British arms production

British and Commonwealth arms production in WW2 from 1939-1945.

assembly line at Avro's Woodford plant
The final assembly line at Avro’s Woodford plant in 1943 with Lancaster Mk Is.

Following are tables of the British and Commonwealth armaments and military equipment production (excluding ammunition) and a comparison of the necessary strategic raw materials.

British arms production by weapon types

The British annual production figures of the main arms and military equipment (without ammunition) during WW2 from 1939-1945:

Arms Production:

Type of Weapon1939194019411942194319441945OVERALL
Tanks and Self-propelled guns969 1,399 4,841 8,611 7,476 4,600? 27,896
Artillery (including anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns)538 4,700 16,700 43,000 38,000 16,000 5,939 124,877
Mortars 102,950 (1939-45)?????? 102,950
Machine-guns (without sub-machine guns) 297,336 (1939-45)?????? 297,336
Rifles1,000,000+ (Lee-Enfield Nov 39-Sep 45; incl. Canada and US; 1939-45)?????? 5,000,000+
Sub-machine guns (Sten)-- 2,000,000 + (incl. Canada c.40%; 1941-45)???? 2,000,000+
Military trucks and lorries? 89,582 88,161 87,499 113,912 54,615 47,174 480,943
Fighter planes 1,324 4,283 7,064 9,849 10,727 10,730 5,445 49,422
Bomber planes 1,837 3,488 4,668 6,253 7,728 7,903 2,812 34,689
Reconnaissance planes61387196546 1,054 1,123600 3,967
Transport planes----209889686 1,784
Trainers and miscellaneous military types 4,209 6,415 6,934 5,942 4,825 2,877692 31,894
Aircraft carriers (all types)-22-24414
Battleships-122---5
Cruisers376672132
Destroyers22273973373113240
Escorts (Corvettes, Frigates)5109877179557413
Submarines7152033393914167
Merchant shipping tonnage 629,705 842,910 1,185,894 1,270,714 1,136,804 919,357 393,515 6,378,899

Raw material production for the military weapon production above:

Annual strategic raw material production (m. metric tons):

Year:1939194019411942194319441945
Coal231.3224.3206.3204.9198.9192.7182.8
Ore14.517.719.019.918.515.514.2
Steel13.213.012.312.813.312.111.8
Aluminium (in 1,000 metric tons - especially important for aircraft production)25.018.922.746.855.735.531.9


Arms production in Commonwealth

Total numbers only for the arms’ production of the Commonwealth. There are no details about the annual production figures available except the merchant shipping tonnage.

Arms production in Commonwealth:

Type of weaponCanada Australia, New Zealand, India and South AfricaOverall
Tanks and Self-propelled guns 5,678 1,399 7,077
Artillery (including Anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns) 10,552 4,700 15,252
Mortars 20,619 25,395 46,014
Machine-guns (without sub-machine guns) 251,925 37,983 289,908
Sub-machine guns c.800,000 after June 1941? c.800,000
Trainers and Military planes of all sorts 16,431 3,081 19,512
Escorts (Corvettes, Frigates) 19112203

Merchant shipping tonnage:

1939194019411942194319441945OVERALL
36,142 18,886 90,595 720,172 1,002,850 692,405 141,893 2,702,943

Production of strategic materials in Canada:

Annual strategic raw material production (m. metric tons):

Year:1939194019411942194319441945
Coal 13.3 14.9 15.3 15.9 14.7 14.2 13.6
Ore 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.5 1.0
Steel 1.4 1.7 2.5 2.8 2.7 2.7 2.6



Important influences on Britain’s military production

convoy approaches the British coast
Driving a zigzag course, a convoy approaches the British coast.

Compared to the industrial potential and access to global resources of the UK, the military production of Britain failed surprisingly low in comparison to the other participating nations.

Some likely causes of the failures in its military production was the Battle of the Atlantic with its sea blockade, and the loss of a view key areas of strategic raw materials (Malaya, Burma, South Pacific) to the Japanese in 1942.

Obviously, however the US have taken-over the focus of the Anglo-American arms production – and probably so far as this can be taken from the imports of strategic raw materials to the UK, also to some part to the detriment of Britain. For example, the availability of important iron ore in the UK decreases from 1941 on by about 30% and is not increasing any more after the Battle of the Atlantic was won by the Allies from mid-1943.


