Watervliet Arsenal Turns Out the Big Guns
Published Apr 15, 2006
Situated on a 142-acre Hudson River campus, the Watervliet Arsenal doesn’t carry the cultural cachet associated with Tech Valley military sites like West Point, Saratoga and Ticonderoga.
But Watervliet can trump them all in one important battlefield connection: large-caliber cannons.
The arsenal between Albany and Troy is in fact America’s only producer of large cannons, with a key contribution being the firepower for the U.S. Army’s main battlefield tank, the M1A1 Abrams.
Other weaponry manufactured by nearly 2,000 personnel at the installation includes recoilless rifles, mortars, howitzers and additional tank guns.
The Watervliet Arsenal began in 1813, when farmer James Gibbons sold 12 acres for $2,585 and the federal government established an arsenal for cannon and ordnance production during the War of 1812.
Watervliet became known as America’s cannon factory, a reputation that was sealed by a 10-year, $350 million renovation completed in 1992. Today, the U.S. Army works in concert with Benet Laboratories, its research and development arm at the arsenal, where it employs one of the most extensive metals processing facilities in the Northeast and state-of-the-art technology that goes beyond cannon production.
The 72-building arsenal encompasses more floor space than most shopping malls at 1.2 million square feet and carries out research, development, prototype work and testing of all weaponry produced for the military.
Story by Gary Perilloux
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