As soon as war was declared against Germany the Ordnance Department, in its search for an immediate equipment of strong artillery, surveyed the ordnance supplies of the country and discovered some 464 heavy guns which might be spared from the seacoast defenses, obtained from the Navy, or commandeered at private ordnance plants where they were being manufactured for foreign Governments. There were six guns of this last-named class—powerful 12-inch weapons which had been produced for the Chilean Government. It was seen that if all, or if a large part, of these guns could be made available for service in France, America would quickly provide for herself a heavy artillery equipment of respectable proportions.
The guns thus available for mounting on railway cars ranged in size from the 7-inch guns of the Navy to the single enormous 16-inch howitzer which had been built experimentally by the Ordnance Department prior to 1917. The list of these guns according to number, size, length, and source whence obtained was as follows:
In addition to these there was the 16-inch howitzer, 20 calibers in length, which had been built by the Ordnance Department before 1917.
The expression 14-inch gun, 50 calibers, means that the gun has a barrel diameter of 14 inches and that the gun body is fifty times the caliber of 14 inches, or 700 inches (58 feet 4 inches) long.
The Ordnance Department conceived that the only way to make these guns available for use abroad would be to mount them on railway cars. These guns were not vital in the defense of our coast under the conditions of the war with Germany, but it wasevident that they would make a valuable type of long-range artillery when placed on satisfactory railway mounts.
Mounting heavy artillery on railway cars, however, was not an idea born of the recent war. The idea was probably originally American. The Union forces at the siege of Richmond in 1863 mounted a 13-inch cast-iron mortar on a reinforced flat car, this being the first authenticated record of the use of heavy railway artillery.
In 1913 the commanding officer of the defenses of the Potomac, which comprise Forts Washington and Hunt, was called upon to report on the condition of these defenses. In reply, he advised that no further expenditure be made on any one of the fixed defenses, but recommended that a "strategic railroad" be built along the backbone of the peninsula from Point Lookout to Washington, with spurs leading to predetermined positions both on Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River, so placed as to command approaches to Washington and Baltimore.
Further, he recommended that 4 major-caliber guns, 16 medium-caliber guns, and 24 mine-defense guns be mounted on railroad platforms, with ammunition, range finding, and repair cars making up complete units, so that this armament could be quickly transported at any time to the place where most needed. He suggested that this scheme be made applicable to any portion of the coast line of the United States. His argument was based upon the fact that guns in fixed positions, of whatever caliber, violate the cardinal military principle of mobility.
The nations engaged in the war now ending developed to a high stage the use of heavy artillery mounted on railway cars, bringing about a combination of the necessary rigidity with great mobility, considering the weight of this material.
Railway artillery came to be as varied in its design as field artillery. Each type of railway mount had certain tactical uses and it was not considered desirable to use the different types interchangeably. The three types of cannon used on railway mounts were mortars, howitzers, and guns. It was not practicable to use the same type of railway mounts for the different kinds of cannon. Moreover, these mounts differed radically from the mounts for such weapons at the seacoast defenses.
The three general types of railway mounts adopted were those which gave the gun all-around fire (360-degree traverse), those which provided limited traverse for the gun, and those which allowed no lateral movement for the gun on the carriage but were used on curved track, or epis, to give the weapons traverse aim.
The smaller weapons, such as the 7-inch and the 8-inch guns and the 12-inch mortars, were placed on mounts affording 360-degreetraverse. The limited traverse mounts were used for the moderately long-range guns and howitzers. The fixed type of mount was used for long-range guns only, and included the sliding railway mounts, such as the American 12-inch and 14-inch sliding mounts and the French Schneider à glissement mounts.
The work of providing railway artillery—that is, taking the big, fixed-position guns already in existence within the United States and similar guns being produced and designing and manufacturing suitable mounts for them on railway cars—grew into such an important undertaking that it enlisted the exclusive attention of a large section within the Ordnance Department. This organization eventually found itself engaged in 10 major construction projects, which, in time, had the war continued, would have delivered more than 300 of these monster weapons to the field in France and, to a lesser extent, to the railway coast defenses of the United States.
