America's Munitions 1917-1918United States. War Department
History
America's Munitions 1917-1918
United States. War Department
United States. Army -- Supplies and stores; Weapons; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Equipment and supplies
In August, 1918, we let contracts for 135,000 of the 25-millimeter
pistols and for approximately 30,000 of the 35-millimeter pistols. The
A. H. Fox Gun Co. completed 4,193 of the smaller pistols and the Scott
& Fetzger Machine Co. turned out 7,750 of them. Other concerns which
had taken contracts but had not come into production when the armistice
was signed were the National Tool & Manufacturing Co., the Doehler Die
Castings Co., the Hammond Typewriter Co., and Parker Bros.
Considerable experimental work of an interesting nature was carried out
looking toward the development of incendiary devices. Three types of
flame projectors, flaming bayonets, an airplane destroyer, incendiary
darts, and the smoke knapsack were among the projects undertaken.
Owing in large measure to changes in requirements by the American
Expeditionary Forces none of these devices was actually turned out on
any considerable scale.
CHAPTER XIV.
MISCELLANEOUS ORDNANCE EQUIPMENT.
The miscellaneous ordnance equipment of the American soldier in the
recent war--that is, articles which he carried with him and which added
to his comfort, his safety, or his efficiency as a fighter--while in
many respects identical with the equipment used by our troops for many
years, at the same time contained several novelties.
In the novelty class were helmets and armor. There is a widespread
impression that helmets and body armor passed away with the invention
of gunpowder and because of that invention. This impression is not
at all true. Body armor came to its highest development long after
gunpowder was in common use in war. The sixteenth century witnessed the
most extensive use of armor; yet at that time guns and pistols formed
an important part of the equipment of every army, and even a weapon
which is generally fancied to be ultramodern, the revolver, had been
invented.
The fact is that not gunpowder but tactics caused the decline of armor.
Not that armor was unable to stop many types of projectiles shot from
guns, but that its weight hampered swift maneuvering, caused it to be
laid aside by the soldier. The decline of armor may be said to date
from the Thirty Years' War. The armies in that period, and particularly
that of the Swedes, began making long marches for surprise attacks,
and the body armor of the troops was found to be a hindrance in such
tactics. Thereafter armor went out of fashion.
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