Munitions

ARMY & NAVY

Last fortnight the War Department sounded off twice. Both announcements were sponsored by Secretary of War Davis himself but from the subject involved it was plain to see that the Assistant Secretary of War, chunky, cheerful Hanford MacNider, was on his job. The subject of the announcement and the MacNider job were and are munitions.

The theory underlying the U. S. Army is primarily a theory of defense. The Congressional Act embodying the theory is called the National Defense Act, passed in 1916, amended in 1920 and 1922. Besides charging the Assistant Secretary of War with the specific task of finding shot and shell and guns to shoot them for U. S. defense, the act sets up the U. S. military as follows: 1) The Regular Army, 2) The Nattional Guard, 3) The Organized Reserves. The U. S. is divided into nine corps areas of equal population. In war, each area would supply one Army division, two National Guard divisions, three Reserve divisions--54 divisions in all or six field armies. The regular Army and National Guard divisions (three field armies in all) are supposed to be ready for immediate service.

Munitions sufficient to supply two of these three armies until U. S. industry could be converted to a war basis are supposed to be stored in U. S. arsenals. This provision of the National Defense Act was the nub of the first of the War Department announcements. Secretary Davis notified the President that U. S. arsenals were shy some $516,000,000 worth of reserve munitions.

In reply, President Coolidge made known that he considered present appropriations for National Defense to be adequate, and further "propaganda" to be "unnecessary."

Unabashed, Secretary Davis last week issued his second announcement in the form of a letter to Congress. This time he discussed sources of munitions instead of sums. Not only would the first two U. S. Field Armies run short of munitions soon after a war began, but, as things now stand, they would have to wait about a year to get more munitions. They would have to wait longer than that if U. S. factories had to be taught how to make munitions. Therefore, since modern armies fight on their factories as well as their stomachs, Secretary Davis asked Congress to amend the National Defense Act so that the technique of munitions-making could be kept alive in the U. S. "nucleus" or "educational" orders.

The Law now requires that U. S. munitions contracts, "except in rare cases," shall be let to the lowest bidders. The bidders include the U. S. arsenals, which naturally can underbid private concerns. Private munitions-making for the U. S. tends to be not only profitless but costly. Members of the Army Ordnance Associations-- civilian industries organized under reserve officers and the Assistant Secretary of War--spend large sums keeping up-to-date their factory plans and personnel for munitions-making. It would be not only just but wise for the U. S. to give "educational" orders to such industries. During a war, the U. S. would depend upon civilian arsenals almost entirely. The U. S. arsenals could turn out only 10% of the tanks and artillery necessary; only 1% of the ammunition.

Anticipating critics who would say that to let the War Department place "educational" orders would swamp the War Department with demands for patronage, Secretary Davis referred again to the existing shortage of reserve munitions. Moreover, he pointed out that powder grows old. Small-arm ammunition lives 10 years; artillery shells, 20 years. Also, the War Department has many a new type of gun which it wants to try out. Requests for orders would come no faster than the War Department needs arise. No question of profiteering would enter because the orders would be on such a small scale, "and, in fact, we could watch the profit very easily." The proposed "educational" orders would add only three millions to the War Department's 392-million-dollar budget. In return, U. S. factories would surely contain models of all the special tools, jigs, fixtures and gauges without which the U. S. cannot defend itself.