 The latest weapons coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier stand ready on the alert all over the world to defend this country. View the American people against aggression. This is the Big Picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now to show you part of the Big Picture here is Sergeant Stuart Queen. America is determined that the tools and equipment of her fighting men be the best available in the world today. How our ordinance personnel in Europe translate this determination into concrete results at the same time safeguarding the interests of the American taxpayer is our story today. Ordinance in Europe is a big sprawling story and you can tell it in many different ways. One way is to talk about the payoff when ordinance activity is finally translated into battlefield action. A cavernous gun whirls an explosive shell through the skies. A machine gun blasts away. The foot soldier's weapons lay down a line of fire. A tank moves forward lashing out of the target as it protects the infantrymen who advance alongside. While another tank lurching and bucking and swaying like a Bronco advances down a rutted road. The maneuverability and firepower of frontline weapons the smooth deep-throated roar of a truck convoy. All these represent the end result of the work of ordinance in Europe. Yes that's one way to look at an ordinance story that can be told in many ways from different points of view. Here's another way numbers for example good round numbers ticking off the vast quantities of critically important ordinance material. Lines as far as the eyes can see of everything from tiny spare parts to major assemblies. Or you can consider some of the costs involved in maintaining huge establishments like the Bob Ligon ordinance maintenance plant. Over one million square feet of shop space affords ample room for more than 1,200 workers. Ordinance after all is the largest technical service in the armed forces and spends nearly half of every army dollar. Vehicle rebuilding is the specialty at Bob Ligon and a nice saving to the American taxpayer. Item a Jeep can be rebuilt for a total cost of 625 dollars against a new vehicle cost of 2,300 dollars. There is still another way to tell the ordinance in Europe's story in terms of the people who make it. Basically their job at any one of dozens of depots and installations is to move the hardware and equipment to the fighting men who need it. They have the grave responsibility of supplying the troops with equipment spare parts and ammunition for use when needed. Along with civilian personnel the skills of soldiers are enlisted in the ordinance operation and ordinance men are good soldiers as well as skilled technicians whose jobs are as exacting as any in private industry. However you do it then by describing how the material is used by citing statistics by telling the stories of the people involved you come away convinced that ordinance in Europe is doing a big important job but a story even a big many-sided one like ordinance in Europe has to start somewhere and a phone call to an ordinance recovery company in Germany is a good jump off spot. The call causes a man to board a recovery vehicle in order to guide it to a tank which has become disabled a few miles outside the depot. The giant recovery vehicle is a type of motorized equipment developed especially by ordinance for this purpose. Bruined in the field the tank waits helplessly while the recovery vehicle is backed up to it. The loading of a gigantic iron clad monster is no simple job. First of all the turret has swung out of the way so it will not impede the operation. The trails of the recovery vehicle are lowered as a cable is slipped into the pulley of the tank. The winch operator on the recovery vehicle starts the actual hoisting operation. Up she goes. Once the tank is securely loaded the recovery vehicle carries her back to the depot for repair. Disabling of the tank was due to an engine breakdown. Accordingly the entire power plant of the tank is completely torn down and rebuilt. When the rebuild engine is installed the tank again boards the recovery vehicle. Since the heavy tank treads would not exactly improve the paved autobahn the recovery vehicle trundles the repaired tank back home. The ordinance system of tank maintenance safeguards the interest of the American taxpayer. Item a new medium tank costs about $160,000. Ordnance technicians put a reclaimed tank back into service for about $14,000. Less than one tenth of the original cost. The same substantial economies are reflected in all ordinance rebuilding work. Vehicles not worth repairing yield valuable spare parts. Nothing is wasted. It's a tight operation all the way making sure that rolling ordinance continues to roll. Generally despite a few obvious exceptions when a vehicle rolls it rolls on tires. A mobile army's consumption of tires is fantastic. To meet this need tire rebuild depots have been set up in central areas throughout western Europe. These depots are sent tired tires. Vehicle rubber that has seen its best days. Before the rebuild operation starts each tire is inspected for foreign objects which may have become embedded in the rubber. Aha! There's something. A tug on a pair of pliers and out comes a large bolt. The bolt has plenty of company on a nearby display board. There's many a guilty party for a flat tire here. The expended tire is made ready for rebuild. A German civilian worker prepares the tire base for the cushion gum rubber. The spiked buffing machine does the job thoroughly. Used as the base of the rebuild tire is cushion gum rubber which is forced between rollers. Strips of this material are peeled off and guided away from the press. Cement will then be applied to the material so it will stick securely to the expended tire base. The next step is to place the proper length of cushion gum rubber onto the expended tire. A press machine forces the material firmly onto the tire. Surplus rubber is then removed. Conveyor belts link the various steps in the tire rebuilding chain. It is a smooth flowing operation organized to secure the most efficient service from the skilled German technicians who move the rebuilt tires to the molding machine. This machine sets the treads in the rubber. As a final step, the overlapping molded rubber is peeled away and the tire is ready for shipment. At Oberraumstadt, a wide variety of products is turned out ranging from bulky tires down to a tiny rubber housing. All this material is set out daily by the truckload. Located in the