At the Erie Howitzer Plant a similar procedure was followed. Here, on eleven acres of what had been vacant ground in August, 1917, the American Brake Shoe & Foundry Company six months later turned out finished 155-millimeter howitzers and reached a productive capacity of twelve howitzers daily before the armistice. The plant stands to-day as a complete gun factory, although all its equipment is greased and housed up, and its bays echo only to the steps of watchmen. While it was selected chiefly to be the stand-by plant for the production of 155-millimeter howitzers, at the shop has been concentrated the machinery and tooling used by the Northwestern Ordnance Company to produce 4.7-inch guns at its war plant at Madison, Wisconsin. This machinery had a capacity of four such guns daily. The howitzer shop and the gun shop occupy separate buildings. In the third building has been installed machinery for producing shell for 155-millimeter guns. The machinery set up at Erie is designed to allow for increases in the powers of the two weapons to be made there. The howitzer can be increased in length (thereby increasing its range), and the 4.7-inch gun can be increased to 5 inches in caliber, without requiring fundamental changes in the machinery. The present industrial position of the United States with respect to the manufacture of mobile field artillery may be seen in the following tabular summing up of the preceding paragraphs: +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | _Place of _Monthly Production| | Manufacture_ _Type of Weapon_ Capacity_ | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ |Rochester Gun Plant 75-millimeter gun 360 | |Watervliet Arsenal 75-millimeter gun 49 | |Erie Howitzer Plant 4.7-inch gun 100 | |Watervliet Arsenal 4.7-inch gun 17 | |Erie Howitzer Plant 155-millimeter howitzer 200 | |Watervliet Arsenal 155-millimeter howitzer 52 | |Watervliet Arsenal 155-millimeter gun 60 | |Watervliet Arsenal 240-millimeter howitzer 60 | | --- | | Total monthly gunmaking capacity 898 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+