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The Featherstone Royal Ordnance Factory

The conception for a Royal Ordnance establishment was initiated during the reign of Henry V111 which later became known as the Woolwich Arsenal. Jumping forward to WW2, the government decided to spread all military engineering, weapons and ammunition manufacture around the country for strategic reasons. They were generally located to the north and west of the country, out of easy reach for the German bombers. In total there were around 44 factories constructed. The ammunition filling factories were particularly vulnerable for obvious reasons and there were numerous units dotted around. Featherstone Ordnance Factory became Filling Factory N0.17. The site here was established in 1940, most likely due to its overall flatness and proximity of the main railway line. It covered a sizable area, taking over mainly agricultural land. The land was contracted to be returned to farm land after the hostilities, but for some reason this never transpired. Construction began in November 1940 and was completed in April 1942. The cost then was £2.8m. The land, up until the time I started working there in 1969, had a circumference of approximately 8 kilometres. During my time, most of the site was disused. It had originally been divided up into a number of zones. The zones under use in my time were categorised as Group 5 and Group 8, these two were situated in the western section of the site. I’m not certain how many Groups were utilised in its heyday or can even remember where other numbers were located. Group 5 was the main area, where most of the service departments were located, such as: maintenance, toolroom, administration, laboratory, canteen, drawing office. This area generally is where components produced from tungsten alloy were made. Group 8 was used mainly for producing tungsten carbide components. The huge building known as 8F6 was the main production building. North of 8F6 in its own corner of the site was located a building 8D1. This was a separate commercial company to the MOD facility. It was a branch of the Coventry company Wickman Wimet, Torrington Avenue, who also oversaw the MOD facility at the time. Here, primarily, tungsten carbide machine tips were manufactured. In one direction, the company footprint stretched from the New, (Concrete), Road to where the M54 now runs and in the other direction, from Paradise/ Cat & Kittens Lane up to the original Featherstone village bordering the Cannock Road. It encompassed Brinsford Lodge, built originally for the factory as workers barracks, then from 1955 – 64, was in use as the Malayan teaching college, (one of two UK sites established after the war to provide training to prospective oversees teaching staff supplying British schools). It later became the Wolverhampton Poly campus before its demolition. The site had its own railway and station for getting raw materials in and finished ammunition out, to the main wartime depots. I recall seeing evidence of this during my days. I assume this railway was linked to the main network which runs only around 300m to the west of the site in a north – south direction. In a 1970 survey, just prior to considering the north part of the site as a suitable location for a prison, 7 miles of track and sidings was discovered just in this section. When I started work at Featherstone there were around 700-800 employees, the key personnel using cycles to get around due to the size of the site. During the war, I was told 3000 – 4000 people were employed, generally filling heavy bombs, anti-tank shells and .303 cartridges for Lee Enfield rifles and Bren guns. It ceased as a filling factory shortly after the war and during 1949 – 50 numerous auctions were held to sell off and disperse unused materials and equipment that was deemed appropriate by the MOD. The company then concentrated on the manufacture of armour piercing penetrators, mainly for use as tank ammunition, in readiness for the comparative minor conflicts of the 50’s and 60’s such as Korea, 1950-53, (Korea had been divided into the north and south distinctions we recognise today. A 3-year war endured between these parties with massive civilian losses, the north assisted by Russia and China and the south aided by the United Nations), followed by Aden, 1963-67, (now known as Yemen, Britain had occupied this land since 1839 for strategic reasons rather than commercial as it provided control of the entrance to the Red Sea). This was the forerunner to the already brooding Cold War with Eastern Europe - an ideological ‘war’, between the Soviet bloc and the Western alliance which lasted around 45 years. All the buildings, (I think without exception), and there must have been hundreds of them were constructed to the same specification, i.e. A heavy steel RSJ frame with a thick, flat, concrete roof, (lord knows what technique they used to cast them on site). The walls were in-filled between the steel columns with a pot brick. This enabled the walls, in the event of an accidental internal explosion, to easily collapse outwards leaving the steel structure and roof intact, thereby quickly dissipating the internal pressure which is what would cause severe injuries to the workers within. The most vulnerable buildings where the most likelihood of an explosion may occur were surrounded by large brick walls; approximate 5m tall, with earth banked both sides. These buildings were also spread well apart to eliminate the risk of one explosion