Modus Operandi of the Trench Warfare Department.
Organisation of Manufacture.
(i) Introduction. The way the Trench Warfare Department organised its industrial base to produce the munitions for which it was, for its time, unusual and innovative. This contrasted with the more orthodox manufacturing methods used by the rest of the Ministry of Munitions, and to aid understanding, it is helpful to summarise in one place, even at the risk of some repetitions, the available information on how the department operated, especially during its time in the Ministry of Munitions, the period most fully documented.
(ii) The Production of Conventional Munitions. In times of war, the army's munitions requirements were determined by three factors: (a) the size of the military as determined by Parliament, (b) the scale of equipment issued to each Branch of the Service as prescribed in Army Regulations, (c) the rate of consumption. The Master-General of the Ordnance Department decided on the nature and quantities of the munitions provided. Orders were sent to the Chief Superintendent of Ordnance Factories, who had them filled by the Royal Arsenals, or sent to the Contracts Department, which placed orders with the War Office-approved suppliers. When the Ministry of Munitions was established in June 1915, it abandoned the War Office practice of placing “spot orders” in favour of planned manufacturing programs. Answerable to Parliament and the Treasury for spending unprecedented sums of public money efficiently, the civil servants who ran the Ministry established strict manufacturing protocols to ensure maximum productivity from limited resources, which had to be allocated effectively across many conflicting commitments. In keeping with this practice, the Ministry demanded that the War Office provide regular notifications of the types and quantities of munitions required, along with the delivery dates. This information was number crunched by the Department of Munitions Requirements and Statistics to be translated into manufacturing orders sent to the most appropriate Supply Department.[1] Once the maximum size of the army had been determined and information on the level of replacement of material lost through military activities was available, the Ministry of Munitions could agree with the War Office on the amount and rate of issue of all materials it needed to prosecute the war. For example, if the army had 100 guns firing five rounds each a day then the daily requirement is 500 shells and armed with this information the Ministry could allocate factory space, machinery, materials and labour to meet this demand and, as similar calculations could be made for every item of equipment required, the Ministry could calculate whether or not the Nation had the resources to meet all the demands from the soldiers and, if not, enter into discussions with the military about their priorities. In this manner, the Ministry's bureaucrats were able to track inputs and outputs, which, barring accidents, ensured the army received the munitions it required.
(iii) Trench Warfare Supplies. From the perspective of munitions development for trench warfare, 1915 was the most formative year. All belligerents on the Western Front struggled to understand the realities of trench warfare during this period, where this new form of warfare brought rapid, tactical surprises for the infantry. 1915 was the year in which almost all the weapons of trench warfare were developed or perfected: trench mortars, hand and rifle grenades, poison gas, body armour, signal lights, flares, and incendiary bombs. It is often forgotten that many innovations and improvements came from serving soldiers who saw them as crucial to surviving close combat with the enemy, only yards away. Almost all munitions produced from December 1914 to late 1915 were short-term fixes, required to provide the troops in the trenches with the specialised weapons so urgently needed. Meanwhile, the Trench Warfare Department struggled to develop better patterns and expand its manufacturing capacity, and it was during this time that a small number of choice munitions emerged, such as the Mills grenade and the 3-inch Stokes mortar, which were to revolutionise infantry tactics. Nevertheless, the Trench Warfare Department did not monopolise the invention or the manufacture of trench warfare material. Adopting inventions from others and turning their prototypes into robust, soldier-proof battlefield weapons was one of its major roles. Inventors were not limited to Captain Newton of the Second Army Workshops, Captain Livens RE of the Special Brigades, or the Research Unit at GHQ, but also the countless, nameless soldiers who, drawing on experience and ingenuity, introduced many key modifications.