As it was, so much of the construction—the machining of parts, and so on—was complete at the date of the armistice, that it was decided to go ahead with all of the projects except three, these involving the mounting of 16 guns of 14-inch size, 50 calibers long, the production of 25 long-range 8-inch guns, 50 calibers, and their mounting on railway cars, and the mounting of 18 coast-defense, 10-inch guns, 34 calibers long, on the French Batignolles type of railway mount.
Inasmuch as it will be necessary in this chapter to refer frequently to the barbette, Schneider, and Batignolles types of gun mounts for railway artillery, it should be made clear to the reader what these types are.
The barbette carriage revolves about a central pintle, or axis, and turns the gun around with it. When it was decided to put coast-defense guns on railway cars, the guns were taken from their emplacements, barbette carriages manufactured for them, and the whole mounted upon special cars. The barbette mount revolves on a support of rollers traveling upon a circular base ring. In the railway mount the base ring is attached to the dropped central portion of the railway car. The barbette railway mount is provided with struts and plates by which the car is braced against the ground.
The Schneider railway mount is named after the French ordnance concern Schneider et Cie, who designed it. In this mount the gun and its carriage are fastened rigidly parallel to the long axis of the railway car. Thus the gun itself, independently of any movement of the car, can be pointed only up and down in a vertical plane, having no traverse or swing from left to right, and vice versa. In order to give the weapon traverse for its aim, special railway curved tracks, called epis, are prepared at the position where it is to be fired. The car is then run along the curve until its traverse aim iscorrect, and the vertical aim is achieved by the movement of the gun itself. In the Schneider mount there is no recoil mechanism, but the recoil is absorbed by the retrograde movement of the car itself along the rails after the gun is fired. This movement, of course, puts the gun out of aim, and the entire unit must then be pushed by hand power back to the proper point.
In the Batignolles type, gun and cradle are mounted on a so-called top carriage that permits of small changes in horizontal pointing right and left. Thus with the railway artillery of the Batignolles type also, track curves, or epis, are necessary for the accurate aiming. The Batignolles mount partially cushions the recoil by the movement of the gun itself in the cradle. But, in addition, a special track is provided at the firing point and the entire gun car is run on this track and bolted to it with spades driven into the ground to resist what recoil is not taken up in the cradle. The unit is thus stationary in action, and the gun can be more readily returned to aim than can a gun on a Schneider mount.
The conditions under which the war with Germany was fought virtually precluded any chance of a naval attack on our shores which would engage our fixed coast defenses. The British grand fleet, with the assistance of fleets of the other allies and America, had the German battle fleet securely bottled. On the other hand there was the prowling submarine able at all times to go to sea and even to cross the ocean, and some of the latest of these submarines were armed with long-range medium-caliber guns. It was not beyond possibility that some sort of an attack would be made on our shores by submarines of this character, yet it was safe to believe that these craft would keep well out of range of the guns at our stationary coast defenses.
To protect our coast from such attack the Ordnance Department conceived the plan of mounting heavy guns on railway cars. They might then be moved quickly to places on the seacoast needing defense. For this purpose the Navy turned 12 of its 7-inch rifles over to the Ordnance Department for mounting. Meanwhile our ordnance officers had designed certain standard railway artillery cars, known as models 1918, 1918 Mark I, and 1918 Mark II, for 7-inch and 8-inch guns and 12-inch mortars, respectively. These cars all had the same general features.
The model 1918 car was selected for the converted 7-inch Navy rifle. The rifle was mounted on a pedestal set on the gun car in such a manner as to give all-around fire, or 360-degree traverse. The pedestal mount permitted the gun to be depressed at an anglesuitable for firing from high places along the coast down upon the low-lying submarines.
Contracts for the various parts for these cars and the pedestal gun mounts were let to concerns engaged in heavy steel manufacture, but the assembling was done by the American Car & Foundry Co., of Berwick, Pa. Twelve of the 7-inch rifles were so mounted. As this equipment was intended exclusively for use in this country, the gun cars were equipped with the American type of car couplings.
