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Anarsenal is a place wherearms andammunition are made,maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whetherprivately orpublicly owned.Arsenal andarmoury (British English) orarmory (American English)[1][2] are mostly regarded as synonyms, although subtle differences in usage exist.
Asub-armory is a place of temporary storage or carrying of weapons and ammunition, such as any temporary post or patrol vehicle that is only operational in certain times of the day.[3]
The term in English entered the language in the 16th century as a loanword fromFrench:arsenal, itself deriving from the termItalian:arsenale, which in turn is thought to be a corruption ofArabic:دار الصناعة,dār aṣ-ṣināʿa, meaning "manufacturing shop".[4][5][6][7][8][9]
A lower-class arsenal, which can furnish themateriel and equipment of a small army, may contain a laboratory, gun and carriage factories, small-arms ammunition, small-arms, harness, saddlery tent and powder factories; in addition, it must possess great storehouses. In a second-class arsenal, the factories would be replaced by workshops. The situation of an arsenal should be governed by strategic considerations. If of the first class, it should be situated at the base of operations and supply, secure from attack, not too near a frontier, and placed so as to draw in readily the resources of the country. The importance of a large arsenal is such that its defences would be on the scale of those of a largefortress.
In the early 21st century, the term "floating armoury" described a ship storing weapons to be supplied to merchant vessels in international waters subject topiracy, so that the weapons do not enter territorial waters where they would be illegal.
The branches in a great arsenal are usually subdivided intostorekeeping,construction andadministration:
In the manufacturing branches are required skill, and efficient and economical work, both executive and administrative; in the storekeeping part, good arrangement, great care, thorough knowledge of all warlike stores, both in their active and passive state, and scrupulous exactness in the custody, issue and receipt of stores.Frederick Taylor introducedcommand and control techniques to arsenals, including the U.S.'sWatertown Arsenal (a principal center for artillery design and manufacture) andFrankford Arsenal (a principal center forsmall arms ammunition design and manufacture).[10]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911)."Arsenal" .Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 02 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 650 to 651.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Arsenal".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
