Ammunition depot

“ I can only say that the supply of war material at the present moment and for the next two or three months is causing me very serious anxiety, and I wish all those engaged in the manufacture and supply of these stores to realize that it is absolutely essential not only that the arrears in the deliveries of our munitions of war should be wiped off, but that the output of every round of ammunition is of the utmost importance and has a large influence on our operations in the field. ”

“ On the 31st of July, 1917, in the Third Battle of Ypres, the British Armies used 23,000 tons of ammunition." Last year, from August to November, 700,000 tons of ammunition were expended by the British Armies on the Western front. On the days of most active fighting 20,000 tons a day was a common ration. The supply never failed. In the three months' offensive of last autumn all the Army Commanders had to think of in the matter of artillery and ammunition was transport and distribution. ”

“ The groans of the wounded and dying on the battle-field, and the lamentations in the desolated home, are music to the ears of those who supply the war-materials; for, with every shot from a rifle, fifty grains of gunpowder are burned, while bullets enough miss their mark to equal the weight of each man they kill. Consequently, there is substantial profit to the cartridge-maker and the gunpowder-manufacturer for every man killed with a rifle ball.
But it is in shrapnel and the ammunition for the big guns that the greatest profit lies. ”

“ The second consideration was that it is impossible at the present time to maintain a sufficient supply of gun ammunition on the scale which you considered necessary for offensive operations. Every effort is being made in all parts of the world to obtain an unlimited supply of ammunition; but, as you are well aware, the result is still far from being sufficient to maintain the large number of guns which you now have under your command adequately supplied with ammunition for offensive purposes. ”

“ The output of high explosives has been sufficient to meet the increased demands of our armies, to build up stocks, and to supply part of the needs of the Allies. There has been a steady improvement in the detonating value of gun ammunition and a continuous reduction in the number of premature explosions. In addition to guns, shells, and rifles, the demands of the military and naval forces during the year for aircraft, tanks, mechanical transport, railway material, and equipment of every sort and kind have been endless. ”

“ One piece of equipment is a dark tunnel in which the candle power of field illuminants can be tested. The plant includes facilities for loading grenades, fuses, and boosters.
The American Expeditionary Forces after the armistice had on their hands some 65,000 tons of field ammunition, mostly189 of French manufacture, besides several thousand tons of German ammunition taken in the advance to the Rhine under the terms of the armistice agreement. At first it was thought that the French ammunition, shipped to the United States, would be a military asset for several years to come ”

“ We are producing 18 times as many machine-guns.
Of rifles—the most difficult of all war material to produce quickly in large quantities—our weekly home production is now 3 times as great as it was a year ago. We are supplying our Army overseas with rifles and machine-guns entirely from home sources.
Of small-arms ammunition our output is 3 times as great as a year ago.
We are producing 66 times as much high explosive as at the beginning of 1915; and our output of bombs is 33 times as great as it was last year.
At the same time, what is Great Britain doing for her Allies? ”

“ Because of increased demands from overseas, the Army Service Forces in the month of October, 1944, had to increase its estimate of required production by 10 percent. But in November, one month later, the requirements for 1945 had to be increased another 10 percent, sending the production goal well above anything we have yet attained. Our armed forces in combat have steadily increased their expenditure of medium and heavy artillery ammunition. As we continue the decisive phases of this war, the munitions that we expend will mount day by day. ”

“ In army affairs, is a body of troops held somewhere in the rear, generally out of fire, and kept fresh, in order that they may interfere with decisive force at any point where yielding troops require support, or an advantage gained needs powerful following up. The reserve of ammunition is a magazine of warlike stores, situated between an army and its base of operations, sufficiently retired from the front to be safe from sudden raids of the enemy, and at the same time advanced enough to allow of the supply actually in the field being speedily replenished. ”

“ According to the demands for ammunition, we are firing away 40,000 rounds per diem; the officers ask for fresh Remingtons, as by the constant firing those they have are out of order. I feel quite indifferent, for, if not relieved for a month, our food supply fails, and even at the above rate of expenditure of ammunition we have fifty days’ cartridges. I like to go down with our colours flying. The Arabs are quite equalling us in expenditure, and they have no reserve of ammunition, or means of repairing their arms. I am going to call the new steamer the Zubair, after Zubair Pasha Rahama ”

“ The streets were no longer practicable, as the high pile of ruins made it impossible for a foot-passenger to walk through them. This fact greatly complicated the question of ammunition supply. From the rear, we had been informed that the waggons could no longer cross the Yser bridge, nearly a mile away from our positions. Men were sent constantly through the town to fetch sacks of cartridges and, on account of the great quantity of ammunition needed, this going backwards and forwards was continual. ”

“ The ammunition-train in process of being unloaded is a fearsome affair. You may see all conceivable ammunition, from rifle cartridges to a shell whose weight is liable to break through the floors of lorries, all on one train. And not merely ammunition, but a thousand pyrotechnical and other devices; and varied bombs. An officer unscrews a cap on a metal contraption, and throws it down, and it begins to fizz away in the most disconcerting manner. ”

“ In attack the supply is more limited than in defense. Better judgment must be exercised in expenditure. Ordinarily, troops in the firing line of an attack can not expect to have that day more ammunition than they carry into the combat, except such additions as come from the distribution of ammunition of dead and wounded and the surplus brought by reinforcements. ”