heart of West Germany, the Vilsack supply point is one of the areas where ammunition, the flexed muscle of an army, is held in readiness. To keep troops supplied with the specific ammunition required is another ordinance responsibility. And when you talk about army ammunition, you have to be specific. Ordinance in Europe has the headache of keeping track of 482 different types of ammunition. Day after day, the boxes pour in to be stored until called for. Tight control of supplies is a general ordinance rule. When it comes to high explosives, the controls are intensified. All personnel and vehicles entering and leaving the area must go through a checkpoint before moving on. The explosive material is stored in relatively remote areas, as far as possible from population centers. The ammunition will be consumed in the frequent combat maneuvers conducted throughout Western Europe to keep troops in fighting trim. Renovation, in other words, ammunition rebuild, includes any work done to ammunition other than routine painting, marking, and repackaging. It too is an ordinance responsibility. At salvage areas of ammunition points throughout Western Europe, ordinance ties up the other end of the ammunition operation. Brass from used cartridge cases is gathered at firing ranges and sent to ordinance collecting stations. The army then sells the salvaged brass. In every phase of explosive ammunition then, preparation, storing, renovation, salvage, ordinance plays the key role. Sometimes the role is a dramatic one, even though it starts in a very undramatic way. The scene is a building excavation site in a German city that during World War II had been a target for Allied air raids. As the foreman watches the steam shovel bite into the ground, he is suddenly astonished to see a heavy bomb come into view. He reacts quickly. While the steam shovel releases the bomb, the foreman calls for emergency help. German police headquarters received the excited foreman's call. Noting all the key information, the policeman puts through an emergency call to the officer in charge of bomb disposal at the nearest ordinance installation. A quick interchange, and minutes later a handpicked bomb disposal crew races out of the ordinance depot. At the site, a crowd of tent spectators is drawn to the scene as the bomb is gingerly inspected by the ordinance officer and a German policeman. A walkie-talkie relays a request for tools to the waiting jeep. Careful disposal instructions are given. As quickly as possible the tools are brought up. As the foreman and his assistants look on, the ticklish business is started. One false move and goodbye. The same thought is on everybody's mind. Everybody's, but the technician's steady fingers do not falter as he does the job. You can practically hear a sigh of relief. A man can think of smoking again. Quickly then, the bomb, still dangerous, although it has been defused, is removed from the excavation site and set for detonation in a remote location outside the city. Loud boom brings down the curtain on a bomb dropped many years before. Yes, ammunition is potent stuff, but it would be practically useless if not for the guns that propel it to the target. Various ordinance installations in Europe, such as the Rhine Ordinance Depot, are responsible for receiving and maintaining guns, ranging down from the mammoth 280 millimeter artillery to the humble rifle. In the field, as well as at basic installations, ordinance is prepared to carry on gun maintenance. In field vans, especially designed for this purpose, soldiers completely rebuild small arms on an assembly line basis. After test firing, they will be returned to stock and once more become a soldier's most prized possession. An ordinance man then tends to be an expert on guns. When a found or captured foreign weapon is brought in, an ordinance technical intelligence detachment goes to work. The weapon is identified and sent to the rear for further testing. An important job for men of an ordinance technical intelligence detachment is to instruct units of all echelons in the recognition of foreign weapons. The importance of transmitting intelligence data on new or strange weapons to the proper authorities is emphasized. Ordinance men conduct forums on the workings of these weapons so that line soldiers understand how to use and maintain them if the need arises. A quick look at canvas cutting operations brings home the tremendous range of ordinance responsibilities in Europe. There's rolling ordinance and shooting ordinance and the thousand and one operations that come in between like canvas cutting. All of them spell out doing a high-grade job at the lowest possible cost. Skill native workers manufacture canvas items at a cost reflecting the lower wage scale in Europe. Artillery gun covers, for example, can be produced at a European ordinance depot at a big saving to state-side taxpayers and a gun cover is only one of many kinds of canvas goods produced. The maintenance and storage of spare parts is another one of a long, long list of ordinance jobs. Conveyor belts carry the spare parts, each bearing an identification and location ticket from one section of the giant depot to another. The conveyor belts are mighty active and at least one reason is that there are more than 325,000 different spare parts in the ordinance supply system. If you stop at a watch repair shop somewhere in Germany, the delicate nature of ordinance precision work comes through to you. For the jewel in an ordinance watch weighs only a fraction of an ounce. Still, the watch must be able to withstand the rugged shocks of combat and a boy's life or death might depend on its telling the correct time. That's why the watch master, against which the soldier checks the running of the repaired watch, is basic equipment in a mobile instrument repair van. To ensure top performance in the material it processes, the ordinance corps maintains testing centers throughout western Europe. Take a cable for example, just one of many types in the storage depots. Ordinance must always be skeptical, must always ask questions. Specific questions like precisely how strong is it? An ordinance means precisely scientific experimentation is the one way to find out the definite answer. In the same way, a shatterproof pane of glass is tested with a skeptical I'm from Missouri attitude. The thoroughness characterizing testing operations is also reflected in ordinance handling of stock control. Without stock control, there could be no record of the receipt, storage and issue of the