Battle of the Atlantic

The war against the sea supply lines of Britain and the sea blockade:

Battle of the Atlantic:

Year:19381939194019411942194319441945
German U-boats losses-922358528724170 (3 months)
German U-boats construction?585021922229228398
Average operational German U-boats per month-292850316423457470
Merchant ships sunk (in tons)- 810,000 4,407,000 4,398,000 8,245,000 3,611,000 1,422,000 458,000
thereof by U-boats- 452,000 2,415,000 2,203,000 6,629,000 2,900,000 1,052,000 294,000
Construction of merchant ships in UK incl Commonwealth (in tons)? 231,000 780,000 815,000 1,843,000 2,201,000 1,170,000 283,000
Construction of merchant ships in US (in tons)? 101,000 439,000 1,169,000 5,339,000 12,384,000 11,639,000 3,551,000
Total construction of Allied merchant ships (in tons)? 332,000 1,219,000 1,984,000 7,182,000 14,585,000 13,349,000 3,834,000
Estimated total number of Allied merchant ships (in tons) 34,500,000 34,123,000 30,935,000 28,521,000 27,458,000 38,432,000 48,359,000 51,735,000


British imports

British weekly war ration for one person
Shown here, the British weekly war ration for one person appear thin – but so, too, men and ships had to be sacrifice in the Battle of the Atlantic to supply the UK with it. The dangerous passage of the convoys to Great Britain often took two weeks.

Annual UK imports of key strategic raw materials and foodstuffs (in 1,000 metric tons):


British imports:

1939194019411942194319441945
Oil 11,628 11,270 13,130 16,280 14,790 20,340 15,620
Iron ore (total 5,200 (=c.54% import) 4,500 (=c.51% import) 2,300 (=c.51% import) 1,900 (=c.30% import) 1,900 (=c.30% import) 2,200 (=c.33% import) 4,100 (=c.48% import)
Iron and steel 1,820 3,690 4,080 2,210 2,810 1,760314
Scrap iron605937549---200
Bauxite3021128748242172163
Lead (total)334 (=c.93% import)336 (=c.93% import)139 (=c.84% import)235 (=c.90% import)226 (=c.89% import)225 (=c.89% import)165 (=c.86% import)
Tin (total)54 (=c.95% import)84 (=c.97% import)65 (=c.96% import)44 (=c.94% import)52 (=c.95% import)33 (=c.69% import)45 (=c. 94% import)
Zinc (total)167 (=c.95% import)204 (=c.96% import)210 (=c.96% import)212 (=c.96% import)188 (=c.96% import)119 (=c.94% import)97 (=c.92% import)
Raw rubber6920016866693436
OVERALL strategic raw materials (excluding oil) 3,351 5,563 5,298 2,815 3,587 2,343 1,020
Rice (food)143191179531317225
Peas and beans (food)13514715848697166
Wheat 5,300 5,800 5,400 3,500 3,300 2,800 3,600
Overall 25,757 27,471 26,465 24,596 23,777 27,826 24,431


Extent of the strategic bombing war 1940-1945

in tons of bombs dropped:

Year:194019411942194319441945 (4 months)TOTAL
on cities in UK 38,844 21,858 3,260 2,298 9,151761 76,172
on cities in Germany (for comparison) 10,000 30,000 40,000 120,000 (from Oct-Dec about 15% of failure in arms production) 650,000 500,000 1,350,000


References and literature

World War II – A Statistical Survey (John Ellis)
Chronology of World War II (Christopher Argyle)
Die Schlacht im Atlantik (Andrew Kershaw)


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2 thoughts on “British arms production”

  1. Mike Gerald Barnwell

    Some of the small arms figures are far too low GB had nearly 9million troops of various types they did not share rifles indeed allied contingents and the resistance was largely supplied as well

    1. Overall more than 5 Million Lee-Enfield were built, the majority seems to be No.1 Mk III* from World War I. The No.4 Mk I was built from Nov 39 and became not the British standard rifle before Nov 1941 and well over 1 million (plus 100,000 No.5 Mk I and 25,000 No.4 Mk I(T) ) were built during WW2. It looks like many British and Commonwealth troops still were using the older No.1 Mk III* (which was produced in Australia til 1955) or US M1903 and M1917 (secondary units and Home Guard), especially at the beginning of WW2.
      Additional, alone between 2 and 3.75 million British Sten sub-machine guns were manufactured during WW2.
      The British Army reached its peak strength in June 1944 with 2,920,000 soldiers (plus 190,800 ATS).

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