Two other plants, both to use the cyanamid process, were projected in 1918, and the Government began the construction of both of them. One was at Toledo, Ohio, and the other at Cincinnati. Their combined capacity was to equal the capacity of the Muscle Shoals plant. At the armistice the construction of these plants was well under way, but the Government terminated both projects, at a net cost of $12,000,000.
The fifth plant was built by the Bureau of Mines for the Chemical Warfare Service at Saltville, Virginia. It used the Bucher process, producing fixed atmospheric nitrogen in the form of sodium cyanide, a chemical used in the manufacture of toxic war gases. It was about complete at the time of the armistice, having cost the Government $2,500,000. A test run indicated that the Bucher process was too costly to be practicable in normal times.
The Fixed Nitrogen Administration, in its report, recommended that the Saltville plant be abandoned, but that the plant at Sheffield and the one at Muscle Shoals be retained permanently, the modified Haber process at the No. 1 Plant to be developed by further research. No. 2 Plant at Muscle Shoals was designated as the principal peace-time source of nitrates within the United States, and the report advised the United States to remain in the nitrates business as a commercial producer of fertilizer material, the Government to operate through a corporation similar to that which operates the Panama Railroad and its related steamship line. This report was based upon research which sent a commission of experts to Europe to study fixation processes there, and which even cultivated experimental farms in the United States to determine by practical tests upon growing crops the fertilizing value of various forms of fixed atmospheric nitrogen.
The armistice found dozens upon dozens of American factories and machine shops, both large and small, engaged exclusively in producing the metallic shell used by the field artillery. This in itself was an industry of great size. The industry had not yet attained its production peak, but it was rapidly nearing that point; so nearly so that, during the tapering-off process, the factories working only eight hours of each twenty-four (as compared with the pre-armistice three-shift, twenty-four-hour day), the output was enormous. Take, as an example, the 75-millimeter size alone. In sixteen months before the armistice the mills, working continuously twenty-four hours a day, produced about 10,000,000 forgings for 75-millimeter shell. The same mills after the armistice, working now only eight hours each day and tapering off their work as rapidly as possible, in the two months before the wheels stopped, produced 5,000,000 additional forgings.
The total production of the metallic elements of artillery shell, both before and after the armistice, recorded some totals of fantastic size. It should be remembered that for the most part our war shell were of the European nose-fuse type and therefore unlike any shell which the War Department had ever produced before. An apparently simple manufacturing proposition turned out to be a most difficult one, particularly in the production of two small but important elements of the nose-fuse shell, the booster, which accelerates the rate of explosion, and the adapter, which holds the booster in place. It was months before our manufacturers could produce boosters and adapters successfully, but then the effort came along with a rush. When production ceased the Ordnance Department had 26,000,000 boosters and adapters to dispose of. Other surpluses for salvage were 60,000,000 shell forgings, 60,000,000 shell machinings, 60,000,000 cannon cartridge cases, nearly 70,000,000 metal parts for grenades, and over 6,000,000 metal parts for trench mortar shell.
The demobilization policy was to store reserves of shell sufficient to meet the consumption of an army of 1,000,000 men during six months of active field service. In the 75-millimeter size, for instance, such a reserve meant 2,500,000 shell. Since we had produced 15,000,000 75-millimeter shell, it is evident that the Ordnance Department found on its hands 12,500,000 such shell to be disposed of in some way. Surpluses in other sizes were also large. The steel strike of the autumn of 1919 occurred opportunely for those disposing of the excess shell, for it enabled the surplus metal to be sold at good prices as melting scrap. A brisk demand for shell and cartridge cases as souvenirs also absorbed a surprisingly large quantity of the excess materials.
As in the demobilization of the artillery industry, here in the shell-making industry we see at work the same preparedness policy of designating established arsenals and retained stand-by plants to be a manufacturing reserve against some future war emergency. Frankford and Picatinny arsenals were selected to inherit the shell-making facilities created in private plants during the war. At Frankford Arsenal was concentrated an equipment able to manufacture daily 6,000 shell, ranging from 75 millimeters to 240 millimeters. The Frankford shell plant was made a complete unit, capable of taking billet steel, forging out the shell blanks, machining them, and turning out shell ready for loading. At Picatinny Arsenal was created an experimental shell plant with a daily capacity of 300 shell of all sizes.
As an addition to the two arsenals, but as a subsidiary to the Frankford Arsenal, the Ordnance Department retained the 155-millimeter shell factory of the Symington-Anderson Company at Chicago and equipped it as an enormous stand-by shell factory with facilities for producing simultaneously 155-millimeter and 240-millimeter shell. This plant has been named the Chicago Storage Depot. Here was concentrated most of the special-purpose shell-making machinery acquired by the Ordnance Department during the war. It consists to-day of two departments. The active manufacturing department exists in ordinary, all machinery ready for immediate operation. In the storage department exists special machinery with a capacity for producing nearly 70,000 shell daily. This machinery is catalogued and assembled in factory layouts, virtually complete except for the ordinary commercial machinery used in the manufacturing processes, so that on short notice the Ordnance Department can ship from the depot shell-making units up to whatever capacity any future war contractor may wish to undertake. The installed equipment of the active manufacturing department has a daily capacity of 12,000 shell. In 1917 the shell-making capacity of the United States was small, and it was a year before facilities could be created and production started on a quantity basis. The reserve industrial equipment to-day gives us a daily manufacturing capacity of nearly 90,000 shell, a sufficient supply for a field army of 1,000,000 men until a new shell-making industry can come into existence.
Powder and shell after manufacture went to the various sorts of loading plants, the propellant powder to be loaded into cartridge cases (for field guns of smaller calibers) or bags (for the bigger guns) and the high explosive to be poured or packed into the shell, boosters, or fuses. In carrying on this enterprise the Government either built or fostered the creation of seventeen great loading plants, eight of them—employing 35,000 persons, most of whom were women—being owned entirely by the Government. These had cost from $5,000,000 to $12,000,000 apiece. A few of these government institutions were retained by the War Department after the armistice. The shell-loading plant at Amatol, New Jersey, was added to the arsenal system under the name of the Amatol Arsenal, but the machinery was condemned for salvage. The Amatol Arsenal is being used principally as a depot for the storage of reserve shell-loading machinery acquired during the war. A fire in October, 1918, destroyed the government shell-loading plant at Morgan, New Jersey, and a temporary storage depot was erected on the site. The two bag-loading plants at Woodbury, New Jersey, and Seven Pines, Virginia, were disposed of after the armistice; but the third, at Tullytown, Pennsylvania, as the Tullytown Arsenal, was retained as an ammunition storage depot. Four other shell-loading plants were retained as storage depots, and at these several points exist the great reserves of loaded ammunition and of ammunition components left by the war.
Nearly all the loading machinery was concentrated at Amatol and Picatinny arsenals. At Picatinny also was set up an experimental plant for the development of processes in loading powder and explosives. This plant also contains machinery for loaded pyrotechnics in rockets, star shell, and signal-pistol cartridges. 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.