From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter to Captain Slayter regarding the manufacturing progress and development of a 40mm gun.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 175\3\ img016 | |
| Date | 4th September 1940 | |
| COPY. 3 Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}9/ML. 4.9.40. Captain Slayter, Spa Hotel, B A T H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} Dear Captain Slayter, Mr. Ashworth will have given you a summary of the present position regarding the 40 mm. gun. Briefly, the British United Shoe Machinery Company of Leicester have now taken over the manufacture of these and will work up to 10 per week by the end of April next year, if they can be supplied with a very modest quantity of machine tools. We have found some of these already and Mr Ashworth seemed quite optimistic about the remainder. We expect to keep our promise to deliver the two service trial guns at the end of this month. The L.M.S. Railway Co. are handling the mountings. We are going right ahead with the development of the fully automatic gun on the power driven mounting and I believe that by the time you have broken the back of the Oerlikon production we may have a weapon which you will consider worthwhile manufacturing in quantities. We will undertake to inform you as soon as we have anything fit for demonstration. Incidentally, you may be interested to know that the provisional estimate of the number of man-hours required to fabricate the Rolls-Royce gun appears to be astonishingly low. Yours sincerely, | ||