The progress in the manufacture was thereafter steadily upward. During the week ending February 2, 1918, the daily production of military rifles in the United States was 9,247, of which 7,805 were modified Enfields produced in the three private plants, and 1,442 were Springfields built in the two arsenals. The total production for that week was 50,873 guns of both types, or nearly enough for three Army divisions. In spite of the time that went into the standardization of the Enfield rifle, all troops leaving the United States were armed with American weapons at the ports of embarkation. Ten months after we declared war against Germany we were producing in a week four times as many rifles as Great Britain had turned out in a similar period after 10 months of war, and our production was then twice as large in volume as Great Britain had attained in the war up to that time. By the middle of June, 1918, we had passed the million and one-half mark in the production of rifles of all sorts, this figure including over 250,000 rifles which had been built upon original contracts placed by the former Russian government. The production of Enfields and Springfields during the war up to November 9, 1918, amounted to a total of 2,506,307 guns. Of these 312,878 were Springfield rifles produced by the two Government arsenals. We had started the war with a reserve of 600,000 Springfield rifles on hand, and in addition stored in our armories and arsenals were 160,000 Krags. These latter had to be cleaned and repaired in large part before they could be used. From the Canadian Government we purchased 20,000 Ross rifles. The deliveries of Russian rifles totaled 280,049. This gave us a total equipment of 3,575,356 rifles. Since approximately one-half of the soldiers of an army as actually organised carry rifles, the number of rifles procured in all by the Ordnance Department was sufficient to arm both for fighting and for training an army of 7,000,000 men, disregarding reserve and maintenance rifles. The Enfield thus became the dominant rifle of our military effort. With its modified firing mechanism it could use the superior Springfield cartridges with their great accuracy. The Enfield sights, by having the peep sight close to the eye of the firer, gave even greater quickness of aim than the Springfield sights afforded. In this respect the weapon was far superior to the Mauser, which was the main dependence of the German Army. All in all to a weapon that made scant appeal to our ordnance officers in a few weeks we added improvements and modifications that made the 1917 Enfield a gun that for the short-range fighting in Europe compared favorably with the Springfield and was to the allied cause a distinct contribution which America substantially could claim to be her own.