O.T. Watervliet Arsenal 200th year

I though this may be of some interest, some of the older photos, some of the local people and their stories, and the some of the notable work they did and still do to manufacture weapons for our soldiers, then and now.

I used to deliver lumber and other materials there, as the other driver had a dishonorable discharge in the late 60's, not allowed on any federal property, so I got most if not all the deliveries for 4 years or so. This was also adjacent to a huge D&H repair and maintenance yard, where I would also unload rail cars of plywood and dimensional lumber, there were also 2 large steel mills adjacent, only thing left and still going is this Arsenal. Looking back, we still had a fair amount of manufacturing into the 80's and early 90's, things sure have changed.

One item this place is known for is building the 16" guns. It used to be relatively easy to get in, go to the security booth, fill out a card, they might look the truck over, then that's it. Well I'd skip a delivery once in awhile, as they would set up a D.O.T. check point just inside the gate, once in there is no backing out, nice little trap, but one you could see and drive past and wait a day til they went somewhere else. I used to tour or look around often, its an incredible facility, they had this conveyor with 2" thick plywood plates, that items were placed on and automatically sent to a warehouse, with a vast shelf and racking system, it would retrieve the item when needed, 1 person would operate it, was in the receiving area. Often times you waited for instructions, lumber went to their internal lumberyard or you were directed to another building, area. While waiting you could walk around, I can recall being in places I should not have LOL, today, I cannot even imagine what would happen if you did that. They used #1 D4S (dressed 4 sides) lumber for crating the expensive barrels they manufactured, we used to joke, nothing but the best, but given the cost of one those, I can see why.

Quite a bit of history throughout the years, thought y'all might like to read about it !
News Article

Army Article

I was an artillery repairman for about 18 months at Aberdeen Proving Ground MD. I was offered a transfer to the automotive division and I accepted that. I was drafted during the Korean War and was rehired after being discharged. I went from wage grade 5 to wg grade 18. In the mid or late 60's they went from 26 grades to 15.
I was a wg 12 then. In the 1970's we were converted to General Schedule (GS) and I was a GS-11. After I retired they made my slot a GS-12. I still helped my dad with the morning milking up until I was drafted. My older brother joined the Air Force in 1951 3 days after we graduated from high school. After I retired I was rehired by several defense contractors back at APG. Hal

I worked for Interlake,Inc full time during the summer of 1982.We installed new cranes and transfer car,28 feet tall, to replace the old ones in one of warehouses at the IBM facility in Poughkeepsie,NY.One day we had to up to the Watervliet Armory to trouble shoot a problem with their cranes.The company had installed that system also.I don't know if they installed the conveyor system as they also owned Bayer Conveyor.

I first started working.part time, for them doing general labor when they put the warehouse /conveyor system in the Hallmark distribution center on Bacon Rd.,Enfield,CT.This was a huge rack supported warehouse.Cranes where 72 feet tall.The whole system was computerized from receiving to shipping.

Vito

Sad the way things change Billy. The D+H is just a shadow of what it once was, if it even really exists anymore. The mills are gone, the business supporting the mills and the workers...all gone. It's the same up here. A dry kiln in a nearby town is closing, 30 some jobs gone. That's enough to kill that little town. Albany doesn't care about it though, never have, never will.

Pretty sad.

That part of it, looking back, it is sad, just the way things have evolved, but we Americans do not forget, and though we still have a trickle of what once was, I wish things would have gone the other way, and or some of this would turn around and garner some of the might we did have, it sure would be a moral booster ! We have in another area, Global Foundries and all the semi-conductor related manufacturing in the area that is an up an coming industry locally.

In those 4 years I worked at this place, we had real old accounts, all the local industry, and thinking back, there was quite a bit still going on. I'm not one for living in the past so much, but we did have something to appreciate with all of our industrial might. I think an example of a great turn around is the craft brewing industry, who would have thought back in the late 70's given what was so prevalent, mass produced rice laden beer, what we have today to enjoy after a hard days work, on a sunday or at any other similar event or daily affair, is of renaissance proportions, its thriving, the products are excellent, the variety is incredible, the support is there, it works, and there are jobs all the way to the hops fields, like one local brewer here, who would buys locally grown hops. Head brewer told me if you were able to grow hops, he would likely buy all of it, ( not such an easy crop but...) I like to think about these kinds of things, its at least a decent business model that works. Most who support these products do so in moderation and responsibly, only negative side it is alcohol, so there is that element of those who do not, not a good choice.

I had you in mind when I posted this Hal, given your background, interesting story. The neighbor across the road from our other place north of here, works there, its a good job, which are hard to find around there, he is fortunate, they have a 300 acre farm, nice family, and a good neighbor.

Didn't know the Army had 16" guns. Were those the railway guns?

They were for the navy, and I believe the gulf war was the first time they were used since WWII, officially, its been awhile, I'd have to look it up, but these were used to obviously soften up areas they were going to land on. The Watervliet Arsenal is known for manufacturing these.

