The production of gas grenades offered some peculiar difficulties. We set out at first to produce 3,684,530 of them. By January, 1918, the engineers of the Ordnance Department had completed the plans and specifications for the American gas grenade, and on February 12, an order for 1,000,000 of them was placed with the Maxim Silencer Co., of Hartford, Conn.
The gas grenades were to be delivered at the filling plants complete except for the detonator thimbles, which seal both gas and phosphorus grenades and act as sockets for the firing mechanism. It was seen that the construction of these thimbles might be a choke point in the construction of grenades of both types, and orders were early placed for them—1,500,000 to be delivered by the Maxim Silencer Co. and an equal quantity by the Bassic Co., of Bridgeport, Conn. On December 6, 1918, these concerns had produced 1,982,731 detonator thimbles.
The body of the gas grenade is built of two sheet-metal cups welded together to be gas-tight. Since, when we started out on this production, we did not know what kind of gas would be used or at what pressure it would be held within the grenade, we set the specifications to make grenade bodies to hold an air pressure of 200 pounds. The welding of the cups frequently failed to hold such pressure, so that the rejections of gas-grenade bodies under this test ran as high as 50 per cent. But in June, 1918, the gas for the grenades had been developed, and we were thereupon able to reduce the pressure of the standard test to 50 pounds. Under such a test the bodies readily passed inspection.
In September, 1918, we let additional contracts for gas grenades—500,000 to the Evinrude Motor Co., of Milwaukee; 500,000 to the John W. Brown Manufacturing Co., of Columbus, Ohio; and 400,000 to the Zenite Metal Co., of Indianapolis.
On November 11 gas grenade bodies were being produced at the rate of 22,000 per day, and the total production up to December 6 was 936,394.
The phosphorus grenade was similar to the gas grenade in construction. The plans and specifications for this weapon were ready in January, 1918. In February the following contracts were let: Metropolitan Engineering Co., Brooklyn, N. Y., 750,000; Evinrude Motor Co., Milwaukee, 750,000; Zenite Metal Co., Indianapolis, 500,000. On December 6, 1918, these concerns had delivered a total of 521,948 phosphorus grenade bodies.
The difficulties which had been experienced in the production of gas grenades were repeated in this project. The Evinrude Co. was especially quick in getting over the obstacles to quantity production. The Metropolitan Engineering Co. was already engaged with large orders for adapters and boosters in the heavy-gun ammunition manufacture for the Ordnance Department and found that the order for phosphorus grenades conflicted to a considerable extent with its previous war work. The matter was thrashed out in the Ordnance Department, which gave the priority in this plant to the adapters and boosters, with the result that this firm was able to make only a small contribution to the total production of phosphorus grenade bodies.
The development of thermit grenades was still in the experimental stage when the armistice was signed. There was no actual production in this country of grenades of this character. In October, however, the development of the grenade in design had reached a stage where we felt justified in letting a contract for 655,450 die-casting parts to the Doehler Die Castings Co., at its Toledo plant, and for an equal number of bodies with firing-mechanism assemblies to the Stewart-Warner Speedometer Corporation at Chicago.
The incendiary grenade not only did not get out of the development stage, but even a perfected model was regarded as of doubtful value by the officers of the American Expeditionary Forces. Nevertheless, the Chemical Warfare Service was of the opinion that such a grenade should be worked out, and an order for 81,000 had been given to the Celluloid Co., of Newark, N. J. Experimental work was progressing satisfactorily when the armistice was signed.
When the war ended, we were adapting to American manufacture a combination hand and rifle phosphorus grenade, borrowed from the English. The body of this grenade was built of terneplate and it had a removable stem, so that it could be thrown by hand or fired from the end of a service rifle. The American Can Co. built 1,000 of these to try out the design and strengthen the weak features.