For the 8-inch guns taken from seacoast fortifications the Ordnance Department designed a barbette mount giving complete, 360-degree, traverse, thus providing for fire in any direction. There were 96 such guns available for railway mounts. Orders for 47 gun cars with carriages for mounting the weapons were placed with three concerns—the Morgan Engineering Co., of Alliance, Ohio, the Harrisburg Manufacturing & Boiler Co., of Harrisburg, Pa., and the American Car & Foundry Co., of Berwick. Two of the three contractors found it necessary to provide additional facilities and machine-tool equipment at their plants in order to handle this job.
The first railway mount for the 8-inch gun was completed and sent to the Aberdeen Proving Ground for test in May, 1918. In early June the test had shown that the weapon was efficient and entirely satisfactory. Before the end of the year 1918 a total of 24 complete units, with ammunition cars for standard-gauge track, shell cars for narrow-gauge track, transportation cars, tools, spare parts, and all the other necessary appurtenances of a unit of this character, had been completed. Three complete 8-inch units were shipped overseas before the armistice was signed.
When the armistice came the Harrisburg company had delivered 9 of these mounts and the Morgan Engineering Co. an equal number, making 18 in all. The former concern had reached an output of 5 mounts per month and the latter 10 per month.
An interesting feature of this mount is that it can be used either on standard-gauge or on narrow-gauge railroad track. The narrow gauge adopted was that in standard use in the fighting zones in France, the distance between the rails being 60 centimeters, or the approximate equivalent of 24 inches. Each gun car was provided with interchangeable trucks to fit either gauge. The artillery train necessary for the maneuvering of the weapon was also similarly equipped to travel on either sort of track.
As a rule the longer the barrel of a cannon, the greater its range. The 8-inch seacoast guns thus mounted were 35 calibers in length, that is, thirty-five times 8 inches, or 23 feet 4 inches. The requirements of our forces in the field in France called for guns of this same sizebut of longer range. Consequently an 8-inch gun of 50 calibers—that is, 10 feet longer than the seacoast 8-inch gun—was designed, and 25 of them were ordered. This project came as a later development in the war, the guns being intended for use abroad in 1920. The railway mounts for the weapons had not been placed in production when the armistice came. Because of the incomplete status of this project in the autumn of 1918, the whole undertaking was abandoned.
There were at the seacoast defenses and in the stores of the Army a large number of 10-inch guns of 34 calibers. Of these 129 were available for mounting on railway cars. It was proposed to mount these weapons on two types of French railway mounts—the Schneider and the Batignolles.
The project to mount 36 of these weapons on Schneider mounts was taken up as a joint operation of the United States and French Governments, the heavy forging and rough machining to be done in this country and the finishing and assembling in the French shops. The American contractors were three. The Harrisburg Manufacturing & Boiler Co. undertook to furnish the major portion of the fabricated materials for the carriages and cars. The Pullman Car Co. contracted to produce the necessary trucks for the gun cars, while the American Car & Foundry Co. engaged to build the ammunition cars.
Eight sets of fabricated parts to be assembled in France had been produced before the armistice was signed. Gen. Pershing had requested the delivery in France of the 36 sets of parts by March 2, 1919. After the armistice was signed there was a natural letdown in speed in nearly all ordnance factories, but even without the spur of military necessity the contracting concerns were able by April 7, 1919, to deliver 22 of the 36 sets ordered. Had the war continued through the winter there is little question but that all 36 sets of parts would have been in France on the date specified.
The 10-inch seacoast gun, Batignolles mount project, was placed exclusively in the hands of the Marion Steam Shovel Co., of Marion, Ohio. It had been proposed also to mount 12-inch seacoast guns on this same type of equipment, and this work, too, went to the Marion concern. There were to be produced 18 of the 10-inch units and 12 of the larger ones.
8-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY, BARBETTE TYPE.This view shows gun in act of hurling projectile parallel to track.
8-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY, BARBETTE TYPE.This view shows gun in act of hurling projectile parallel to track.
8-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY, BARBETTE TYPE.
This view shows gun in act of hurling projectile parallel to track.
8-INCH SEACOAST RIFLE, WITH RECOIL MECHANISM, SET UP ON A SPECIALLY DESIGNED RAILWAY MOUNT.This gun, thus mounted on a railway car, is capable of an all-around fire and can deliver a shot in any direction from its location on the car.