“ Hardly a minute passes as we speed along without its significant sight; horse-lines, Army Service depots bursting with stores,—a great dump of sandbags—another of ammunition.
And as I look out at the piles of shells, I think of the most recent figures furnished me by the Ministry of Munitions. Last year, when the Somme offensive began, and when I was writing England's Effort, the weekly output of eighteen-pounder shells was 17-1/2 times what it was during the first year of the war. It is now 28 times as much. Field howitzer ammunition has almost doubled since last July. ”

“ If it was impossible to bring the ammunition reserve to the firing line, it was an acknowledgment that no matter what the attacking force might be in front of an enemy armed with long range rifles, the attack must utterly fail upon the consumption of the cartridges the men were able to carry into action. ”

“ It was essential that makers of arms and supplies should be stimulated to undertake vast increases of their staff and plant. Before the battle of the Marne was ended it was known, only too well, that every nation in Europe—with the single exception of Germany—had grossly underestimated the expenditure of artillery ammunition under conditions of modern warfare. It was of the most immediate urgency to concert with our Allies, and with our manufacturers, in order to set this trouble right. It was as necessary for the Allies to organise their resources as it was for them to organise their armies. ”

“ The system adopted for transporting and issuing ammunition to the guns is to all intents and purposes a parallel to that for transporting and issuing rations to the troops, which I have described in a previous chapter. The "Ammunition Parks" of motor-lorries are to the guns what "Supply Columns" are to the personnel. The lorries comprising an ammunition park are loaded up from the ammunition train at railhead, and off-loaded to the limbered horse wagons of the Ammunition Column, the function of which corresponds to that of the horse train in the Supply scheme. ”

“ With a view, therefore, first to expedite and facilitate the equipment of the American armies in France, and, second, to secure the maximum ultimate development of the ammunition supply with the minimum strain upon available tonnage, the representatives of Great Britain and France propose that the American field, medium, and heavy artillery be supplied during 1918, and as long after as may be found convenient, from British and French gun factories ”

“ But since the introduction of the Q.F. gun it has been universally recognized that the gun must have a very liberal supply of ammunition present with it in action, and the old standard allowance of one wagon per gun has been increased to that of two and even three. Formerly batteries were further hampered by having to carry the reserve of small-arm ammunition for infantry and cavalry. ”

“ The dumping, in the gun pits and in ammunition stores, of the necessary 500 or 600 rounds per gun meant days of labour in collection and distribution on the part of the railways and motor lorries. The breakdown of a few motor lorries at a critical time, or the dropping of a single bomb upon an important railway junction, were disturbing factors quite sufficient to have arrested the flow of ammunition, and to have postponed, indefinitely, any programme based upon its prompt delivery. ”

“ Within effective range, however, machine guns, if concealed, should inflict considerable loss on hostile artillery. Engagements with their lines of skirmishers should be avoided, for the risk of disclosing the position of the guns and the heavy expenditure of ammunition involved will rarely be justified by results. Since the gun is not well adapted for keeping up protracted fire, it may be often expedient to withdraw it from action, move it elsewhere, or hold it in reserve for a more favourable opportunity. ”

“ Yet it is necessary to provide for a single machine gun on the field in such a war as the recent one 288,875 rounds of ammunition during its first year of operation, this figure including the initial stock and the reserve supply as well as the actual number of rounds fired. Thus the machine gun of war increases its appetite, so to speak, for ammunition 4,700 per cent in the first year of fighting. ”

“ The thing that really bothers, though, is the danger of death or injury from their own weapons or ammunition. You see, many times there is such a thing as a faulty shell, although careful inspection in the munitions plants has reduced this danger to a percentage of about one in ten thousand.
"At the beginning of the war when every little tin shop all over the world was converted into a munitions factory to supply the great need of shells, much faulty ammunition reached the front lines. Some of the shells would explode almost as soon as they left the gun. ”

“ It is sometimes desirable, however, to use special loads that are not furnished by the factories, and such ammunition must be loaded by hand. Then, too, many persons prefer to reload ammunition for economical reasons. ”

“ Men were issued with hot food from the field-kitchens whenever a pause in the operations made this possible. Not a single vehicle except those that were unfit for the road fell into the hands of the enemy. The supply of ammunition, though it caused the gravest anxiety, and though the Divisional Ammunition Column was at one time completely empty, never actually failed. As regards the supply of gun ammunition and the making up of deficiencies in guns, the artillery made their own arrangements. ”

“ But it is hoped that soon fighting will be carried on near the enemy frontier and then a wonderful field will be opened to the bombing machines.
"All the big ammunition factories which are in the Rhine and Ruhr valleys, like Krupp's, will be wonderful targets for the American bombing machines. If these machines are of the proper type—that is to say, sufficiently fast and well armed and able to carry a great weight of bombs—nothing will prevent them from destroying any of these important factories. ”

“ Some of these improvements were produced and put in the field, the others were under development at the signing of the armistice. The whole tendency toward motorization served to complicate ordnance production in this country, not only in the supply of the weapons and traction devices themselves, but in the production of increased supplies of ammunition, since these improvements also tended to increase the rapidity with which bullets and shell were consumed. ”

“ Actual gun-practice was a very different thing from that dull work in garrison with blank cartridges.
The magazine where the ammunition was stored lay at some little distance from the other buildings, near the gun-park, and was surrounded by a thick high wall of earth. One realised from this how dangerous were its contents. But the store-men, who gave out the shrapnel-shells and the fuses, went about their work as if regardless of the fact that in each one of these lurked death and destruction. ”