damaging a neighbouring building. Hence the need for a huge site. Every building incorporated a ‘light-lock’ entrance. This was in the form of a porch with a door either end attached to all entrances. This allowed the personnel to enter and exit the buildings without light escaping which was crucial during wartime at night. This porch or lobby also functioned as a security check in some important areas as it housed a patrol guard to monitor who entered the building. All the production buildings or buildings that were operated during the evenings, for obvious reasons, had no windows The Featherstone Filling Factory was managed originally by the Ministry of Supply then after by the MOD. By the time I arrived it was an agency factory overseen by a private Coventry based company run ‘on behalf of and for the MOD’. The company then was Wickman Wimet, it had previously been known as Hard Metal Tools but changed its name in 1963. With regard to company names during my spell there : It became Wimet Ltd before a take over by Sandvik UK in 1973, Royal Ordnance Speciality Metals then ROSM, British Aerospace bought the entire RO Group in the 90’s. The site manager in the 70’s was Harold Freeman who was awarded the MBE in 1976 for services to industry, followed by Geoffrey Whitehouse OBE during the 80’s then John Tallet in 1988 up until the time when RO directors were appointed to augment us. Another interesting character was the personnel officer in the late 60’s to early 70’s was Major Vaughn who strode around the site in riding breeches carrying his swagger stick. All traffic entering and exiting the site passed through the west gate which housed the main guard house. Most personnel in the 60’s and 70’s used the works transport. A double decker bus collected workers from around Hednesford, Chadsmoor and Cannock districts ferrying them to just outside the west gate whereupon a wartime green bus parked just inside the gate would distribute the staff around the site to their prescribed departments. As the land was government owned, it was decided in the early seventies to utilise some of the unused site area towards the east, close to Brinsford village which at the time comprised solely of prefabs, for the construction of a prison. Featherstone Prison was completed in 1976. Since then, a further two sections have been added, (Brinsford and Oakwood), making it one of the largest prison complexes in Europe. For most of its history, the Featherstone Ordnance factory has produced armour piercing projectiles in one form or another. Initially using tungsten carbide as this material was reasonably well understood by the parent company in the manufacture of carbide tips for machining. Then for a good number of year’s tungsten alloys were developed which although not as hard as carbide gave enhanced performances in line with ammunition and armour advancements. In the late 1980’s depleted uranium became the choice although this carried obvious downsides. The Featherstone company’s manufacturing basis was powder metallurgy. The fundamentals being, fine metal powder in its raw state is blended together, (generally this would consist of tungsten powder being the main constituent mixed with small amounts of copper, nickel, iron etc. For small components this would then be blended with wax to be used on uni-axial presses to create a ‘green’ part which would travel through two furnaces, the first to remove the wax and initially bond the metal particles together, known as pre-sintering then onto the sinter furnace where the temperature at around 1100-1350oC would encourage the particles to fully merge with each other. Considerable shrinkage takes place during this process all of which is carried out in a hydrogen atmosphere to avoid oxidation of the structure. The larger components, such as the 105mm and 120mm projectiles were produced in a hydrostatic press. No wax is required for this route as the pressures involved are immense much greater than the conventional presses. The powder is decanted into rubber bags, approximately the overall blank shape of the finished component, vibrated down, and the open end of the bag sealed with a bung and hose clip. These are then loaded into the hydrostatic press which is primarily a WW2 U.S. battleship gun, the barrel of which was foreshortened and the end sealed. The breech end was integral as this gave means to load and unload the components forming a perfect seal during the process. The company had two of these unique presses. An oil slurry was pumped into the barrel gradually reaching pressures in excess of 30,000psi, (200MPa). This liquid surrounds each component bag, squeezing in all directions, as the liquid will not compress all the pressure is transferred to the powder within. The components from this process would go on to be fully sintered before being finally machined. The principles of the ammunition format produced at Featherstone were based upon kinetic energy. An incredibly dense projectile travelling at very high velocities will take a bit of stopping. If this projectile is fashioned from a very hard material together with accompanying suitable properties then it is likely to have ticked most of the boxes necessary to defeat armour plate. A major difficulty in launching such a heavy projectile is that if the shot was the diameter of the barrel as it usually is for lead bullets then the charge would have to be so huge as to make it impractical plus the hardness of the shot would quickly destroy the bore of the