WAR MUNITIONS

Evening Post, Issue 88, 12 April 1924, Page 16

WAR MUNITIONS

'MOBILISING ENGINEERING RESOURCES. , '

..^v As--the Great. War., recedes into his-tory-it becomes' easier 'to disentangle the cardinal features of what may' -be .called the munitions/campaign -from/the 'mass-of detail in which they were in.'volved," says "Engineering." . As" far as our guns, rifles, machine guns, explosives, and ammunition were concern-' ed they were equal, item for item, with ,any that were.arrayed..against us at.the outbreak- of war. If we were not ahead in design we were'certainly not behindhand. Whether we hacl enough munitions to start with-lieed not now be discussed, but it is a matter of the commonest knowledge that we did not have enough to go on" with. The resources of Woolwich and of our few munitions firms were hopelessly inadequate to deal with the1 situation^ and as..;' everybody knows orders for shells and war material were given broadcast,to the.engineering industry ./generally.- . 1^ may be taken for-granted tha); the possibility'of such a state of affairs had bean foreseen, but the foresight did not go far enough to ensu)'9 that firms entering the munition business should be equipped with gauges and other :appliances essential to, the work. Had large stocks of gauges been in existence ready for the emergency, as was the case in Germany, and, more important still, had the authorities been prepared with systematic instructions as to methods of manufacture/ the munitions output iwould have been enormously accelerated at the, beginning of the war, millions of- pounds worth of scrap would have been, saved, and probably the wav would have been materially shortened. What the want of foresight with regard to munitions production cost us will never be known. Had the War Department, in peace time prepared its plans for mobilising the engineering resources of the country, with :as much care as plans for', military action in case of sudden hostilities, afe prepared beforehand, war. material could have been produced as fast as men could have beeii trained to use it. But to .do this lequires the. mechanical -engineering ser-' vice to-be effectively represented in the councils of the army, for-the-purely mili-. tary br^civil mind can never'fully realise either tlis/importance of ■ the question required .to,, attain the desired result. The laymaii,.and/the professional soldier is a -layman in the engineering s,ense, is ap'Hto,think:that all.that has to :be done"is;;to. place contracts''and in ';a'^ w. days or.' .weeks 'the;guns, shells,fuses, and what /not, will' come' tumbling. 'out of any. engineering works to which an order has/been-.given.-' The provision of- suitable/material and machine tools for the purpose is-h'ardly. considered, while the essential preliminaries to production, .such as.special chucks, jigs, gauges, and tools, are liable/to be overlooked entirely, and1, even'the very terms •may\be meaningless tV'those whose military- operations, depend, u^on'the. existence of-such tilings. '■,V; :;../■'. ' ■ ■