8-INCH SEACOAST RIFLE, WITH RECOIL MECHANISM, SET UP ON A SPECIALLY DESIGNED RAILWAY MOUNT.This gun, thus mounted on a railway car, is capable of an all-around fire and can deliver a shot in any direction from its location on the car.
8-INCH SEACOAST RIFLE, WITH RECOIL MECHANISM, SET UP ON A SPECIALLY DESIGNED RAILWAY MOUNT.
This gun, thus mounted on a railway car, is capable of an all-around fire and can deliver a shot in any direction from its location on the car.
12-INCH RIFLE IN ACT OF FIRING.The force of the recoil sends the entire car back on track about 5 feet.12-INCH RIFLE ELEVATED TO ITS MAXIMUM POSITION.It is capable of hurling a 700-pound shell 25 miles. This is a modified Schneider type of carriage.TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH RIFLE ON SLIDING TYPE RAILWAY MOUNT.
12-INCH RIFLE IN ACT OF FIRING.The force of the recoil sends the entire car back on track about 5 feet.
12-INCH RIFLE IN ACT OF FIRING.The force of the recoil sends the entire car back on track about 5 feet.
12-INCH RIFLE IN ACT OF FIRING.
The force of the recoil sends the entire car back on track about 5 feet.
12-INCH RIFLE ELEVATED TO ITS MAXIMUM POSITION.It is capable of hurling a 700-pound shell 25 miles. This is a modified Schneider type of carriage.
12-INCH RIFLE ELEVATED TO ITS MAXIMUM POSITION.It is capable of hurling a 700-pound shell 25 miles. This is a modified Schneider type of carriage.
12-INCH RIFLE ELEVATED TO ITS MAXIMUM POSITION.
It is capable of hurling a 700-pound shell 25 miles. This is a modified Schneider type of carriage.
TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH RIFLE ON SLIDING TYPE RAILWAY MOUNT.
The Marion Steam Shovel Co. had had a large experience in producing heavy construction and road-building equipment. The concern encountered numerous difficulties at the start in translating the French drawings and in substituting the American standard materials for those specified by the French. These difficulties, combined with struggles to obtain raw materials and the equipment for the increased facilities which had to be provided at the factory, so delayed production that no mount for either the 10-inch or 12-inch guns had been delivered at the time of the armistice. The first mount of these classes—one with a 12-inch gun—reached the Aberdeen proving ground about April 1, 1919. The 10-inch project, calling for 18 mounts, was canceled soon after November 11, 1918. The work on the dozen mounts for 12-inch guns, however, had progressed so far that the Ordnance Department ordered the completion of the entire equipment.
As has been stated, the Government found in this country six 12-inch guns being made for the Republic of Chile. Their length of 50 calibers gave them a specially long range. It was decided to place the Chilean guns on a sliding mount. In a mount of this type the retrograde movement of the car along the track as and after the gun is fired takes up and absorbs the energy of fire.
The first sliding railway mount used on the allied side in the great war was of French design. But our manufacturers had so much trouble with French designs that when the project came up of mounting the Chilean guns in this fashion it was decided that it would be quicker to design our own mount. Consequently the French design was taken in hand by our ordnance engineers and redesigned to conform to American practice, with the inclusion in the design of all original ideas developed by the Ordnance Department in its creative work during the war period up to that time. The manufacturers who looked at the French design of the sliding railway mount estimated that it would take from 12 to 18 months before the unit could be duplicated in this country and first deliveries made. They looked at the American design and estimated that they could build it in 3 months.
It was decided to build three mounts of this character and thus have a reserve of one gun for each mount to serve as replacement when the original guns were worn out. Contracts were placed in the early summer of 1918, and all three mounts were delivered before the armistice was signed, the first mount being completed within 85 days after the order was placed. For these mounts the American Bridge Co. furnished the main girders or side pieces, the Baldwin Locomotive Co. built the railway trucks, and the Morgan Engineering Co. manufactured the many other parts and assembled the complete units. The speed in manufacture was made possible by the fact that the plant engineers of the three companies helped the ordnance officers in designing the details. With such intimate cooperation, the concerns were able to begin the manufacture of component parts while the drawings were being made.
