At Worcester, Mass., at the plant of the Osgood Bradley Car Co. increased facilities were built for the daily manufacture of five carriages for the 155-millimeter howitzers.
At Hamilton, Ohio, at the works of the American Rolling Mill Co., extensions were made to provide for the manufacture each day of three carriages for the 155-millimeter howitzers.
The plant of the Mesta Machine Co., at West Homestead, Pa., near Pittsburgh, was extended to the enormous capacity of turning out the forgings for 40 recuperators a day for the 155-millimeter howitzers.
Extensively increased facilities were made at the shops of the Standard Steel Car Co., at Hammond, Ind., for the daily output of two carriages for the 240-millimeter howitzers.
Increased facilities were created in the plant of the Otis Elevator Co., Chicago, Ill., for the finish machining of the equivalent in parts of two and one-half recuperators a day for the 240-millimeter howitzers.
Large extensions were made to the plant of the Morgan Engineering Co., Alliance, Ohio, for the manufacture monthly of 20 improvised mounts for the 6-inch guns taken from the seacoast fortifications.
The facilities of the United States arsenals at Watertown, Mass., and at Rock Island, Ill., for the manufacture of field-gun carriages and recuperators were greatly increased.
This carriage construction for the big guns required the closest kind of fine machine work and fittings where the brake or recuperator construction entered the problem, and the great plants built for this purpose of turning out carriages and recuperators were marvels for the rapidity of their construction, the speed with which they were equipped with new and intricate tools, and the quality of their output.
Every mobile gun mount must be equipped with a shield of armor plate. The size of the artillery project may be read in the fact that our initial requirement for armor for the guns ran to a total of 15,000 tons to be produced as soon as it could be done. Now, we had no real source for getting armor in such large quantities, because the previous demands of our artillery construction had never called for it. The prewar manufacturers of artillery armor were three in number—the Simmons Manufacturing Co., of St. Louis; Thomas Disston & Sons, of Philadelphia; and the Crucible Steel Co. To meet the new demand two armor sources were developed—the Mosler Safe Co. plant of the Standard Ordnance Co. and the Universal Rolling Mill Co. The process of building this armor had been a closely guarded secret in the past, a fact entailing extended experiments in the new plants before satisfactory material could be obtained.