were consolidated by the President, under authority conferred upon him by the Overman Act, and became the Chemical Warfare Service of the army. Additional projects were developed to keep pace with experience in Europe, the programme of American production rising from 545 tons per week (March 1918) to 4,525 tons per week (Aug. 1918). German production of mustard gas, at the date of the Armistice, was believed to be not over 50 tons per week.
The manufacture of gas progressed so rapidly as to get far ahead of the manufacture of empty shells; and these were far ahead of the boosters needed to explode them and scatter the charge. Toxic materials, to the amount of 4,278 tons, were shipped in bulk to Europe to be there loaded into shells, and provided the full equiva- lent of the gas used in all the gas shells fired by the A.E.F. No American gas was fired in American shells.
GAS MANUFACTURE AND SHIPMENT
1918
Toxic materials produced (in tons)
Grenades, shell, etc., filled
Toxic materials shipped overseas (in tons)
Shell, etc., shipped overseas
Jan.
10
Feb. .
61
.
.
March
211
April .
399
.
May .
697
June .
993
July .
i,35i
73,201
Aug. .
1,548
354.962
Sept. .
1,911
374,968
Oct. .
2,726
459,895
Nov. .
910
151,043
Total
10,817
1,414,069
4.278
868,664
Heavy Ordnance. There were 97 officers at work in the Ordnance Department at the time America entered the World War, only 10 of whom were experienced in designing artillery weapons. While expanding this commissioned force to 1 1 ,000 during the 19 months of war, it was necessary also to design and direct the production of the ordnance for an army of 5,000,000 men. Only six Government arsenals and two private plants had had experience in producing heavy ordnance before 1914; the number was increased by " a score or so" by 1917, because of Allied contracts for artillery, ammuni- tion, rifles, machine-guns, etc.; by Nov. 1918 there were nearly 8,000 plants at work upon ordnance contracts, light or heavy.
The heavy-gun capacity of American makers was all under Allied contract in April 1917, with a year's work ahead. Up to the Armis- tice 1,102 guns (from 3 in. tO95 in.) and 14,623 forgings (from which the finished guns are turned and bored) were thus made in the United States for the Allies. Fifteen additional heavy-gun factories were equipped to meet the American need, and all but three (whose machine tools were delayed) were producing forgings before the Armistice; the rate for Oct. 1918 was above 24,000 guns per year.
In mobile field artillery the French 75-mm. gun was accepted for the standard in quantity production, and its designs, with those for its intricate recuperator, were redrawn to meet American conditions in manufacture. The tolerances, which the French were in the habit of working out in the assembling plant, were reduced to figures and gauges in order to permit the American method of manufacture of separate, interchangeable parts. In Oct. 1918, 464 complete artillery units (guns, carriages and recuperators) were produced and delivered to the army by American manufacturers, with an accumulated total of 2,058 units to the end of the year. But no 75-mm. guns or 155-mm. howitzers of American manufacture were on the front at the date of the Armistice. The French Government provided the A.E.F. with equipment of this sort sufficient for 30 American divisions.
Rifles. The rifle selected for use in the A.E.F. was the 1917 Enfield, a model adapted from the British rifle which had been developed in quantity production in American factories upon British orders, 1914-7. It was selected, not because it was believed to be superior to the 1903 Springfield (the standard then in use in the American army), but because the Springfields could be made only in the Government arsenals at Springfield, Mass., and at Rock Island, whose capacity had been determined by Congressional action and could not be expanded as rapidly as the emergency required. The factories built for the manufacture of Enfields, on the other hand, had completed their foreign orders and stood available for immediate American use. The decision of the War Department was to adapt the Enfield to shoot the standard rimless .30 calibre Spring- field cartridge, to complete the standardization of the Enfield, and to produce it in these private plants. There was no shortage of American-made rifles for overseas use. For the purpose of training, until quantity production should begin, the American troops relied upon the pre-war stock of about 600,000 1903 Springfields and 200,000 of the older Mauser rifles which the Springfield had dis- placed. The arsenals were kept at work on the 1903 Springfields, raising their production to 2,500 rifles per day at the Armistice. The statistics of rifle production 1 are:
1 America's Munitions, p. 186.
1903 Springfield
1917 Enfield
1917
128,475
302,887
1918 Jan.
31,570
153,499
Feb. .