barrel. The breakthrough innovation was to reduce the projectile diameter significantly and wrap a softer component around it to enable a fit within the barrel. This component, known as a sabot, would then leave the projectile as soon as it exits the barrel, (discarding sabot). Thus, the projectile is reduced in mass thereby achieving reduced aerodynamic resistance travelling at a speed around 1100 m/s. As designs progressed the projectile became longer and slimmer incorporating fins at the rear, not dissimilar to the darts we throw and are all familiar with. These munitions were known as ‘Fin stabilised, armour piercing, discarding sabot’, (FSAPDS) and became the mainstay for tank ammunition for many years. Whist the factory produced the 105mm and 120mm rounds in this format they also utilised these materials for rounds down to 5.56mm calibre together with fragmentation products, (in the form of small spheres and cubes), which would be incorporated into grenades and other above-ground exploding munitions. There have been many discussions regarding these types of munitions due to the indiscriminating effects and unnecessary suffering that they can cause. During the mid 70’s, the company together with a few other R.O. divisions were involved in the creation of a huge manufacturing plant in Isfahan, Iran. This followed a massive order of Challenger tanks and ancillary equipment during what we now know to be the final days of the Shah’s reign. This plant was to enable Iran to maintain the new equipment and produce most of the accompanying weapons itself. This included the armour piercing penetrators produced at Featherstone, hence its involvement. This project ground to a halt in 1979 when the opposing religious regime forced the Shah to flee the country. In the late 1980’s the factory established a section for the production of FSAPDS projectiles manufactured from depleted uranium. This was a waste by-product of the nuclear power stations in the form of spent fuel rods and resulted in being a cheaper material option compared to tungsten alloy. This material had inbuilt pyrotechnic properties which had obvious benefits upon impact with the target but caused difficulties when machining as although it was carried out submerged in oil, fires became a major fear. Normally fire occurrences were relatively ‘small’ and contained in-house but in 1999 a more serious incident happened when a severe fire took place. The event was coveredco by the Express & Star, the local newspaper at the time, followed by a full investigation by government teams due to the potential escape of radioactive elements. In addition to the military work produced the company delved into the commercial world. This started with trying to provide a viable alternative to lead for manufacturing fishing weights in all their formats. Geoffrey Whitehouse OBE, the MD at the time, picked up the baton for this project and lobbied the government unrelentingly for a ban on lead use in this pursuit. He was eventually successful and soon after being the world leader the company soon found it had many competitors and alternative ideas. This line lasted only for a few years before fizzling out. Whilst in the sporting mode the next challenge was to attempt to ban lead for the shotgun fraternity. This proved a little more difficult even after successful development trials and launches. The shooting of ducks and wildfowl or any activity over water or the shoreline eventually was prohibited from using lead. But the rest of the shotgun spectrum became a step too far. Lack of investment to productionise this time soon ended the work, the rights to licence the technology eventually being bought out by the U.S. The company, around 1990, purchased the technology and license for a metal injection moulding facility, (MIM). This was bought from Degussa in Germany and was believed to provide potential within R.O. to manufacture small complex weapon components without the need for machining or certainly to minimise it. The process relied heavily upon powder metallurgy expertise, of which the company had been based on, therefore it was thought a natural progression. After a few years, it became clear, the reality of producing weapon parts was probably not viable for various reasons, generally overall strength and consistency for highly stressed components. But interest was coming from the commercial world, and so this became the area the sales was focussed. An encouraging portfolio of commercial customers was being developed, unfortunately at the same time the company’s current owners, BAe, decided their business was to focus solely on military aircraft, naval and weapons engineering. MIM had to go, and so in 1996 the MIM facility was purchased as an ongoing concern and shipped to Manchester where it traded until 2013. By this time the Royal Ordnance company had rationalised and rationalised. The majority of group 5 had been closed down and the remaining, somewhat shrunken, company was installed into the large group 8 building 8F6. The company finally closed in around 2002 and very soon the group 8 section was enveloped by the new huge HMP Oakwood development. At the time of writing, the group 5 section and some surrounding areas are still awaiting decisions on their future by South Staffordshire District Council.

Author details I worked for the company from 1969 to 1996. Initially as an apprentice then within most departments: Toolroom, Maintenance, Production, Inspection, Drawing Office, R & D, MIM. Compiled 2020