All three weapons with their entire equipment, including supplies, spare parts, ammunition cars, and the whole trains that make upsuch units, were ready for shipment to France in November, 1918. Each mount as it stands to-day is 105 feet long and weighs 600,000 pounds. The load of the gun and the peak load put on the carriage when the gun is fired are so great that it requires four trucks of 8 wheels each, 32 car wheels in all, to distribute the load safely over ordinary standard-gauge track.
In years past the Ordnance Department had procured a large number of 12-inch mortars for use at seacoast defenses. These great weapons are 10 calibers in length, or 10 feet in linear measurement, the diameter of the barrel being just an even foot. Of the number stationed at the coastal forts and in reserve it was decided that 150 could be safely withdrawn and prepared for use against Germany. When Gen. Pershing was informed of the proposal, he asked that 40 of these weapons mounted on railway cars should be delivered to the American Expeditionary Forces for use in the planned campaign of 1919. In order that there might be an adequate supply of them, the Ordnance Department let contracts for the mounting of 91 of these mortars on railway equipment, a project which would give the United States a formidable armament and still provide a reserve of 59 mortars to replace the service mortars on the carriages after repeated firing had worn them out.
This job proved to be one of the largest in the whole artillery program. The entire contract was let to the Morgan Engineering Co., of Alliance, Ohio. In order to handle the contract, a special ordnance plant, costing $1,700,000 for the building alone, had to be constructed at the company's works at Alliance. The work was so highly specialized that machine tools designed for the particular purpose had to be produced. The Government itself bought these tools at a cost of $1,800,000. Although work on this plant was not started until December 10, 1917, and although thereafter followed weeks and weeks of the severest winter weather known in recent years, with all the delays in the deliveries of materials which such weather conditions bring about, the plant was entirely complete on June 1, 1918, not only, but the work of producing the mounts had started in it long before that, some machines getting to work as early as April.
The gun car used for mounting the mortar carriage was of the same design as that for the 7-inch and 8-inch guns, except that each truck had six wheels. The carriage built upon this car was of the barbette type, and it allowed the gun to be pointed upward to an angle as high as 65° and provided complete traverse, so that the mortar could be fired in any direction from the car. A hydropneumatic system for absorbing the recoil of the mortar after firing was adopted. This recuperator in itself was a difficult problem for the manufacturer to solve, being the first hydropneumatic recuperator of the size ever built in this country.
12-INCH SEACOAST GUN ON A CREUSOT RAILWAY MOUNT.This huge weapon in this position is ready to fire half a ton of shot a distance of 25 miles. It requires only two men to operate the powerful elevating apparatus necessary to bring the gun into quick-firing position.
12-INCH SEACOAST GUN ON A CREUSOT RAILWAY MOUNT.This huge weapon in this position is ready to fire half a ton of shot a distance of 25 miles. It requires only two men to operate the powerful elevating apparatus necessary to bring the gun into quick-firing position.
12-INCH SEACOAST GUN ON A CREUSOT RAILWAY MOUNT.
This huge weapon in this position is ready to fire half a ton of shot a distance of 25 miles. It requires only two men to operate the powerful elevating apparatus necessary to bring the gun into quick-firing position.
TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH MORTAR ON RAILWAY MOUNT.Lower view shows the mortar in its extreme position of recoil.
TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH MORTAR ON RAILWAY MOUNT.Lower view shows the mortar in its extreme position of recoil.
TWO VIEWS OF 12-INCH MORTAR ON RAILWAY MOUNT.
Lower view shows the mortar in its extreme position of recoil.
