Barrel Works

The Barrel Works was a weapons research and development project conducted by the United States Army in the early 1920s. It was based in Fort Benton, Kansas. It was charged with improving upon the design of the barrels used by the US in the Great War. It was commanded by Irving Morrell.

In its early years, the Barrel Works generated a number of brilliant innovations tha could have made the US the world's leading barrel designer. However, it was ordered to shut down by General Hunter Liggett, Chief of the General Staff, as one of a number budget-cutting measures the Army was forced to take during the Sinclair Administration. It would be 1943, at the height of the Second Great War, before the US Army authorized production of a barrel which was an improvement upon Morrell's first prototype design, and even that was only slightly better.