Reverting then to the modern projectile, and taking as a suitably illustrative example the 6-inch high-explosive shell (for it was on this particular type that Crewe was asked to concentrate), bearing always in mind, too, that the modern gun is rifled or grooved and that the effect of this grooving is to impart a vigorous longitudinal twist or spin to the shell as it flies away, making it gyroscopic and almost uniformly accurate, we notice that the length of this shell is eighteen inches, thus exceeding the diameter in the proportion of three to one, whence it becomes obvious that the capacity available for explosive charge is proportionately greater than that of a cannon-ball of the same diameter.
We next find that in place of the rounded wind-resisting surface of the cannon-ball, the front end of the modern shell is pointed like a pencil, the atmospheric resistance being in this way reduced to a minimum. Decrease of wind-resistance naturally spells increase of range, and in this connection tests have in the past been carried out with shells having their bases as well as their noses pointed with a view to obviating the vacuum which is necessarily created by the usual flat base. A cigar-shaped shell, however, never proved satisfactory, for like the Rugby football it was decidedly wobbly in mid-air.
How requisite was a superlative degree of accuracy and consequently of skill in the manufacture of the modern high-explosive projectile may, to some extent, be gathered from these briefly stated considerations, and will become more apparent still when we come to glance at the series of component parts of which the whole is built up.
Premature explosions, involving loss of life amongst the gun-crew, the wrecking of the gun itself, not to mention resultant immunity from dismemberment of those previously destined to be the recipients of this unique form of greeting, are primâ facie contingencies to be guarded against; thus, owing to the sudden stresses to which a shell is subjected on the firing of the propellent charge whereby inertia becomes transmuted into velocity both forward and rotary, the steel of which the shell is made must be of such tensile strength that not only will the base-end withstand this transmutation, but the walls of the shell must be capable of overcoming the inertia of the front end of the shell, otherwise they will collapse, and a "premature" will be the immediate outcome.
An output of steel adequate for all munition purposes was already a problem sufficiently acute, and there were genuinely orthodox reasons why the home output, in particular, should be maintained at as high a level as possible. For one thing, it was eminently desirable that America should keep supplied our Allies who were less well equipped in "industrial and engineering resources than ourselves." "By home manufacture," too, "we had saved in the course of a single year something which is equal to 6d. or 7d. in the pound of income tax in the metal market alone." Besides "when you order a very considerable quantity of war material abroad, there is always a difficulty which arises with regard to the exchanges and the gold supply." There was also "the difficulty that you have not the same control over the manufacturers of material abroad as you have got here" [Mr. Lloyd George, House of Commons, December 20th, 1915].
Influenced by considerations such as these, Mr. Cooke undertook not merely to machine in toto a given quantity per month of rough shell forgings, but proffered the extensive steel-making plant in Crewe Works, comprising several furnaces of 20 and 30-ton capacity, both for the supply of steel requisite for the initial manufacture of these rough forgings, and if desired, for a further output of steel wherewith to supply forgings to other firms engaged exclusively in shell manufacture.
The output of 6-inch high-explosive shells from Crewe Works had, at the time of the Armistice, reached, approximately, a total of 100,000, and the corresponding weight of steel forgings may be estimated, approximately, at 6500 tons. Government specifications in regard to tensile strength and cold fracture tests were not unnaturally exacting in the extreme, and the casts obtained at Crewe came fully in these respects up to the standard ordained. But amazing though it may seem (so tightly can the reel of official red tape be wound), notwithstanding Mr. Cook's offer and ability to furnish this supply of special high-grade steel, further Government regulations to the number of seventeen and covering three pages of foolscap demanded the observance of formalities, petty and extraneous, designed solely for the purpose of securing the right of incursion within Crewe Works of every Smith, Jones, and Robinson who under the pseudonym of "Government Inspector," and as units of a hugely overstaffed officialdom, sought by hook and by crook any and every means wherewith to justify their overpaid existence.
"Nobody but managerial and supervising engineers can quite realise what a handicap these people have been upon efficient production," writes a student of bureaucracy in the Morning Post, April 21st, 1919. "How the engineering industry has survived in spite of it is almost a miracle; how it has produced in spite of it is quite a miracle. At one time the Ministry of Munitions could boast of no fewer than 27,000 officials, nearly all of whose positions might be reasonably defined as "jobs." There were inspectors and inspectors of inspectors, super-inspectors, and inspector-generals, munition area dilution officers, munition area recruiting officers, recruitment complaints officers, and committees, directors, sub-directors, information bureaux, with all the usual paraphernalia; officials with and without designation, priority officials whose duties were as nebulous as their qualifications, besides an unnumbered crowd of arrogant but grossly inexpert experts. It is a splendid tribute to the industry that it triumphed over this deadly deterrent and redeemed its obligation to the nation under so cruel and undeserved a burden."
How Crewe Works survived in spite of this "handicap," this "deadly deterrent," is explained by the fact that Mr. Cooke would have none of these things; in fact, sooner than conform to the caprice and tyranny of these "inexpert experts" from without, he very promptly withdrew his offer of steel manufacture, politely but firmly consigning "Major MacMarkfour" and "Captain Fitzgrazefuse" elsewhere, their correspondence to the nearest wastepaper basket; a friendly chat with the late Sir F. Donaldson, then Director of Army Ordnance at Woolwich, sufficing to make it clear that at Crewe everything was strictly "above board," and that the little entourage of professional experts within justified the full and complete confidence which he, their chief, reposed in them.
Not a few of the smaller engineering firms up and down the country, faced with previously unconsidered problems created by the unlooked-for transition from peace to war conditions, welcomed the call for shells and yet more shells, as a ray of sunshine peeping from out the lowering clouds of commercial stagnation. Hardly appreciating the fact that a shell's a shell for a' that, and approaching the task with a flippant disdain, akin to that of "selling seashells upon the seashore," some of these good people, ostensibly patriotic and avowedly disinterested, were soon asking themselves whether after all they had not bitten off as much as, if not actually more than, they could reasonably chew. The requisite degree of perfection in material, and of accuracy in machining, was at the outset a sore puzzle to the many who had never seen a field-battery in action, who had never inquired as to the why and wherefore of the flight of a shell, who, by virtue of their exemption from military service, never had occasion to congratulate themselves personally on the subtle and unfailing precision of a creeping "barrage"; and great was the vexation of spirit, many the hours thrown away, legion the shells definitely consigned to the scrap-heap (or perhaps at best set aside pending some seemingly trifling rectification), ere aspirants to this novel and exacting sphere of machine-shop art attained anything approaching the acmé of perfection.