In spite of the weight and elaborate character of this unit it was put into production in an astonishingly short space of time. The pilot mount came through on August 22, 1918, less than nine months after the spade was first struck in the ground to begin the erection of the ordnance plant. By the end of August the pilot mortar had successfully passed its firing tests at Aberdeen, functioning properly at angles of elevation from 22 degrees to 65 degrees and in any direction from the mount. While this unit was put through hurriedly for these tests, the preparation for the rest of the deliveries was made on a grand scale, looking toward quantity production later on. When the armistice was signed, every casting, forging, and structural part for every one of the 91 railway mounts was on hand and completed at the works of the Morgan Engineering Co., and thereafter the process was merely one of assembling, although in a unit of such size the assembling job alone was one of great magnitude. Even at the reduced rate of production incident to the relaxation of tension after the armistice was signed, the company delivered 45 complete units to the Government up to April 7, 1919, or five more than Gen. Pershing said he would require during the whole campaign of 1919. Careful estimates show that if the war had continued the company would have delivered the mounts at the rate of 15 per month beginning on December 15, 1918, a rate which would have completed the entire project for 91 mounts by the middle of June, 1919.
As in the case of the 8-inch railway guns, the 12-inch mortars were provided with interchangeable wheel trucks allowing the unit to travel and work either on standard-gauge track or on the 60-centimeter, narrow-gauge track of the war zone in France.
The War Department did not have any 14-inch guns which could be spared from the seacoast defenses for use abroad. The Ordnance Department, therefore, inaugurated the project for the construction of 60 guns of 14-inch caliber. For the construction of such guns complete new plants were required, as all available facilities were already taken over for other projects considered more important. This contract was to have been turned out by the Neville Island ordnance plant. The Navy Department in May, 1918, expressed willingness to turn over to the Army certain 14-inch guns, 50 calibers, then under construction and of which it was estimated that 30 would be completed by March, 1919.
It was decided to place some of these 14-inch guns on American sliding railway mounts, and 16 such mounts were ordered from the Baldwin Locomotive Works, deliveries to begin February 1, 1919. The 16 units were to be delivered prior to April, 1919, but due to thesigning of the armistice work was suspended on the contracts, since the mounts were designed for use in France. The contract was canceled in March, 1919.
The Navy itself placed five of these guns on railway mounts of another design to be operated in France by naval forces on shore. Eleven such mounts were built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works under the supervision of the Navy Ordnance Bureau, and six of them were afterwards turned over to the Army.
Without discussing here the 12-inch howitzers, 20 feet long, which the Ordnance Department ordered produced and mounted on railway trucks, a development for use abroad in 1920, we come, finally, to the largest weapon of all in the railway artillery program, the 16-inch howitzer, the barrel of this mighty weapon being 26 feet 6 inches long. The American 16-inch howitzer had been forged out and finished prior to the date of America's entrance into the war. It was proposed to place this weapon on a railway mount and make it available for use on the western front.
The Ordnance Department completed the design for the mount on February 10, 1918. In order to turn out the unit in the shortest possible time, the project was placed with three manufacturers, each of whom was to produce different parts. The American Bridge Co. received the order to build the structural parts, the Baldwin Locomotive Works contracted for the trucks, while the Morgan Engineering Co. undertook to assemble the unit and also to build the top carriage and other mechanical parts. The contractors did a speedy job in producing the mount for this howitzer.
In nearly all railway artillery of this size it is necessary to provide bracing when the gun is set up in position for firing. The 16-inch howitzer mount was unique in that the weapon could be fired from the trucks without any track preparation whatsoever. An exhaustive test at the Aberdeen proving grounds demonstrated that this piece of artillery ranked with the highest types of ordnance in use by any country in the world.
In the meantime orders had been placed for 61 additional howitzers. The American Expeditionary Forces asked that 12 of these enormous weapons be sent overseas as soon as they could be produced, a job which would have extended over a period of months, if not years. Since none of the additional howitzers had been produced when the armistice was signed, the project of building mounts for them never got under way. The pilot howitzer and mount were not shipped abroad.
TWO VIEWS OF 14-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY.This type was evolved entirely by the Ordnance Department. It is an excellent weapon for coast defense and hurls a 1,200-pound projectile more than 18 miles.
TWO VIEWS OF 14-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY.This type was evolved entirely by the Ordnance Department. It is an excellent weapon for coast defense and hurls a 1,200-pound projectile more than 18 miles.
TWO VIEWS OF 14-INCH RAILWAY ARTILLERY.
This type was evolved entirely by the Ordnance Department. It is an excellent weapon for coast defense and hurls a 1,200-pound projectile more than 18 miles.
