Ordnance Department Research and Development AL LKOGIN, Associate Editor Fifth i n a series o n t h e War D e p a r t m e n t research a n d development, program
No
Ho branch of military research a n d development demands more of the knowledge and assistance of civilian science and industry than the highly diversified research and development program of t h e Ordnance Department, which i s responsible for the development of more than 2,000 major items including hand grenades, pistols, trucks, tanks, artillery, and rockets. This complex research program, which involves many academic studies such as chemistry, physics, mechanics, thermodynamics, and ballistics, cannot be completely handled by the Ordnance Department organization. Lacking sufficient personnel and facilities for these studies, the Ordnance Department is depending on the active support of industry, universities, and research institutions to solve many of its scientific problems. To support this program t h e Ordnance Department has been allotted §52,000,000 of the Army's appropriation of S2S 1,500,000. This allotment is t h e second largest, the Air Forces receiving the largest amount—S185,500,000. During the war the Ordnance Department spenjb more than §125,000,000 o n basic research and long-range development programs with outside civilian scientific agencies. This successful policy of utilizing outside facilities is being continued during the postwar period t o even a greater extent. At present, contracts have been made with more than 650 industrial firms and 30 universities and colleges for studies on fundamental and applied research problems involving fuels, explosives, propellants, rubber, chemicals, steel, and nonferrous metals. The list of outside industrial firms and scientific institutions include such organizations as the Bell Telephone Co., General Electric Co., Radio Corp. of America, California Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Carnegie Institute of Technology. Battelle Institute, and t h e Mellon Institute. With the research program involving such a multitude of scientific problems, the Ordnance Department must also depend on prominent scientists and industrialists for guidance and advice, either individually or in groups. T h e head advisory group is t h e Scientific Advisory Council composed of C. F . Kettering, W . D . Coolidge, R. Furrer, Col. H. W. Alden, Edgar C. Baizi, F. B .
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Jewett, C. L. Bausch, F. M. Zeder, and H. Eksergian. The general coordination in particular fields of science and industry is effected through contact with special consultants and advisers and with advisory and working committees. Two prominent committees are t h e SAE-Ordnance A d visory Committee for the development of automotive materiel and the Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Ordnance Metallurgical Advisory Hoards. Since all arms and armament are supplied to the other branches of the armed forces and our allies, coordination of the research and development program must be also effected internally. This is accomplished by the Ordnance Technical Committee, which is composed of representatives of all services of Ordnance, other technical services of the Army, Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces, Navy, and our allies. The general function of this committee, which meets weekly, is to consider and recommend technical action upon all matters affecting ordnance materiel designed for t h e armed forces. The internal organization of the Ordnance Department is divided into four major services: Military Plans and Training, Research and Development, Industrial, and Field. The Research and Development Service, headed by Brig. Gen. Henry B. Sayler, is the most important in peacetime. It is composed of an executive division, the Research and Materials Division, and five Materiel Development Divisions: Artillery, Ammunition, Small Arms, Tank and Motor, and Rocket. The Ordnance Research and Development Center is located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Here t h e testing and proving of all ordnance materiel including artillery, small arms, tanks, and vehicles are conducted. Also located here are the Paint and Chemical Laboratory and the Ballistics Research Laboratory which is devoted to ballistic research and the preparation of firing and bombing tables. Other laboratories are located as follows: Picatinny Arsenal, explosives and plastics; Frankford Arsenal, nonferrous metals; Springfield Armory, small arms; Rock Island Arsenal, rubber; Watertown, ferrous metals; a n d Watervliet, precision casting. Ordnance testing installations include the rocket testing grounds a t White
CHEMICAL
A€aj. Getr. E, S,
Hughes
Sands, X. Mex., ballistics range at Muroc, Calif., and testing laboratories at El Centro, Calif. Much of the detailed work involved in coordinating and indicating the applications of research to the development of ordnance mat6riel is ]>erformed by the Research and Materials Division which is t h e heart of the research organization. The activities of this division include general supervision over the programs of the eight laboratories which are maintained a t Aberdeen Proving Ground and at the manufacturing arsenals; the technical processing of inventions for war use submitted by the National Inventors Council and liaison with the National Defense Research Committee, ArmyN a v y Patents Advisory Board, and technical committees of other army technical services. In addition, the various branches of this division are responsible for the collection and evaluation of ordnance technical intelligence information; preparation of ballistics data for the armed forces; preparation of all specifications for materiel and materials; and the coordination of all activities of the ordnance research groups on fuels and lubricants. Ammunition
Development
Ammunition may b e said to be the heart of the capacity t o make war, since t h e superiority of any branch of the Army is determined b y its fire power. It is t h e responsibility of the Ammunition D e velopment Division t o keep the fire power of t h e U . S. armed forces superior t o any other. Research on ammunition primarily involves the basic principles of chemistry, physics, and mathematics, since a n explosion is a moving system which receives its enormous energy from t h e chemical reactions i n the explosive. I t
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ENGINEERING
NEWS
is in this field that the chemist and chemical engineer play a major role. In the first phase of explosives research t he chemist must first synthesize tlie compounds and then determine the essential properties, such as sensitivity to shock friction or heat, energy and volume of gases released on decomposition, and resistance to decomposition under various conditions of temperature and humidity. The physical chemist and physicist must then determine the functioning characteristics, such as rate of detonation, burning rate, and duration of flask. A t the third stage the chemical engineer is required to provide the details for economical production. Although all the Army uses only 12 standard explosive compounds, the chemical engineer's contributions in recent years made possible the manufacture of two new compounds, R D X and Haleite. The atomic bomb, with all its terrifying publicity, has not outmoded other explosives, since its use is yet limited to long-range strategic attack. High explosives such as R D X will continue t o be used even in the future for specific strategic and tactical employment. T h e trends of development point toward that of larger caliber weapons with higher velocity and improved accuracy and explosives with smokeless and flashless properties. Industrial and scientific organizations are now working o n these projects, studying such problems as the peak pressure at the terminal blast, shapes and effects of fragmentation on targets, study of the fundamental properties of explosions with x-rays, and other highly developed equipment. tin His tics Re sea rch The Ballistics Research Laboratory, a t Aberdeen Proving Ground is housed chiefly in two buildings, the main laboratory building and the supersonic wind tunnel building. A recent War Department appropriation of $1,000,000 i s available for a terminal ballistics laboratory. The newly developed supersonic wind A. series of flash radiographs of20-mm. high-explosive-loaded shell Un.nxed.i
