WATERVLIET ARSENAL, N.Y. (Oct. 15, 2014) -- With a 201-year history of continuous operation, the Army's Watervliet Arsenal has a common challenge that homeowners face every day ̶ How to reduce clutter.
Anyone who has ever owned a home with either a basement or an attic knows just how difficult it is to go through and purge items that they may not have laid eyes on in years. Sometimes it is the sentimental value that stands in the way of making room in a very valued and limited storage space area.
For others, as well as the arsenal, it is often a belief that "I cannot get rid of that because someday I will need it" that fuels the hesitance to purge storage areas.
Without a doubt, there is a lot of sentimental, as well as historical, value placed on the buildings and machinery that have supported the arsenal through many wars. But for the arsenal to maintain thousands of gauges, which some date back to the Korean War, might boggle the mind unless one looks at some of the weapon systems in use today.
Weapon systems the arsenal may have manufactured 50, 60, or even 70 years ago are still finding utility in many foreign militaries, as well as in armed insurgent groups.
According to Wikipedia, the M101 105mm howitzer system that went into production at Watervliet in the 1940s is still in use today by the Lithuanian, Mexican, as well as by the armies in 50 other countries.
Other World War II era weapons manufactured at Watervliet, such as the M20 75mm recoilless rifle, are still widely used by several countries today to include those in NATO.
During the 2012 Libyan Civil War, the Libyan Liberation Army, which helped overthrow Colonel Muammar Gaddafi from power, is reported to have used truck-mounted M20 recoilless rifles in close combat.
Even the U.S. Defense Department had recently turned to a 1960s 105mm cannon design for outfitting AC-130 aerial gunships.
Had it not been for the arsenal's stored drawings, tools, and the gauges for the original cannon system, restarting production after a 40-year absence would have been extremely costly for the U.S. military said Jake Peart, the arsenal's chief of production planning and control.
The point here is that old, low-tech weapon systems still have value even in a world driven by high tech. When one considers the dramatic decline in recent defense budgets, proven low-tech weapons may become in vogue again.
Just how many gauges does the arsenal have on its property books?
According to Seth Frank, an instrument mechanic work leader, "We have retained more than 70,000 gauges that have supported thousands of product lines since the early 1950s."
Some of the challenges of retaining such a large quantity of gauges go beyond simply finding adequate storage areas, it has more to do with inventory control and calibration.
"At any one time, there may be hundreds of gauges in use in multiple manufacturing buildings," Frank said. "So, the shear scope of keeping track of these gauges is tough but not as tough as the requirement to keep these gauges calibrated."
Just as tools wear, so too do gauges, Frank said. Some of the gauges are required to be calibrated by a calendar date, such as annually, while other gauges need to be calibrated after so many uses.
Frank said that there are only five personnel at the arsenal who ensure the serviceability of the 70,000+ gauges.
What the gauges do is that they ensure that machining operations are to the prescribed standards as stated in technical data packages that accompany the orders. In essence, the gauges ensure absolute quality control at each major operation in the product design and manufacturing process. The arsenal retains gauges for such weapon systems as the M101 105mm cannon to the main gun on the M60 tank to today's 155mm cannon for the M777 towed howitzer.
If the storage of the gauges was not enough of a logistical challenge, throw in the fact that the arsenal also retains the complete history of every product manufactured at the Arsenal, from a firing pin for an 81mm mortar to the 16-inch gun for World War II battleships.
"Our files go back to World War II," said Thomas Ruchlicki, the arsenal's chief of production planning.
Ruchlicki said that each file explains the quote process, the tools required, the production schedule, the speed of machines, down to the length of each cut made on a piece of steel to manufacture that product, Ruchlicki said. The files also contain any lessons learned during the manufacturing process.
The lessons learned speak about such things as to whether or not a specialized heat treatment worked, did the Arsenal use the right angles of cuts on the product, and what processes and procedures were not required that resulted in reduced manufacturing time.
The arsenal has just completed a 100 percent inventory of the gauges and there are some here who believe it is time to purge some of the gauges that have not been used in decades. But just when that type of discussion begins, images arrive from some foreign battlefield that shows some of the arsenal's legacy weapons still in use.
Just maybe, we will need them again.
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Gauges vs. Gages…There was a discussion at Watervliet on the proper use of the term gauge. Army forms call the measuring tools "gages," while the Associated Press Stylebook and Merriam-Webster Dictionary say the appropriate or best word use is "gauges." You decide…
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