(iv) The Characteristics of Manufacture. One of the difficulties we experience in considering how the Trench Warfare Department organised the manufacture of munitions and other equipment for which it was responsible is appreciating how innovative and unusual it was for its time and how much it differed from the conventional factory-based organisation practised elsewhere in the Ministry of Munitions. The organisation adopted across the trench warfare department in 1915, and later modified, was developed by the Grenade Section. By early summer 1915, this section was having to deal with the design and manufacture of at least five different patterns of emergency grenade. Its staff was limited, and to make efficient use of their time, the Section organised its Outside Engineering staff, usually a Royal Engineer officer, to be responsible for one or more of the grenades. These responsibilities included, (i) Perfecting the design, usually in collaboration with an industrial partner that would become the major supplier. (ii) Recruit more suppliers and assist in organising factory manufacturing and supervise the training of the workforce. (iii) Arranged for the delivery of the materials necessary to construct the grenade bodies. (iv) Arrange for the supply of suitable fuses from an external supplier such as Nobel. (v) Organise the filling of the grenades with high explosive. (vi) Quality assure the completed grenades and organise their transport to the ordinance officers on the line of communications in France or elsewhere. Trench warfare munitions, in engineering terms, were crude compared to the high standard of precision engineering considered normal for munitions manufacture, which meant their design and manufacture were governed by fewer limiting factors. Thus, they were constructed of cheap, inferior materials, not subject to wartime shortages, such as tin plate or cast iron, that could be easily worked to produce simple components requiring minimal manipulation used to construct the munition, all carried out by a workforce with only basic skills and lacking the latest machinery. This facilitated rapid, cheap manufacture, and with a simplicity of design that conferred both military and economic advantages. A 240mm heavy mortar bomb took just over a week to produce and cost about 51 shillings and 3 pence (£98.86p), whereas a 9.2-inch howitzer shell could take three months, or more, from the original casting to delivery to a gun battery and cost 217 shillings and 6 pence (£641.54p).[2] Similarly, the simple design of a Stokes mortar made it easy to use, requiring a less sophisticated and advanced training programme for its crew than was necessary for a more sophisticated weapon, such as a Field gun, so its crews were drawn from the infantry rather the more skilled and highly trained artillerists; an essential consideration in a weapon deployed close to the front line and subject to enhanced attention on the part of the enemy necessitating frequent replacement of dead and wounded mortarmen. Similarly, if the mortar was damaged beyond the simple repairs that its crew could carry out, it was abandoned, except perhaps for its expensive periscope, as the cost of a replacement was substantially less than the costs incurred in sending it to an Ordnance Department repair shop.
(v) Fluctuations in Demand. Trench warfare was a highly dynamic form of warfare, continually evolving, so its munitions and other equipment were subject to frequent fluctuations in design, quantity, and replacement. The Trench Warfare Supply Department would build up, at great cost and effort, the resources to manufacture a particular munition, such as the Ball or Pitcher grenade, and just as production was beginning, GHQ would suddenly increase the size of the order, shorten the delivery time, or even cancel the orders resulting in significant disruption to the Department’s manufacturing strategy and its relationships with its suppliers through cancellations, only partially alleviated by compensation.