9r370
170,857
March
54
160,142
April .
2,631
167,485
May .
3,970
181,034
June
6,759
!9i,354
uly .
16,879
231,193
Aug. .
28,617
191,769
Sept. .
33.583
199,635
Oct. .
39-176
187,477
Nov. (1-9)
11,308
56,097
Total .
312,878
2,506,307
Machine-Guns. A large appropriation ($12,000,000) for the pur- chase of machine-guns was made in the Army Act of Aug. 29 1916, and 4,000 Vickers guns (heavy) were ordered shortly thereafter, but the War Deparment had not completed its test of types or made its selection of a light machine-gun on April 6 1917. Before the World War the machine-gun did not play a large part in military equip- ment, and there were not in existence either patterns of completely satisfactory type, or facilities for wholesale manufacture. An American gun, invented by Col. I. N. Lewis, " was a revelation when it came to the aid of the Allies early in the great war," and capacity for its manufacture was developed in private American plants on Allied order. This, and other types, the Vickers, Benet-Mercie, Maxim, and Colt, were under experiment by the Machine-Gun Board when America entered the war. The board continued its deliberations until satisfied. Since the whole capacity of the Lewis- gun factories was contracted for, it was certain to be several months before this or any other gun could be produced on a greatly increased scale. In May 1917, the Machine-Gun Board tested and adopted two newly designed guns, one heavy and one light, both the work of John M. Browning. The first light Brownings were accepted in Feb. 1918; the first heavy Brownings in the following April. There- after the new industry gained rapidly in volume, until during Oct. 1918 the War Department accepted 14,639 heavy and 13,687 light Browning guns. By the end of the year 226,557 machine-guns of all types had been accepted by the United States. The production of the Lewis gun was continued, it becoming the standard gun for air- craft. At the Armistice there were enough heavy Brownings in France to equip all American divisions there, but there had not been opportunity to issue them generally to the troops in exchange for the various other guns in use.
Naval Ordnance. Naval ordnance presented fewer difficult problems than that for the army because the quantities needed were less staggering, and fewer weapons represented novelties in manu- facture. The construction of battleships was practically stopped during the war, the whole strength of the navy yards being con- centrated on smaller vessels, with destroyers ana submarine chasers at the head of the list. The manufacture of the latter led to an experiment with quantity production of a fabricated steel chaser, the " Eagle " type, at a new Ford plant near Detroit.
Much delicate experimentation was done in search for new range- finders and submarine detectors, various listening devices being brought forward for the latter purpose. The construction of the North Sea mine barrage called for the development of a new mine and anchor and tested the ingenuity and capacity of manufacturers working in a new field. The formal approval by President Wilson of the plan to lay a barrage of anchored contact mines from the Orkney Is. to the Norwegian territorial waters off Udsire Light, a distance of 230 m., was given on Oct. 29 1917, after the British Admiralty had assented to the joint project. The Bureau of Naval Ordnance was already at work upon the mechanism, in advance of approval, and was able to summon the manufacturers to a conference early in November. Contracts for making the various parts were placed with a large number of plants, and the first mines were ready to test by March 1918. Orders were placed for 125,000 mines, of which 56,611 were laid in the barrage by American mine-layers operating from bases in the N. of Scotland, near Inverness. The whole barrage included 70,263 mines, of which 13,652 were British laid, covering a zone of sea from 15 to 35 m. in width, and to a depth sufficient to prevent submarines from diving under it. The complete barrier was in place by July 29 1918, although it was much tightened thereafter. The barrage is known to have destroyed 17 submarines and to have closed the North Sea outlet, particularly after Norway announced a determination to mine her own territorial waters adjacent to the barrage. (Navy Ordnance Activities, World War, 1917-1918, p. 125.)
Evolution of the War Government. The evolution of the muni- tions programme, as the proportions of the American effort were extended, was simultaneous with the execution of its de- tails. An attempt to give it unity and proportion was made from the start under disadvantages due to the newness of the ad-
