. It took years to-
perfect the MI, and now It's
manufacture is a big industrial
enterprise.
Standardization of arms and
equipment even among the So
called unified armed forces Of the
United States is still far from
accomplished.
So far, the Western nations
have not agreed on any types
that is, adopting one nations
rife, tank or machine gun, as
standard for all. But many
agreements are being considered,
and officials expect some to be
announced shortly.
The main progress so far has
been in the field of specifications.
And these agreements are con-
sidered extremely important by
the military men.
The United States, Britain and
Canada have agreed on standard
screw threads. Since most NOV
able metal parts are put to-
gether by screws, this means that
billions of metal items can be
made interchangeable among the
three nations.
All of the North Atlantic treaty
nations have agreed to adopt the
same calibers for some of their
rifles and big guns. This means
that the standardized weapons
will have the same range and fire
power-a great advantage to
commander of Allied forces. It
also means that ammunition will
be interchangeable.
The Importance Of this sort Of
Standardization was explained re-
Gently to a House Appropriations
subcommittee by Maj. Gen. Ly-
man L. Lemnitzer, director Of the
Office Of Mutual Assistance. He
said:
"The problems of supply with a
wide variety of national weapons
and calibers raises insuperable
problems.
II was in Italy during the war
when we had 81 nationalities
fighting on the same front. The
problem was reduced to man
ageable proportions only because
all of those nationalities were gen.
orally equipped with but two types
Of equipment, British or American.
'The units were attached to the
British 9Th Army or the American
5th Army. depending upon the
type of equipment that they had"
The Western powers also have
agreed on standard communica-
ton procedures. Their dots,
dashes and messages over the air
and wires will be in a universal
language. like sos, the interna-
tional distress signal.
Their Weapons Good, Too
Some countries have made ad-
justments in their engines so that
they can use American types of
fuels and lubricants.
It is hoped that the next step
will be standardization of radio
tubes and telephone batteries.