Detroit Arsenal (DTA), formerly Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant (DATP) was the first

manufacturing plant A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. The ...

ever built for the mass production of

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful e ...

s in the United States. Established in 1940 under

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automot ...

, the plant was owned by the U.S. government until 1996. It was designed by architect Albert Kahn. The building was designed originally as a "dual production facility", so that it could make armaments and be turned into peaceful production at war's end. Notwithstanding its name, the site was located in

Warren, Michigan Warren is a city in Macomb County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The 2020 Census places the city's population at 139,387, making Warren the largest city in Macomb County, the third largest city in Michigan, and Metro Detroit's largest suburb. ...

, Detroit's most populous suburb.

History

Chrysler's construction effort at the plant in 1941 was one of the fastest on record. The first tanks rumbled out of the plant before its complete construction. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant built a quarter of the 89,568 tanks produced in the U.S. overall. The plant made M3 Lee tanks while the buildings were still being raised and switched to M4 Sherman tanks in 1942. The

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top: ...

boosted production for the first time since World War II had ended; the government would suspend tank production after each war. In May 1952, Chrysler resumed control from the army, which had been unable to ramp up production. As a government-owned, contractor operated (GOCO) facility, Chrysler retained operational control of the production facility until March 1982, when Chrysler sold its Chrysler Defense division to General Dynamics Land Systems.

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Un ...

produced the

M1 Abrams The M1 Abrams is a List of main battle tanks by generation, third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern Armoured warfa ...

tank at the facility (and at another

plant Plants are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all curr ...

Lima, Ohio Lima ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northwest Ohio along Interstate 75 approximately north of Dayton, southwest of Toledo, and southeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana. As o ...

) until 1996, when the plant was closed and tank assembly and maintenance operations were consolidated at the Lima plant. The plant and some of the adjoining property were transferred to the City of Warren in 2001. The site of the original tank plant has been parcelled up and is now dedicated to civilian uses. This important production site of the Arsenal of Democracy is memorialized by a Michigan Historical Marker. The structure of the plant was designed to survive bombardment by the weapons of the day. It included concrete walls in some areas and a reinforced roof with slats to direct bombs away from vulnerable windows and exhaust fans. The portion of the property not sold to the city remains an active Army facility with many agencies present. The installation is managed by Installation Management Command (IMCOM) and hosts the headquarters of the United States Army CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC), formerly United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), and it hosts the United States Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command. TACOM continues to function at the location, and experienced a major building boom in the 2010s.

Tenant units

* United States Army CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center * United States Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command TACOM LCMC

Tanks produced

* M3 Lee, 1941-1942 *

M4 Sherman } The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It ...

, 1941-1945 *

M26 Pershing The M26 Pershing was a heavy tank/medium tank of the United States Army. It was used in the last months of World War II during the Invasion of Germany and extensively during the Korean War. The tank was named after General of the Armies John J. ...

, 1945 *

M46 Patton The M46 Patton is an American medium tank designed to replace the M26 Pershing and M4 Sherman. It was one of the U.S Army's principal medium tanks of the early Cold War, with models in service from 1949 until the mid-1950s. It was not widely u ...

, 1949 *

M47 Patton The M47 Patton was an American main battle tank, a development of the M46 Patton mounting an updated turret, and was in turn further developed as the M48 Patton. It was the second American tank to be named after General George S. Patton, comma ...

, 1951-1953 * M67 "Zippo", 1955-1956 *

M60 Patton The M60 is an American List of main battle tanks by generation#Second generation, second-generation main battle tank (MBT). It was officially standardized as the Tank, Combat, Full Tracked: 105-mm Gun, M60 in March 1959. Although developed from ...

, 1960-1987 *

, 1980-1996

References

External links

Detroit Arsenal of Democracy Museum
Veterans' Memorial Park, 27400 Campbell Road, Warren, Michigan 48093 *

* *

Congressional Record The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record In ...

[https://web.archive.org/web/20040225081944/http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=211125 , remarks on the dedication of the Michigan Historical Marker concerning the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant by] U.S. Senator Carl Levin
Description of Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant at
Globalsecurity.org
Wikimapia, Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant
* {{Authority control Warren, Michigan Buildings and structures in Macomb County, Michigan

Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant Detroit Arsenal (DTA), formerly Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant (DATP) was the first manufacturing plant ever built for the mass production of tanks in the United States. Established in 1940 under Chrysler, the plant was owned by the U.S. governmen ...

Historic American Engineering Record in Michigan United States Army Materiel Command 1940 establishments in Michigan Armories in Michigan Industrial buildings and structures in Michigan

History

Tenant units

Tanks produced

References

Further reading

External links