It has been said that while amateurs study tactics
professionals study logistics. Whether this is true or not, what is certain is
that large scale warfare inevitably consumes munitions and supplies in
quantities that are always an order of magnitude greater then was ever
envisioned in peacetime.
The difficulties
of supplying sufficient amounts of material in wartime are compounded
by the lack of attention, and prestige, given to the subject by peacetime armed
forces.
One of the other things commonly re-discovered by
even the most professional armies when they encounter genuine large scale
warfare is the importance and lethality of artillery. The necessity of
providing a greater number of artillery shells then was ever imagined seems to
be a constant.
The way to provide for munitions on an industrial
scale is to bring the national manufacturing base in alignment with the goal of
maximum production of the necessary munitions. Writing in his book “Allied Artillery of WWII” Ian
V. Hogg notes that in Britain ‘19-ton’ steel was adopted as the standard shell
material. It was an industrial grade of steel that could be handled by
virtually any engineering shop.
The drawback of this material was that the shell had
to have rather thick walls to withstand the forces exerted when being fired.
American shells used ‘23-ton’ steel which gave thinner walls which in turn
meant a greater percentage of explosive, in general using ‘19-ton’ steel yielded an explosive content
of 8% by weight whereas ‘23-ton’ steel shells had an average of 13%
explosives. In the end the need to
provide the necessary quantity of shells overrode any advantages that ‘23-ton’
steel might have afforded.
Modern artillery shells have come a long way from
the simple steel and high explosive munitions of World War I. Guided or
"smart" ammunition have been developed in recent years, but have yet
to supplant unguided munitions in all applications. Modern guided shells offer
greater accuracy at the cost of greater expense.
Expense is of course relative. The point at which
the cost of a given number of “smart shells” is less than the cost of a greater
number of more basic (but individually cheaper) shells to accomplish a given
mission is the point at which the guided shells actually become less expensive
to use.
This is also the point at which the supply of large
numbers of modern shells becomes a necessity in the event of a great or
prolonged conflict. Attempting to supply the number of shells demanded by high
tempo warfare is a sure way to discover the limits imposed by industrial
constraints.
Like the British during the Great War (as it was
originally referred to before it became apparent that we were going to have enough
of these things that it would be worth using numbers to keep them in order) we
are going to have to think about how we are going to manufacture our modern
artillery shells with an eye to mass production. If the limiting factor for
modern shells is determined to be the guidance systems then it would be
advantageous to design systems which can be built by non-traditional
manufacturers.
The burgeoning domestic consumer electronic industry
may not think in terms of marketing armaments but that does not mean that they
could not do so in an emergency. It would be easier to do this if, before the
aforementioned emergency, some thought had been put in to designing guidance
mechanisms that were compatible with standard, nationally manufactured,
electronic components.
It may be that to do this we will have to accept
some compromises in capability in order to insure that standard manufacturing
processes can be used. But in the event that mass production becomes necessary
it will turn out to be a compromise well worth making.
What the Thunder Said by
John Conrad
Allied
Artillery of World War II by Ian V. Hogg