[3] As an illustration of the challenges faced by the Outside Engineering Branch, we need look no further than the fluctuating orders for the Mills grenade. In early 1916, when it was still under development and only trial batches had been released for evaluation, GHQ informed the War Office that this grenade met its needs and would become the only hand grenade issued to the army and suggested a weekly supply of 500,000. After the limited but successful employment of the Mills during the closing stages of the Battle of Loos, GHQ increased this demand to 703,000 a week, then, with the reduction in military activity in the winter, reduced this to 250,000 a week in January 1916. Six months later, during the preparations for the Battle of the Somme, the weekly demand had crept up to 1,000,000 a week, reaching a peak of 1,400,000 in August, then dropping back to 750,000 a week in December, leaving the Trench Warfare Supply Department, with the contracts for the higher August demand still running, and having to find storage for 6,000,000 surplus Mills grenades. Another consequence of demand fluctuations or design changes was frequent worker retraining, which created significant additional work for small manufacturers and adversely affected their retention. Even when they were financially compensated, they were reluctant to tool up and train labour to manufacture weapons, which, at a moment’s notice, and without warning, could be cancelled. When the Ministry of Munitions complained to the War Office about what appeared to them a lack of planning on the part of GHQ, the soldiers informed the civilians that such fluctuations in demand were the inevitable result of the changing circumstances on a battlefield, and they should learn to regard them as “ a normal feature of war because of unexpected conditions”. This made the predictive planning of production, as practised elsewhere in the Ministry of Munitions, was all but impossible for the Trench Warfare Supply Department and, until the end of 1916 at least, the requirements for most trench equipment remained a matter of guesswork for many items requested by the War Office remained in short supply so that everything produced in a usable form was sent to the army which may result in them receiving a munition whose design owed more to the material and labour available rather than any intended military use. A further example demonstrating the rapidity of response and the remarkable degree of flexibility inherent in the Trench Warfare Department’s method of working is the many emergency demands arising from preparations for the Battle of the Somme. This was a demand for 10,000 red ground flares, a demand considered so urgent by GHQ that they sent an officer by aeroplane back to Britain on 16 June 1916 to emphasise its importance, for they were required for a major operation starting in France on 26 June.[4] No such flares existed in Britain for Jackson, and the Trench Warfare Research Department had only conducted a small number of preliminary experiments, as the essential ingredient producing the red colour, strontium nitrate, was not manufactured in Britain and was practically unobtainable from elsewhere because of the war. To meet this urgent order, Jackson had the Outside Engineering Branch hoover up almost all the strontium nitrate available in Britain, clearing out the firework manufacturers, University and Industrial laboratories, and organising the manufacture and delivery of the required flares to France just before the 26 June deadline. A repeat order for ground flares, received on 3 July, was equally urgent, but for any colour except red, as the British infantry had learned to its cost that red was the colour used by the German infantry to call down defensive artillery support. By the end of 1915, the army had sufficient experience of trench warfare to determine which munitions were the most effective. The War Office was now in a position to negotiate with the Ministry of Munitions how it was going to meet the army’s estimates for the first six months of 1916. This, in turn, enabled the Trench Warfare Supply Department to plan its requirements for materials and ensure that it had sufficient industrial capacity to meet the army’s needs.
1915 December. 1916 January. 1916 February. 1916 March. 1916 April. 1916 May.
Mortars & Ammo.
No. Ammo No. Ammo No. Ammo No. Ammo No. Ammo No. Ammo
3.7-inch 400 37,800 500 42,530 600 47,250 710 53,760 830 60,270 820 60,270
4-inch 80 6,300 120 9,450 160 12,600 230 15,930 300 19,250 300 19,250
3 ins Stokes 800 63.03 900 68,250 1,000 73,500 1,140 83,790 1,280 94,080 1,280 94,080
1.57 inch medium 230 11,550 240 12,340 250 13,130 262 13,750 275 14,440 275 14,440
2 inch medium 400 21,000 500 26,250 600 31,500 760 38,500 925 45,325 926 45,325
Heavy Mortars 100 3,700 200 7,360 300 10,540 400 14 400 13,720
Grenades. Weekly Weekly Weekly Weekly Weekly Weekly
Mills 413,900 615,000 634,000 634,000 634,000 634,000
Percussion 80,000 85,000 85,000 85,000 85,000 85,000
Rifle Grenades 146,000 146,000 150,000 154,000 163,000 164,000
War Office estimates for Trench Warfare Munitions. January-July 1916. These estimates were quickly exceeded as the army continued to expand, taking over more of the trench line on the Western Front from the French and expanding operations in other Theatres.
