CHANGING ARMY NEEDS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 115, 10 February 1944, Page 5

CHANGING ARMY NEEDS

Munitions Switch-Over In

Australia

FACTORIES IN TRANSITION

SYDNEY, January 10.

The spectacle of munitions factories closing down by‘the score, or reducing their output, is one of the war’s strangest mysteries. It is the first consequence of the big changes which are being made in Australia’s munitions programme to meet new equipment. demands pouring in from the New Guinea battlefront, writes Edward Axford in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” The phenomenon of a major munitions switch-over is by no means peculiar to the South-west Pacific. In the last 12 months all the warring nations have been reorganizing their production machinery to supply the new weapons, supplies. and particularly transport facilities which the moving pattern of war demln'* Australia plants which used to make tanks are now being converted to -make aeroplanes, smallcraft, and locomotives. Some factories which used to make gun ammunition may be turned into food canneries. Feeder factories equipped for making machinegun components may be turned into clothing tactories. Other workshops affected by the change are reducing their output of guns and ammunition. The emphasis of war is-shifting. Today we have the guns. What we need is the means to give our armies mobility. . The first marked evidence of the diversion was stopping the production ot armoured fighting vehicles (tanks and universal carriers), ceasing the manutacture of certain types of aircraft, and reducing the output of a variety of weapons, such as the 25-pounder gunhowitzer and many classes of ammunition, of which huge reserves had been built up. , ~, Reasons for Change.

Production .of tanks stopped because American output was so vast that all the tanks we needed could be imported. 1 ioduetion target of -Rotors guns was lowered because Britain was able to send us a large number. of the guns of this type that we required. Small aims manufacture was reduced because local output exceeded demands. More than 5000 universal earners had been built in Australia up to last June, tbe Minister for Munitions, MrMakin, recently revealed. . Hence tlie closing down of three big «ss«mbly plants in three States, leaving a fouitli to maintain output of spare parts. Production of 25-pounders had gon<well into four figures before manufacture was reduced. In addition, Britain wao able to send us several hundreds of tmsame type of gun, enabling the army to fill its establishment with generous reserves to spare. , . . The fact is, as Mr. Makin explained some months ago, that in arms manufacture Australia has already produced “an abundance of riches. To use his words, jt has “already completed the first phase of the task allotted to it —the arming and equipping from our own resources, supplemented to some ex }, e d“ from overseas, of the Australian field army aud fixed defences.”

New Weapons.

In place of the old weapons we are now making new ones—the short 25-pounder (or pack howitzer) for use in jungle and mountain terrain, the extremely powerful 17-pounder tank buster which has been doing deadly work in Italy, the 4in. naval gun for the defensive arming of merchantmen, tbe Hispano 2Q-millimetre cannon for mounting on Australian-built aircraft, and the new heavy 4.2 in. mortar used in New Guinea. Other weapons, not yet in use by the Allied armies, will.be made later.

Boomerang and Beaufort aircraft are being superseded by newer, faster, more powerful types under construction, including, as indicated by the Prime Minister in November, the Beaufighter. In addition, the foundations are being laid for a long-range programme of heavy bomber and aero engine construction. These, with other planes still on the drawing boards, will keep the aircraft industry extremely busy for the rest, of the war.

When all this aircraft and ordnance production is accounted for, there still remains a substantial industrial capacity freed for other tasks. We can now make lots of things we could not afford to make when tbe imminence of invasion forced us to concentrate on the rapid production of gnus and ammunition. Announced new items are: Invasion craft, ships for the coastal trade, marine Diesel and petrol engines, railway locomotives and rolling stock, agricultural machinery for increasing food production, and a bigger range of automotive parts. . In the first four years of the war, the Australian ship-building industry built destroyers, corvettes, ore freighters, and 9000-ton standard merchant ships. Now included in the programme are 6000-ton, 4000-ton, and 2000-ton steamers for coastal and interstate cargo carrying, steel and wood ocean-going lighters, army surf boats, landing barges, tugs, highspeed supply boats, launches and trawlers, numbering many thousands in ail. As most of these craft are self-propel-led, it has been necessary to lay down a programme for tbe mass production of small marine engines, an entirely different programme from the current production of heavy-purpose engines for merchant ships.

Railway Needs.

The construction of locomotives and rolling stock had been planned on a big scale. Already in service are narrowgauge Garratt locomotives built in 110 railway and private wqrirsliops to strengthen the transport capacity of railway tines feeding military supplies into Queensland. Thi» programme, costing £1,600,000, includes the construction in more than 80 workshops of hundreds of flat-topped railway wagons for use on the same railway 'system. We are also building some of the world's most modern express and goodshauling locomotives for service on stan-dard-gauge main lines. Some of these giants weigh 183 tons and travel at 75 miles an hour. Some factories which used to make munitions of war havj reverted to the manufacture of machinery for the largescale production of food crops. They include such a variety of labour and timesaving machines as tractors, rotary hoes, machines that harvest 30 acres of wheat a day, composite machines that cultivate, sow grain, and distribute fertilizer all in one operation, binder txgetors, flax pickup machines, bean planters and cutters, cane planters, beet and carrot lifters, potato planters, vegetable spray plants, shearing machines, canning machines, and a great deal fif equipment for the refrig, eration and bulk storage of food. In the last few months the Ministry of Munitions has issued 600 separate orders to 130 firms for the mass production of agricultural implements and machines. Manufacture will be on such a scale that it will be possible to sell surplus machinery to Great Britain, South Africa, and other Empire countries endeavouring to expand their food production. Motor Industry. Part of the slack in the munitions programme will be taken up by increased activity in the automotive industries. Engineering firms all over Australia arc undertaking the large-scale manufacture of spare automobile parts which formerly we had to import. As yet, manpower and materials are available only for meeting service demands or essential and approved civilian requirements for these spares. It is true that all this industrial transformation, effected in a hurry, is productive of much waste plant, materials, money, and labour-time. Against these losses are several significant gains —the removal of pressure from a number of important munitions projects which were in danger of creating bottlenecks, the easing of the strain on sorelypressed plant and manpower, greater diversity of Australian manufacture, and the development of new manufacturing skills and capacity for use in the peace. Sq far from being an enigma, the present. diversion of plant ami manpower follows a carefully prepared plan. It will give the lighting forces some potent new weapons and the enormously increased mobility required when a belligerent moves from the defensive to the , offensive,