16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.A 1,600-pound projectile being loaded into the 16-inch howitzer from which it will be sent on a journey of approximately 13 miles.
16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.A 1,600-pound projectile being loaded into the 16-inch howitzer from which it will be sent on a journey of approximately 13 miles.
16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.
A 1,600-pound projectile being loaded into the 16-inch howitzer from which it will be sent on a journey of approximately 13 miles.
16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.This view shows howitzer in the act of firing.
16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.This view shows howitzer in the act of firing.
16-INCH HOWITZER ON RAILWAY MOUNT.
This view shows howitzer in the act of firing.
In the design of railway equipment for high-angle weapons such as howitzers, two loads must be considered by the builders in order to provide a gun car of sufficient strength to hold its freight. One of these loads, the lighter one, consists merely of the ordinary weight of the gun and its carriage upon the car wheels. The other load, the so-called firing load, consists of the weight of the unit plus the additional weight of the down-thrust of the howitzer when it recoils. In the case of the 16-inch howitzer the firing load is 748,231 pounds. The weight of 748,231 pounds must be distributed along the tracks by the numerous sets of wheels at the instant the gun is fired.
The mount for the howitzer is so constructed that this load is partly taken up by the slide of the gun car along the track. In addition, the howitzer is equipped with a hydraulic recoil cylinder. Thus the unit has a double recoil system. The car trucks in the tests comfortably transmitted, through a series of equalizer springs, this enormous load upon an ordinary rock-ballast track, without any distortion to the track or roadbed or impairment to the working parts of the unit. After each discharge the whole huge mount moves backward along the track for a distance of 20 or 30 feet.
Each railway artillery project called for the manufacture of a great equipment of ammunition cars, fire-control cars, spare-parts cars, supply cars, and the like, a complete unit being a heavy train in itself. Such armament-train cars, together with numerous other accessories and necessary equipment, were designed by the Ordnance Department and produced for each mount. In all, 530 ammunition cars were produced up to April, 1919. Most of them were shipped abroad, but 118 were retained for use in this country. Since the overseas cars were to be used with French railway equipment, it was necessary to fit them out with French standard screw couplers, air brakes, and other appliances for connecting up with French railway cars.
The matter of traction power for these gun and armament trains near the front set a problem for the Ordnance Department to solve. It was out of the question to use steam engines near the enemy's lines, since the steam and smoke would betray the location of artillery trains at great distances. The Ordnance Department adopted a gas-electric locomotive of 400 horsepower to be used to pull railway artillery trains at the front, and was on the point of letting a contract to the General Electric Co. for the manufacture of 50 of them when the armistice was signed.
It seems fitting at this point to say something about the Neville Island ordnance plant, on an island in the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, which would have produced weapons of the character of those used with railway mounts and would have turned them out in large numbers had the armistice not come to put an end to this enormous project. The plant was being erected for the Government by the United States Steel Corporation without profit to itself. Theestimated cost of this plant when finished was $150,000,000. Designed to supply the needs of the Army for artillery of the heaviest types, the Neville Island plant was being constructed on such a scale that it would surpass in size and capacity any of the famous gun works of Europe, including the Krupps.
It was being equipped to handle huge ordnance undertakings, such as the monthly completion of 15 great 14-inch guns and the production of 40,000 projectiles monthly for 14-inch and 16-inch guns. The plans of the Government contemplated the production of 14-inch guns to the number of 165 in all and their shipment to France in time to be in the field before May 1, 1920. An initial order for 90 of these weapons had been placed at the arsenal while it was being erected.
Besides 14-inch guns the plant was being equipped to turn out 16-inch and even 18-inch weapons. The immense size of the machinery necessary for such production can be understood when it is noted that an 18-inch gun weighs 510,000 pounds and a 14-inch gun 180,000 pounds. It requires from 12 to 18 months to produce guns of this size, yet Neville Island was being developed on a scale to build hundreds of them simultaneously. The entire plant was to cover 573 acres and was to employ 20,000 workmen when in full operation.
At the signing of the armistice work was suspended at Neville Island, and four months later the whole project was abandoned.
[19]Sets, fabricated parts.
[19]Sets, fabricated parts.