(vi) Modification in Design to Facilitate Manufacture. The decision to restrict the manufacture of trench warfare stores to commercial factories and workshops not deemed skilled enough to produce the sophisticated munitions manufactured by the Ministry of Munitions, together with the tendency inherited from FW3A that rapidity of production was important, made it imperative that the design of trench warfare munitions was as simple as possible, compatible with safety and function. When weapons, such as the 2-inch medium trench mortar, were taken over from the Royal Ordnance Factories, they underwent a complete overhaul in design to facilitate cheap, rapid manufacture, resulting in the bomb heads being made of cast iron rather than munitions-grade steel, the expensive No 80 fuse replaced by a simpler design that incorporated the cheap, commercially manufactured No. 8 detonator. The complex wooden bed that supported the mortar was redesigned for manufacture in engineering workshops, which lacked the skilled labour found in the Royal Ordnance Factories. The most significant redesign of all trench warfare stores took place throughout 1916 to facilitate manufacture and, significantly, reduce costs, as the financial burden of the war was beginning to influence what war-like stores could be provided to the army. This massive programme of redesign encompassed almost all the equipment used in trench warfare, including the stakes that anchored barbed wire. It was a collaboration between the Experimental Section at GHQ, the Trench Warfare Supply Department, and the Department of Munitions Design, directed towards re-evaluating their military usefulness and achieving a significant reduction in production costs through simplified design, economical use of materials, and ease of manufacture.
(vii) Manufacture Pending Approval. As emphasised elsewhere, the safety and efficiency of equipment issued to the army were safeguarded by well-defined procedures implemented and enforced by the Ordnance Board and the Chief Inspector, Woolwich, which, from an early date, insisted on the importance of ensuring the safety and efficiency of the experimental weapons produced by the Trench Warfare Department. At the same time, the supply officers responsible for the actual production of munitions, under pressure from urgent demands from GHQ, would, out of necessity, contravene many of the accepted War Office procedures, as this would significantly delay the issue of their weapons. Thus, in response to the congestion in the inspection of munitions at Woolwich in the summer of 1915 that was delaying the issue of shells, the Trench Warfare Department set up a Drawing Office, issued specifications and drawings to manufacturers and, for the first six months of its existence, used its Outside Engineers not only to oversee production of the munitions it produced, but also to inspect the quality. This created a parallel, but separate, approval system from the War Office, which allowed the department to manufacture and issue in large numbers emergency weapons, such as the Ball grenades for the Dardanelles and the 4-inch Stokes mortar and smoke ammunition for the Battle of Loos in September, successes that would not have been possible if compelled to use the War Office procedures. This experience of semi-independently producing large orders for emergency weapons encouraged the department to prepare for, or even begin, the production of weapons in anticipation of future orders. After the demonstration of the 3-inch Stokes mortar at Wormwood Scrubs in July 1915, General Jackson suggested that the Trench Warfare Department prepare to manufacture 1,000, along with a suitable ration of ammunition, even though at this time the mortar had been rejected by the Ordnance Board and its final design, and that of its ammunition were far from being settled. Once the War Office had accepted the mortar, Mr Roger, in the absence of any further demand from the War Office, ordered an additional 2,000 mortars, a decision that consumed all the resources his department could allocate for the production of a light mortar, and effectively ensured that if the army wanted a light trench mortar, it had no choice but to accept the 3-inch Stokes. An internal review into these discissions, released in early December 1915, concluded, Although such a practice is indefensible in principle, and in practice caused much worry and trouble both to manufacturers and the department, there is no doubt that production has been considerably accelerated thereby, and the extra cost has been quite inconsiderable.[5] The introduction of new weapons, such as time-fused hand grenades and trench mortars, never manufactured before by the munitions industry, required the Trench Warfare Supply Department to build up an entirely new manufacturing supply chain in anticipation that a novel munition in anticipation of it being accepted by the Ordnance Board. For example, in September 1915, the Department made arrangements for the experimental manufacture of 9.54-inch mortar bombs. However, the design was not approved until February 1916. By that time, everything was in place to start bulk manufacturing, including building capacity in electric welding, a technique practically unknown in British industry.
[1] The contemporary use of the term Supply covers all aspects of what we recognise today as manufacturing, including labour, materials and industrial capacity.
[2] In 2020 values.
[3] TNA MUN/5/382/1600/6. The History of Trench Warfare Supply. Section IVa. General Policy and Procedures. a) Demand to Nov.1917. 1st Draft. Miss L. J. Redstone.
[4] 26 June was the original start date for the Battle of the Somme, but the weather broke, preventing aerial spotting for the artillery and delaying the start until 1 July.
[5] Official History of the Ministry of Munitions. IX Part 1 p. 17.