The Board of Ordnance, operating from 1476 to 1855 and at times second only to the Treasury in scope, supplied guns and ammunition to Britain's army and navy. Alongside the Royal Dockyards, it maintained bureaucratic knowledge, plant, and skilled capacity behind Britain's small professional forces. This system allowed ships in ordinary and a modest standing military to expand rapidly without paying continuously for a fully mobilized force. Successor organizations and the dockyards carried much of that capacity beyond the Second World War, training the British state to think over long periods about supply and infrastructure. Their success nevertheless encouraged governments to assume that extensive peacetime preparation was unnecessary.
Chapter · 53:27-57:43
The Board of Ordnance made rapid mobilization possible
Britain compensated for limited peacetime stockpiles with state institutions able to expand armament and ship production when war began.