Munitions

“ Notwithstanding the tremendous calls upon the man power of the country for the ever-increasing needs of the army, the supply of munitions has steadily increased. In addition to large consignments to other fronts of the war, there has been an increase of 30 per cent. in all kinds of guns and howitzers, and of over 100 per cent. in heavy guns and howitzers in the recent offensive in France, as compared with those of last year. ”

“ One of the very first Acts to provide for placing educational production of munitions of war stipulated that initial orders placed with any person, firm, or corporation for supplying such munitions, accessories, or parts, could include a complete set of such gages, dies, jigs, tools, fixtures, and other special aids and appliances, including drawings as needed for the production of munitions in quantity in the event of emergency. ”

“ American munitions production, which for some time has been in your charge, played an important part in the early decision of the war, yet the very immensity and complexity of the problem has made it difficult for this accomplishment to be adequately understood by the public or in fact by any except those who have had occasion to give the matter special study. ”

“ To the difficulty provided by the desire for concealment necessary in all military organization, one must add the difficulty presented by the cross categories peculiar to this calculation. You have to consider not only the distinction between active and reserve, but also between men and munitions, between munitions available according to one theory of war, and munitions available according to another. ”

“ I suppose that if there is any one branch of munitions which the Front wants to hear about it is the output of shells. Shells and guns count for so much nowadays, a devastating artillery fire so eases the work of the attack, a heavier opposing fire is so appallingly destructive to an advance, the whole moral and physical effect of a superior artillery is so great, that I know well how very welcome a word it53 will be to the Front that shells of every size, weight, and calibre are pouring out from the factories in a stream already tremendous, but not yet nearly at its full volume. ”

“ And even less in evidence, because it does not wear a uniform and because its business is carried on behind closed and carefully guarded doors, the country is sweating at forge and furnace, is juggling with lathes and stamps and presses, has peeled off its coat and set to work in deadly earnest to give the Front the unlimited munitions the Front so long has wanted. It is not given to many to see what actually is being done, and to still11 fewer to say what they have seen, and first of all I may explain the why and wherefore of these chapters I am writing on munitions and munition-making. ”

“ Engineer, signal and medical equipment still continued to have a value, but if the race for militarism is maintained it is hard to see how the quantities of war munitions can fail to escape the scrap heap in a few years' time. ”

“ From the fact that when in action guns are served with ammunition, aimed, fired, and cared for by a crew of men carefully trained to [Pg 42] every motion involved in the successful use of the gun, it is most essential that the design and the material shall be such, both as to calculation in the design and as to manufacture in the material, as will insure the maintenance of the morale of the crew that serves the gun. ”

“ All day long the big guns boom. By night the rifles and machine-guns take up the tale. One is frequently aroused from slumber, especially towards dawn, by a perfect tornado of firing. The machine-guns make a noise like a giant tearing calico. Periodically, too, as already stated, we are subjected to an hour's intimidation in the shape of bombardment. Shrapnel bursts over our heads; shells explode in the streets, especially in open spaces, or where two important streets cross. (With modern artillery you can shell a town quite methodically by map and compass.) ”

“ These portable and easily laid field railways twist and turn and coil like snakes among the gun positions, the miniature engines, with their strings of toy cars, puffing their way into the heart of the artillery zone, where the ammunition is unloaded, sorted, and classified in calibers, and then artfully hidden from the prying eyes of enemy aviators and from their bombs. ”

“ This time the artillery preparation won’t be insufficient.
We have guns, little and big, of every kind, of every caliber, from the little howitzers set low on their plates with their large muzzles like those we used to see on the terrace of the Invalides up to the great naval guns, long, lean and sharp, like a cigar, monumental guns of unheard-of size mounted on gigantic platforms, with covered turrets, new and odd foreign cannon, long as a train and mounted on rails.
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And there are projectiles such as the wildest imagination could not dream of. ”

“ Over their heads the great shells shrieked and rushed, round them crackled a spattering rifle fire, the occasional hammering of a machine gun, the rolling crash and whirr of bursting shells and flying splinters. Wide out to right and left of them, far to their front and rear the roar of battle ran, long-thundering and unbroken, in a deafening chorus of bellowing guns, the vibrating rattle of rifles and machine guns, the sharp detonations and reports of shells and bombs and grenades. ”

“ The shell-fire grew more and more intense. The air was thick and choking with smoke and chemical fumes, and vibrant with the rush and shriek, of the shells, the hum of bullets, and the ugly whirr of splinters, the crash of impacting shells, and ear-splitting crack of the guns' discharge, the 'r-r-rupp' of shrapnel on the wet ground, the metallic clang of bullets and steel fragments on the gun-shields and mountings. ”

“ Armament.—The guns for arming the place should be placed in position or in store within the works before the beginning of hostilities. There should be mounted in commanding positions a sufficient number of high-power guns to hold the enemy’s first works at a distance and to fire upon his camps, etc., if placed too near. In addition to these, a full supply of light guns, including machine and rapid-fire guns, should be at all times equipped and supplied for immediate use in meeting an assault or surprise. ”

“ To show how men will rise to the height of dare-devil coolness, I must tell of the men who were supplying our guns with ammunition. Six horses on a limber, with three drivers, and two carriers on the limbers, would trot steadily to the bomb-proof shelter where the ammunition was kept, load up, and still at the steady trot return to the guns. All the time heavy shrapnel was bursting overhead, and the awful crack of this shell is enough to break the strongest nerve. ”

