Closing the Gaps in US Rocket Propellant Production, 1940–1945

Abstract

The article supplements and revises past historiographical explanations on why the US entered World War ii without propellant based engines, for tactical rockets and how that gap was overcome. Short range rockets were used extensively by all sides in the War for various purposes, but in the interwar period (1919–1939), rocket advances were made mostly in Europe with the US lagging behind. The rockets engines were based on solid propellant tubes, but in 1940 there was hardly any US tubes design knowledge and no production facilities. Technological and production gaps had to be closed, and from 1940 were made with a significant help from Britain and under the leadership of the civilian National Defense Research Council (ndrc) agency, merged in 1941 into the Office of Scientific Research and Development (osrd). Due to the pressing needs to equip American forces with rockets, a joint group of ndrc and Army developers modified in early 1942 an existing gun propellant production technology for rocket tubes. Used initially for the Bazooka this adoption was found later to be extremely problematic in production and performance of tubes in the widely-used, Army’s 4.5-inch barrage and fighter plane rockets. Working in parallel, a joint group of ndrc and navy developers was able to construct the more modern tube production process already used abroad, avoiding the main army difficulties and taking the lead. The growing needs for these superior Navy rockets, some of which were used extensively by the Army, led to gaps between supplies and demands by 1943. Two fortunate events, one of them connected with the Soviet Union, helped to relieve the shortage.