When the fighting ceased the Colt Co. had delivered 12,000 heavy Vickers guns and nearly 1,000 of the aircraft type. As was mentioned before, a considerable quantity of Vickers ground guns had been subsequently converted to aircraft use. The production of ground-type Vickers ceased on September 12, 1918, by which date the manufacture of Browning guns had developed sufficiently to meet all of our future needs. Thereafter the Colt plant produced the aircraft types of Vickers guns only. We shipped 6,309 Vickers ground guns overseas before the armistice was signed, besides equipping six France-bound divisions of troops with these weapons in this country, making a total of 7,653 American-built Vickers in the hands of the American Expeditionary Forces. Later, we planned to replace these weapons with Brownings, turning over the Vickers guns to the Air Service.
But America's greatest feat in machine-gun production was the development of the Browning weapons. These guns, as has been noted, were of three types: the heavy Browning water-cooled gun, weighing 37 pounds, for the use of our troops in the field; the light Browning automatic rifle, weighing 15.5 pounds, and in appearance similar to the ordinary service rifle, also for the use of our soldiers fighting on the ground; and, finally, the Browning synchronized aircraft gun of the rigid type, which was the Browning heavy machine gun made lighter by the elimination of its water-jacket, speeded up to double the rate of fire, and provided with the additional attachment of the synchronized firing mechanism. Let us take up separately the expansion of the facilities for manufacturing these types.
In the first place, the Colt Co., which owned the Browning rights, in September, 1917, turned over to the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. the task of developing the drawings and gauges for the manufacture of Browning automatic rifles on a large scale. The latter concern did a splendid job in this work. Early in March, 1918, the Winchester Co. had tooled up its plant and turned out the first Browning rifles. These were shipped to Washington and demonstrated in the hands of gunners before a distinguished audience of officers and other Government officials, and their great success assured the country that America had an automatic rifle worthy of her inventive and manufacturing prestige. By the first of May the Winchester Co. had turned out 1,200 Browning rifles.
The Marlin-Rockwell Corporation attained its first production of Browning rifles in June, 1918, by which time the Winchester Co. had built about 4,000 of them. Before the end of June the Colt Co. added its first few hundreds of Browning rifles to the expanding output. By the end of July the total production of Browning rifles had reached 17,000, produced as follows: 9,700 by Winchester; 5,650 by Marlin-Rockwell; and 1,650 by Colt's. Two months later this total had been doubled—the exact figure being 34,500 Browning rifles—and on November 11, 1918, when the flag fell on this industrial race, the Government had accepted 52,238 light Browning rifles. Of these in round numbers the Winchester Co. had built 27,000; Marlin-Rockwell, 16,000; and Colt's, 9,000.
But these figures give only an indication of the Browning rifle program as it had expanded up to the time hostilities ceased. When the armistice was signed our orders for these guns called for a production of 288,174, and still further large orders were about to be placed. As an illustration of the size which this manufacture would have attained, we had completed negotiations with one concern whereby its factory capacity was to be increased to produce 800 Browning rifles every 24 hours by June of 1919. After the armistice was signed we canceled orders calling for the manufacture of 186,000 Browning automatic rifles.
Of the 48,082 of these weapons sent overseas, 38,860 went in bulk on supply transports, while the rest constituted the equipment of 12 Yankee divisions which carried their automatic rifles with them.
The Colt Co. itself developed the drawings and gauges for the quantity manufacture of the Browning gun of the ground type. It will be remembered that the New England Westinghouse Co. was the first outside concern to begin the manufacture of these weapons. The New England Westinghouse Co. received its orders in January, 1918, and within four months had turned out its first completed guns, being the first company to deliver these weapons to the Government. By the first of May it had delivered 85 heavy Brownings.
By the middle of May the Remington Co. came into production of the heavy Brownings. The Colt Co., which was required to continue its production of Vickers guns, was also retarded by the duty of preparing the drawings for the other concerns who had contracted to make heavy Brownings; and this factory, the birthplace of the Browning gun, was not able to produce any until the end of June. By this time the Westinghouse Co. had turned out more than 2,500 heavy Brownings, and Remington over 1,600.
By the end of July the production of Browning machine guns at all plants had reached the total of 10,000; and two months later 26,000 heavy Brownings were in the hands of the Government. In the following six weeks this production was enormously increased, the total receipts by the Government up to November 11 amounting to about 42,000 heavy Browning guns. In round numbers Westinghouse produced 30,000 of these, Remington 11,000, and Colt about 1,000.