“ It has a regular trace, bastion and curtain, with a dry ditch and drawbridge, well-made casemates and bomb-proofs, and a tolerable armament of columbiads, forty-two and thirty-two pounders, a few ten-inch mortars, and light guns in the external works at the salients. The store of ammunition seems ample. Some of the fuses are antiquated, and the gun-carriages are old-fashioned. The open parade and the unprotected gorges of the casemates would render the work extremely unpleasant under a shell fire, and the buildings and barracks inside are at present open to the influences of heat. ”

“ As the amount of ammunition to be held in readiness for the opening of the battle averaged 500 rounds per gun, it became necessary to handle a total of about 300,000 rounds of shells and a similar number of cartridges of all calibres, from 31⁄2 to 12 inches, not to mention fuses and primers, or the immense bulk and weight of infantry and machine-gun ammunition, bombs, flares, rockets, and the like, for the supply of all of which the artillery was equally responsible. ”

“ Gobain straight to Paris, so that you could see the city from the gun, it would pass, midway of its course, three thousand, seven hundred and fifty feet below the surface of the earth. With the target so far off, it was impossible to aim at any particular fort, ammunition depot, or other point of military importance. There is always some uncertainty as to just where a shell will fall, due to slight differences in quality and quantity of the powder used, in the density of the air, the direction of the wind, etc. ”

“ Suddenly we wanted 50,000 big guns, and 500,000 machine guns and 10,000,000 rifles with unlimited ammunition, more ammunition than men could dream of, with all sorts of new kinds of ammunition, bombs, handgrenades, aerial torpedoes, or flying pigs, flying pineapples, egg-bombs, hairbrush-bombs, Mills bombs, trench mortar bombs, such as men had never used. ”

“ Nothing puts life into weary troops like the sound of their own shells screaming through the air and mingling with the noise of the enemy’s guns. Nothing in the same way puts a greater strain on men, even the most seasoned and hardened troops, than to have to sit still under a fierce bombardment, and to know that their guns must remain inactive because ammunition is limited to so many rounds a day per gun.
Big shell exploding on a road in France. German soldiers in foreground. ”

“ Cunningly hidden away at different points, the guns will make their presence constantly known to you. Here a battery of ugly-looking howitzers is loosing off salvos into the Hun trenches, and a little further along, perhaps, a 6-inch gun by the roadside will every now and then belch forth a sheet of flame, as with deafening row it throws a projectile, weighing about 100 pounds, screeching through the air, which explodes perhaps five or ten miles behind the German lines. ”

“ In the ditch is the carriage of a shattered machine-gun; one can see the hole made by the shell—a 75. What a state the gun on that carriage must have been in! And the machine-gunners? At the bottom of the hole! Ammunition belts of coarse white canvas lie coiled in puddles.
We pick up some boots full of rain-water. I wonder whether the men from whom we took them walked barefooted through the mud merely for pleasure? In another hole we find the men themselves. Further on again we encounter crosses bearing German inscriptions. ”

“ Big guns, howitzers and field guns seemed to be firing from everywhere behind us, and one could not help feeling overawed by the magnificence of our artillery. The machine guns joined in the fun, and the whole thing inspired every one with great confidence. No human beings could possibly withstand such a bombardment. ”

“ Riding along the roads at the front, one may know that there is a battery a stone’s throw away only when a blast from a hidden gun-muzzle warns him of its presence. It was wonderful to me that the artillery general who took me gun-seeing knew where his own guns were, let alone the enemy’s. ”

“ A mass of rifles, kit, bandoliers, accoutrements litters the ground, save where it has already been collected and sorted into heaps. Unexploded bombs lie everywhere, clips of ammunition, bayonets. All has to be collected and sent back—another phase of clearing the battlefield. ”

“ But, in addition to this social transition, there took place a change in warfare which had a far-reaching influence upon castle and walled town alike. Fire-arms came into general use in the early part of the fourteenth century.298 Missiles, for which hitherto the only available machines had been those involving discharge by torsion, tension, or counterpoise, could now be delivered by the new method of detonation. This produced an artillery which could be worked with greater economy of labour, and discharged the missiles themselves with greater force. ”

“ Signs tell you where those black mouths which you might not see are hidden, lest you walk straight into one as it belches flame. When you have seen guns firing by thousands as far as the eye can reach from a hill; when you have seen every caliber at work and your head aches from the noise, the thing becomes overpowering and monotonous. Yet you return again, drawn by the uncanny fascination of artillery power.
Riding home one day after hours with the guns in an attack, I saw for the first time one of the monster railroad guns firing as I passed by on the road. ”

“ It is a war of explosions, from bombs thrown by hand within ten yards of the enemy to shells thrown as far as twenty miles and to mines laid under the enemy's trenches; a war of guns, from seventeen-inch down to three-inch and machine-guns; a war of machinery, with man still the pre-eminent machine.
Guns mark the limit of the danger zone. Their screaming shells laugh at the sentries at the entrances to towns and at cross-roads who demand passes of all other travellers. Anyone who tried to keep out of range of the guns would never get anywhere near the front. ”

“ Sometimes a tremendous affair, heavies, field guns and trench mortars all pounding away together, creeping barrage, smoke screens and the rest of it. Elsewhere and at other times, nothing, Infantry well ahead of the guns, going forward almost into the blue, with nothing heavier than machine guns to support them. ”

“ Such a method would also be likely to lead to much waste of the enemy's ammunition. We have all read again and again of terribly expensive assaults made on particular positions bristling with machine guns, such as the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and how our men were mown down directly they left their trenches. Not doubting that such attacks could be rendered far less costly, I wrote about a year ago to a friend in the War Office, suggesting that chemists should be invited to consider the best form of smoke-producing bomb or shell. ”