Cost of munitions.

[alan figg]

Hi can anyone help with the following.How much was spent on war munitions (by country)and breaking it down further,how much did a .303 bullet cost,Mills Bomb,etc.I once read and unfortunately now cannot remember how much a Broadside from a Battleship cost in monetary terms.I believe one shell from a Naval 18inch was £360 in 1914,is that right?Thanks all.

[tharkin56]

by the end of the war the ministry of munitions had spent £40,500,000 in coventry. no individual prices though i can tell you what that paid for.

[TonyE]

Costs of Munitions and quantities expended are all available either in the History of the Ministry of Munitions or in the Statistics of the Military Effort.

A few examples are:

.303 inch ammunition cost about 100/- per 1000 pre-war and rose to about 125/- by September 1914 but had fallen back to about the pre-war price by 1918. Total UK production was 8,731 million rounds. American made .303 was more expensive at £8.10s (in 1916) compared to the British cost of £6.10s.

An 18 pdr H.E. shell (unfilled) cost varied depending whether it was made by a private company (around 12/6d) or one of the national factories (about 8/11d in 1917). 107 million 18 Pdr. rounds were filled at home and another 20 million abroad.

A Vickers gun cost £165 (including spares) in 1914 but had come down to £80 later in the war. Total production was 71,355 guns.

Prices for Hotchkiss (35,381 made) and Lewis (133,104 made) were similar.

An SMLE rifle cost about £4 with bayonet. Total production was 4 million rifles plus another 1.2 million in the USA (at a slightly higher cost of about £7 including bayonet).

I hope that gives a flavour of the costs,

Regards

TonyE

[alan figg]

Great answer Tony,many thanks.Do have another query.How much did a WW1 British Infantryman cost ? From recruit to Front line soldier,a difficult question i know but the figures are out there somewhere.

[bob lembke]

A couple of interesting hidden costs. In 1914 some or all British shells used fuze design licensed from Krupp at a set price of one shilling three pence a shell. I think that I have seen a photo of a British shell with a stamp on the base signifyinmg the Krupp license on the fuze. Krupp, obviously, did not present a bill in January 1919, but they did in 1926. The Brits (Armstrong, I think, I can look it up) calculated how many covered shells they made and expended, seemingly giving a really bogus low estimate, and I believe paid Krupp a $60 million license fee for the shells fired at German troops.

Also, Krupp had the best technology for armor plate steel, and in the run-up to WW I, during the big naval arms race, supposedly all of the major navies, including the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine, paid Krupp a hefty license fee, I think $40 a ton, a lot of money for a dreadnought. I did not read that Krupp was able to collect on that after the war for all ships laid down 1914-1918.

Bob Lembke

Resident Hun

[TonyE]

Great answer Tony,many thanks.Do have another query.How much did a WW1 British Infantryman cost ? From recruit to Front line soldier,a difficult question i know but the figures are out there somewhere.

Sorry, can't help you on that one, it is outside my area of knowlwde.

Regards

TonyE

[SiegeGunner]

The Brits (Armstrong, I think, I can look it up) calculated how many covered shells they made and expended, seemingly giving a really bogus low estimate, and I believe paid Krupp a $60 million license fee for the shells fired at German troops.

From memory, the amount eventually paid by Vickers was rather nearer to £47,000 — as you also stated about a year ago, Bob ... http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=145651

[bob lembke]

From memory, the amount eventually paid by Vickers was rather nearer to £47,000 — as you also stated about a year ago, Bob ... http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=145651

A year ago is about when I entered that material into my time-lines. I write far too long posts, and if I looked up everything I would spend 10 hours a day on the Forum, not the 2-3 that I do. But I usually get away with it without great error. I thought that it was in the low millions. 47,000 pounds at 1 shilling three pence a shell would amount to the shell expenditure on the Somme in a day or so.

The source of both items is Manchester's The Arms of Krupp. He had unique access to members of the Krupp family, since died, and other remarkable sources, but there are a lot of errors in the book, some springing from foolishly relying on Barbara Tuchman as a source. So I have used it as a source (I usually avoid secondary sources), but with unease.

Sorry that I mis-quoted myself. Surprising that the Brits paid up at all. I guess that they were looking forward to more cooperation as "merchants of death".

Bob

[Tom W.]

Hi can anyone help with the following. How much was spent on war munitions (by country) and breaking it down further, how much did a .303 bullet cost, Mills Bomb, etc. I once read and unfortunately now cannot remember how much a Broadside from a Battleship cost in monetary terms. I believe one shell from a Naval 18inch was £360 in 1914, is that right?Thanks all.

According to The war with Germany: A Statistical Summary, by Leonard P. Ayres (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 133, the U.S. spent $2,043,673,500 on munitions during the war.

[Ron Clifton]

Sorry that I mis-quoted myself. Surprising that the Brits paid up at all. I guess that they were looking forward to more cooperation as "merchants of death".

Bob

Hello Bob

I believe that after the war, Krupp sued the British lecence holders for unpaid licence fees. The action was taken in the British courts, which promptly threw it out, on the grounds that nationals (including companies) of states at war with His Majesty could not be allowed to profit from their activities during that war. £47,000 looks like an early payment on account.

Ron

[Terry_Reeves]

You need to inspect the files of the Ministry of Munitions, in particular MUN 4, as contract prices were complex and could change. This is one example of what can be found in MUN 4, but this is a huge series with many thousands of documents and requires careful investigation:

MUN 4/4027 FIRMS: The Coventry Ordnance Works Limited: prices for 4.5-inch howitzer equipments 1917 May 16-Oct. 4

With regard to Krupp fuses, Coventry Ordnance Works and Whitworth's believed they had a legal obligation to pay royalties to Krupp but were prevented from doing so by the Government who invoked, I think, the Trading With the Enemy Act. Again, the details are contained in MUN 4:

MUN 7/137 Payment of royalties on fuses to Friedrich Krupp Germany, by Coventry Ordnance Works. 1916 Sept. 15 - 1919 Dec. 9

TR