Ordnance Corps (United States Army)
United States Army Ordnance Corps is a supporting division of the United States Army headquartered in Fort Lee , Virginia .
The Ordnance Corps is responsible for supplying the US Army with weapons and weapon systems , guided missiles , ammunition and land vehicles . This included development , testing, purchasing and maintenance . The Ordnance School trains soldiers and civilians in weapons technology.
history
Origins and establishment
The origins of the Ordnance Corps date back to the first days of the American Revolution . On May 27, 1775, the Continental Congress decided on a committee, of which George Washington , then Commander in Chief of the Continental Army , was a member to supply the colonies with weapons and other military material. As a result, the position of an artillery commissioner was created in June 1775 and the Board of War and Ordnance was created the next year , which was responsible for the storage of powder, artillery and muskets. Paul Revere was one of the first civilian contractors to manufacture bronze guns. In early 1777 the first supply warehouse was built in Carlisle . In the same year the first arms factory, later known as the Springfield Armory .
A number of arms factories were added later, such as the Harpers Ferry Armory or Watertown Arsenal near Boston . In the early nineteenth century, these factories pioneered mass production and drove the development of new production methods and machines. Thus, the Ordnance Department contributed early to the industrial revolution in the United States.
In 1795 the Office of the Purveyor of Public Supplies was created under the responsibility of the United States Treasury Department . It was responsible for the procurement of all goods required for the public service, including weapons. In 1801, Eli Whitney , as a contractor, introduced a system of standard parts and earlier assembly line production in the production of muskets in the Springfield Armory. The Ordnance Department was finally established on May 14, 1812. In twenty years the staffing strength of the department grew to 14 officers and 250 men. The service in the technically advanced Ordnance Department was very popular.
Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War 1846–1848 was not a problem for the Ordnance Department because of the well-stocked magazines. Experts from the Ordnance Department became a 105-man combat unit to operate the newly introduced M1841 mountain howitzer and Hale missiles . founded. It was the Ordnance Department's only direct combat mission to date. At the end of the war, 55 officers, some 100 men and about 1,000 civilians were serving in the Ordnance Department.
American Civil War
During the American Civil War , the Ordnance Department supplied the Union Army with large quantities of war material. A similar organization of the Confederate States Army tried desperately to meet the needs of the southern states, but could do little to counter the greater production capacities of the northern states. At the end of the war, 64 officers, 600 men and 9,000 civilians were serving under the Ordnance Department. The work was not without its dangers. In 1862, for example, 78 civilian workers, most of them women , died in the explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal .
After the American Civil War, the Ordnance Department developed slowly. In 1874 the Sandy Hook experimental site was opened. In Watervliet Arsenal in 1887 opened the state-owned foundry for guns .
Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War in 1898 presented the Ordnance Department with new challenges. For one thing, a large number of volunteers had to be armed in short numbers. That was only partially successful; the Krag-Jørgensen repeating rifle introduced in 1892 was not available in the required number, so the outdated single-shot Springfield model had to be issued in 1873 . On the other hand, the theaters of war in the Philippines and Cuba were far away from their own territory. The Ordnance Department also had to be represented on site at the front.
First World War
The First World War meant an increase in production and thus in the Ordnance Department. From around 100 officers, several hundred men and civilian employees, the number of employees grew to 5,900 officers, 62,000 men and over 75,000 civilian employees. In the war years of 1917 and 1918, for example, over 3 billion cartridges for small arms , 2.5 million rifles and 3,000 pieces of artillery were manufactured. At the beginning of the conflict it became apparent that the US armed forces were insufficiently equipped with machine guns. This circumstance could only be countered towards the end of the war through the successful cooperation of the Ordnance Department with John Moses Browning . The collaboration produced the Browning M1917 (later known as the Browning M1919 ), Browning Automatic Rifle, and Browning M2 . Since the industry itself was reluctant to build up production capacities, the government built its own factories, which they then had contractors operate. At the end of the war, contractors operated 326 state-owned factories. The Ordnance Department also established a new repair concept with both stationary and mobile workshops. As the Sandy Hook proving ground proved too small, the new Aberdeen Proving Ground was opened in January 1918 .
Interwar period
The interwar period was marked by severe budget cuts. Important weapons such as the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle and the M101 howitzer could be developed, but z. B. the tank development was delayed. Training activities were centralized in 1940 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the new headquarters of the Ordnance Department.
Second World War
The Second World War required an even greater production of war material. For example, between the United States' entry into World War II and Victory over Japan Day , 47 billion small arms cartridges, 12 million rifles and 750,000 artillery pieces were manufactured. Over 300,000 soldiers from the Ordnance Department were deployed on the front lines. The Ordnance Department was responsible for half of the United States Army's order volume. The department had 7 self-owned weapons factories and 77 contractor-operated factories. The concept of having state-owned factories operated by contractors, developed during the First World War, was consistently pursued. All but one of the contractor-operated factories produced ammunition and explosives . The exception was the Detroit Tank Arsenal , which built over 22,000 tanks , including the new M3 Lee / Grant , and was responsible for a quarter of American tank production during the war. During the Second World War, the Ordnance Department was responsible for the disposal of ordnance and the repair of vehicles.
Rockets and space travel
After the Second World War, German scientists and staff from the Ordnance Department worked on new types of missiles and guided missiles in Operation Paperclip . The White Sands Missile Range and Redstone Arsenal sites played an important role in the early days of US space travel . With the missile technology of the Ordnance Corps, the first US American satellite Explorer 1 was launched into orbit .
Korean War
The Ordnance Department was reorganized into the Ordnance Corps in 1950 . During the Korean War , the Ordnance Corps had to switch back to war mode. The tasks were very similar to those in World War II: training, repairs, ammunition distribution, ordnance clearance. As in World War II, staff in the Ordnance Corps collected information about captured weapons and vehicles. The large collection later formed the United States Army Ordnance Museum . The Ordnance Corps implemented a standardization program for engines and transmissions in order to be able to cope with the repair order on the large and diverse vehicle fleet. Modern storage methods were also introduced.
Vietnam War
In 1962 the Ordnance Corps was disbanded and its tasks were transferred to the United States Army Materiel Command . The asymmetrical warfare that prevailed in the Vietnam War differed from previous wars because there was no fixed front.
Arms race
As the conflicts in Southeast Asia subsided, the arms race with the Warsaw Pact regained importance and the US Army modernized its equipment. Among other things, the tank units were equipped with modern M1 Abrams combat and M2 / M3 Bradley armored personnel carriers.
Today's organization
In 1985 the Ordnance Corps was reorganized within the regimental system of the United States Army . In 2008, the headquarters were relocated from the Aberdeen Proving Ground to Fort Lee. The Ordnance Corps had 5,700 officers and approximately 100,000 non-commissioned officers and men in 2011, both on active duty and in reserves of the United States National Guard or United States Army Reserve .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Homepage US Army Ordnance Corps and School
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Keir Brooks Sterling: Serving the line with excellence US Army Ordnance Center and School, 1987, pp. 1-6 [1]
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Karl Rubis: The History of Ordnance in America March 26, 2014 [2]
- ↑ Charlotte and “Doc” Cronin: The first years of Aberdeen Proving Ground in: The Baltimore Sun , September 26, 2014 [3]