The work on a farm is never finished. There's always something has to be cleaned, fed, milked and then there was field work.

When I went to APG in 1951 the Korean War was a year old we were testing 105mm gun tubes along with the 106mm recoiless rifles. 20mm were being tested too. They proof fired them before being shipped. We also cleaned them and poured that hot cosmolene grease in the tubes. We wrapped them in that heavy wax paper. Another section boxed them and they were flown to S. Korea. Hal

I am surprised it lasted this long! They didn't say what the made there over the years, but I think they were big into harness and saddle making, leather belts and packs. Those round cavalry movie canteens too I guess. Now it is so hi tech! Those big barrels were fired on and off until the early 90's, when Kuwait was suppose to be the war that ends all wars... a new world order.... yeah right. I think all the last battleships are now museums.
An uncle used to work for the D&H, whenever he got bumped off the Champlain division, he sometimes ended up in the Colonie shops. He was amazed at the size of the buildings and all they did there. Now? Trees and weeds? What a waste. I don't think the Canadian Pacific even owns the yard anymore. Typical rust belt.

I used to poke around the Colonie Yard often, as I was my job to take the tractor and 48' flatbed trailer over to the rail yard and unload all the cars, then haul it back to the yard, there was always time to explore, the buildings were massive, I believe most is torn down, so are most of the other yards in the area, there was one in Mechanicville too. They had a loco engine out and that sure was big to see it by itself, dark cavernous old building, used to be a lot of old rail cars staged there, I did see one steam loco there, some old passenger cars idle for years. There used to be a crew that would take all the lumber dunnage, all nice spruce, I would stack it and park the forklift on the pile and clamp it down with the forks, had my own use for that!

I've seen those 16" cannon, I would NOT want to be on the receiving end of one of those projectiles, the range was incredible, not sure how many miles. I have seen a photo of a large cannon on a rail car that came down the old Burlington line, that merged with the Boston & Main and NY Central in Troy, N.Y. it was headed across the old Green Island bridge, when it was just rail traffic, some time in the 1800's, was a huge piece, must have been going there for machining.


I recall the steel mill across from the D&H yard, when I delivered there, you had best be real careful in there, the hot ingots were always staged in the yard, you ever sat on one of those OUCH, the heat coming off them was intense. The maroon smoke and the rest of that place was something I was real careful around, looked like a really dangerous line of work to be involved in!

We still have Watervliet, also Picatinny, which I remember hauling nearby the control fence when I worked in NJ years back, and I believe Rock Island is still going strong too. Watervliet was waning after is heyday's but has been doing well for some time. Its too bad the Springfield Armory went to the wayside in the late 60's, a local gun dealer here worked on the closure, he's up there now too, s Korean war veteran.

I almost got a job as a car cleaner in Albany. It took so long to get called for anything, like the kids on these threads, there were NO jobs- I HAD to join the navy, got a lovely tropical disease, was slowly nursed back to health by the finest of Phillipino veteranarians, since I was a yankee dog eh? By the time I recovered from that heroic experience and got home, that cardboard and 2x4 job was long since filled, the guy already laid off, and the D&H was already on its deathbed. My uncle was already an engineer, but he bailed out- bought a new Kenworth sleeper and went on his own, then that "Gilford'? With the B&M Maine Central? Reading? and whatever- holy cow that was a war! I guess some D&H guys shot a couple scabs to death, but nothing was really done about it. They offered me a job again, but I didn't want to be a scab, dead or live one! I couldn't do that to striking D&H guys, as much as I wanted a job there, I couldn't do it to them.
The line is better off with CPR and NS running trains, but it'll never be the family the D&H was to all the guys.
I now live near the Springfield Armory. Lyndon Johnson killed that to make sure Illinois went nnalert. He knew the Kennedy family put Mass in their pocket- ever since!
People talk about the M14 rifle failure... funny they are carrying more in Afganistan now than Nam back then? Army knew the FN's were better anyway, but the project cost nothing because Garrand had a rough prototype and a better one in blueprints, he gave it to the pentagon for free, it used mostly old M1 tooling, so no one in DC or army brass could make a buck on kickbacks... and the Gatling and chain guns still on attack copters, warthogs and ship AA were perfected in Springfield. My father had relatives who worked there, when it closed all took civil service jobs locally. None wanted to go to Rock Island. They said 'the place is famous for 03's that go off in your face, and converting a german machine gun to NATO ammo- so what's there??? They were talking about the M60.. these guys wanted to keep 'inventing stuff'...
No one in the US has developed new ideas in small arms since then- going on 50 years. Crooked politics ain't nothin' new... the Romans must have done stuff like this... how's uncle Mario and cousin Andrew???

Hal,

thank you for your service. did you serve in the ordnance corps on active duty or as DA civilian? either way I don't run into too many other ordnance corps personnel. I was last at APG in 2008 as the last class of ordnance captains to go through APG. All of the training functions have since been moved to Fort Lee.

