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ReseaRch a n d developmenT In T h e aR m y 31
a persistent problem that resulted in blurred or “foggy” images. The benefits of a
high-energy source included fog-free radiographs, shorter exposure times, and
improved ability to penetrate thicknesses of materials previously inaccessible
to low-voltage X-rays. Given these advantages, the Rock Island betatron was
able to detect very small defects in recoil assemblies and other metallic items
stored and produced at the arsenal. Moreover, the efficiencies in operation
prompted one observer to note that “betatron radiographs could be made in
short periods of time, thus permitting production line inspection of sections
of moderate thickness.” 52
Initially confined to the analysis of steel, the primary material used in
gun recoil mechanisms, the Rock Island betatron was quickly adapted for the
inspection of both low-density materials, such as aluminum, and very highdensity
“superalloys” used in the manufacture of jet engines, rockets, and other
propulsion technologies that typically operated in extreme conditions. 52 Highenergy
X-ray analysis also spread to other arsenals. Researchers operating the
betatron at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, for example, focused their efforts
on the inspection of powder charges in large-caliber artillery shells exceeding
240 millimeters in diameter. In this case, X-rays were used to identify cavities
in the charge, the presence of which might cause a malfunction in the gun, or
worse, a premature explosion during firing. 53 Though the methods of analysis
were different, the practical requirements driving X-ray research at Rock Island
and Picatinny arsenals matched very closely the short-term goals that guided
studies of internal friction of metals at Frankford Arsenal.
Given that research and development in the arsenal system focused broadly
on solving practical, ordnance-related problems, it is perhaps fitting to examine, if
only briefly, how the types of R&D projects undertaken individually at Frankford,
Watertown, Rock Island, and Picatinny arsenals also existed collectively in one
location, namely at the Army’s “big gun factory”—Watervliet Arsenal, situated
on the Hudson River near Albany in upstate New York. After World War II,
Watervliet gradually transformed itself from a large-scale production facility
narrowly focused on a single technology—artillery—into a designer and builder
of prototype weapon systems and components manufactured in large quantities
by industrial contractors. By 1960, for example, a section of Watervliet’s “Big
Gun Shop,” which had turned out the first 16-inch coastal cannon—the highly
effective 155-millimeter artillery gun used in World War II—and more recently,
the 280-millimeter atomic cannon, had been converted into a pilot production
line that manufactured solid-propellant rocket motors for the Nike-Hercules
surface-to-air missile. 54
52 G. Elwers, “Ordnance Using X-Rays to Inspect Complex Assemblies,” Iron Age 168 (25 October
1951): 95–99 (quote on 97);
53 Elwers, “Ordnance Using X-Rays to Inspect Complex Assemblies,” 98–99; Harry E. Bawden, ed.,
The Achievement of Rock Island Arsenal in World War II (Davenport, Ia.: Bawden Brothers, 1948), 75.
54 W. M. D. Tisdale, “It’s Always Tomorrow,” Army Information Digest 15 (December 1960): 29.
The Nike-Hercules surface-to-air missile was produced in quantity by the Western Electric Company, the
manufacturing arm of the Bell Telephone System.