thousands of items under the control of ordinance. Stock control furnishes ready information about what is available for issue in the storage areas. A balance of stock on hand is struck just as a bank reaches a balance after the day's deposits and withdrawals. To register the individual items location in the storage area, its stock number and the quantity on hand, the record of receipts and issues, is kept on coded filing cards. Ordinance then is in constant contact with the needs of other branches of the army, as well as with friendly foreign nations. At a procurement center in Germany you can see in human terms how ordinance activities are webbed closely to nations of the free world. This map at a procurement center shows the many countries supplying ordinance with materiel. Procurement officers make the arrangements. There are times when ordinance equipment, a tank part say, can be bought locally at an advantageous price. Manufacturers within the area are invited to submit sealed bids for the contract. Specifications for the tank part are clearly explained to each manufacturer. The contract is awarded to the manufacturer who meets the ordinance specifications at the lowest cost. Both sides gain in the transaction, the local manufacturer and the United States Army. With this action, multiplied by thousands of similar contract arrangements, the private enterprise system throughout Western Europe is strengthened considerably. And the army for its part gets exactly what it needs in quick delivery at a fair price. But materiel coming in is only one side of the contact ordinance has with other free world nations. A lot goes out too, mainly the finished hardware. NATO representatives make frequent inspections of the equipment before it is shipped out to bolster the armed forces of friendly nations. These are some of the friendly nations of the free world. Nations whose security against foreign aggression is linked tightly with our own security. The American army then, through ordinance, bolsters its allies by sending them the most modern military equipment. The fighting power of our allies will be a potent factor in the event of emergency because the outward flow of supplies is unceasing by rail and by road, unceasing. Not very long ago, teams of crack riflemen from the various armies of NATO trooped toward a firing range somewhere in Western Europe. Ordinance again was working hand in hand with NATO officials in attempting to lessen the diversity of weapon and cartridge systems which is always a handicap to the operation of an international army. The situation was very evident during a friendly contest, a small arm shoot among teams of the NATO countries. Each contestant used a weapon of his own national army so that the firing shoot served to compare the effectiveness of one against the other. When the firing was over, the targets were carefully studied. One result of this and other tests was the development of a new standardized light cartridge by Ordinance. Standardization would simplify the supply problems of the NATO officers and men who watched the posting of the scores because it would provide for easy interchange of cartridges from one ammunition supply system to another. Interchange, the magic word, was the objective of the thinking and action of trained men, experts in their field. To secure these highly trained soldiers, the army maintains in the scenic Alpine town of Fusen, the largest ordnance school in Europe. This institution stands on the grounds of a World War II German army base. Courses cover a wide range of basic subjects. Students in the four-week cycle for ammunition supply specialists study such subjects as the proper layout of an ammunition supply point, correct storage of ammunition, and the transportation and supply of ammunition in the combat zone. Working with the actual material, students observe at close hand the characteristics of artillery shells, rockets, mortars, landmines, from A to Z in the American ammunition arsenal. The same thoroughness characterizes all the courses at the school. The testing and repair of voltage regulators is only one of many subjects covered in the five-week automotive electrician cycle. Students use a modern well-equipped shop which contains the latest ordnance electrical test equipment. On the spot practical training is the rule here. A cutaway model of a jeep is available to show details of engine, transmission, differentials, and brakes, and the part each component plays in the overall operation of the vehicle. The demonstration of a vehicle engine running completely submerged under water is one of the highlights of the wheeled vehicle repairman course. The waterproofing of automotive engines helps ordnance fulfill its mission to have vehicles combat serviceable at all times whatever the conditions. As at any other school sooner or later comes the grim day of reckoning. Final examinations. The final examination is used by the instructor as a review of the entire course. The students have crammed intensively for the test which serves to provide a measurement of the student's progress and the extent of his knowledge. The test covers the entire work for the term. For several hours the students answer a barrage of difficult questions and set the answers down on the special examination forms. A day later students crowd up to the bulletin board to see the results. A smile here means he's made the grade as an ordnance specialist. No time is wasted even as the final marks come out the new schedule for the next cycle is posted and outside the graduating students march by a symbol of the past. A leftover mural of World War II German troops. Leaving the past the graduates march toward their future. Ordnance in Europe. The responsibilities of the United States Army and of the American soldier who wears its uniform call for top quality equipment in every operation. The unrelenting efforts of the Ordnance Corps in Europe and throughout the world contribute strongly to the effectiveness of the American soldier and the security of his country. Now this is Sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to be with us next week for another look at your army in action on The Big Picture. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the army at home and overseas. Produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center. Presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station. You too can be an important part of The Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today the United States Army.