-paul

They trained me as a combat medic. I went there as a civilian in 1951 and was drafted in 1953. I ended up at Ft Bragg NC with the 82nd Airborne. I was rehired as a returning vet when I was discharged. APG is a nightmare to enter and exit
since 911. They closed Ft Momouth NJ and transferred most of the employees to APG.

I was working behind the fence in an secured area
testing some of the largest projects:
M1A1 Abrams Tank
Bradley Fighting Vehicle
M60 Tank
Gamma Goat Truck
16 Ton & 8 Ton Goers -We even sank one that water was cold.

They hired a lot of engineers that came to APG as soldiers and they liked their work attitude. They were given projects too. It was nice having a job you loved. Hal
PS: Some pics from my home at Ft Bragg.

We had a house we rented to those young officers that came to APG to attend the ordnance school from 1962 until 1974. A lot were married. They
had an OCS school at APG and we rented it to two ladies that were married to men attending OCS. Then we rented to some white trash and decided to sell it. Hal

Here's the M7 Heavy Dynamometer and trailers we used on those vehicles for drawbar pull and full load cooling tests. We also tested the German Leopard Tank. We ran drawbar pull on the M1A1 Tanks. They had two versions of the M1 Tank as General Motors had a test model with the 1790cid
diesel engine and Chrysler had the turbine both vehicles had good features. Chrysler hired a retired Colonel and their mind was already decided
on the turbine engine.

The project engineer and I flew to Detroit so I could install instrumentation on both vehicles and they wouldn't allow it. This was in 1975. Hal

Billy, if depending on people swilling beer is all we've got...we're worse off than I thought.

Thats true, the glutinous swilling is not a good thing, but a well deserved, cold ONE and I do mean ONE, is fine, I just wish other industries could make a comeback like brewing did.

I remember the Guilford thing and similar, was about the same time as I worked in that yard, they would spot the car and you rarely saw anyone while working there, it was actually pretty cool, you could poke around quite a bit and no one thought anything of it.


Funny how things happen, I never knew much about what happened, but did know the M14 was shelved prematurely and it was a dependable rifle that could save your bacon in a hurry. I hunt deer with an M1A, just too bad El Guapo I mean Cuomo had to hastily criminalize ownership of these if you don't register so years later when you're old and feeble, there will be a knock at the door, requesting the surrender of it.

Something with those '03s and the metallurgy, it took some time to get that right, but prior to, not a good feeling when under fire and you can't trust your own rifle.

Andrew is a piece of work, I don't care for the man as our governor, then again, no one we get is worth a darn anymore, now Spitzer is running for public office again, bright future we have with these fools LOL !

The Rock Island thing was a combination of poor/crude heat treating practices, the ammo of the day, the practice of greasing the cartridges, and some generous typewriter theorizing back in the day which has only gotten worse with the internet age. Maj Julian Hatcher was the main authority reporting the issue and subsequent investigation reveals that the catastrophic failures of Rock Island 03's were very limited in number. What is seldom reported is that it happened with a few Springfields too. The low number RI's should all be treated with the respect due any 100 plus year old rifle, just as a Springfield 03 should.

You want to hear some internet legend, just mention a Ross, a Krag or an FR8. About 1% of what you read will be factual and accurate, the rest is conjecture based on half remember stories and rumor.

(quoted from post at 05:44:21 07/20/13) The Rock Island thing was a combination of poor/crude heat treating practices, the ammo of the day, the practice of greasing the cartridges, and some generous typewriter theorizing back in the day which has only gotten worse with the internet age. Maj Julian Hatcher was the main authority reporting the issue and subsequent investigation reveals that the catastrophic failures of Rock Island 03's were very limited in number. What is seldom reported is that it happened with a few Springfields too. The low number RI's should all be treated with the respect due any 100 plus year old rifle, just as a Springfield 03 should.

You want to hear some internet legend, just mention a Ross, a Krag or an FR8. About 1% of what you read will be factual and accurate, the rest is conjecture based on half remember stories and rumor.

Click to expand...

Bret is pretty close. It was Major General ("MG" 2 stars for those who don't know) not Major. The problems with the 03 with brittle steel were on early production models. The 03 was considered by the time it was retired to be an excellent combat rifle and many have been sporterized and are still being used today. Many "old" soldiers and Marines were convinced that no finer combat rifle existed and that the MI Garand was a piece of junk before they ever touched an M1.

The M14 had a great reputation as a combat rifle and many soldiers and Marines were sorry to see it go.

Kinda cool about the arsenal! That's for posting the links.

Rick

I stand corrected on his final rank, but my copy of "Hatchers Notebook" has him listed a Major. In fact, I have some older books listing him as Capt. I even have one book written by then Lt. Whelen! I think it's dated 1915 or something like that. We always thought of him as "The Colonel", but everyone starts at the bottom.