,
Netherlands The tribulations of the
year 1672 emphasized the neglected state in which the army of
the Republic of the Seven Provinces found itself. Therefore, in 1677,
Willem III of Orange founded the corps artillery. In 1679 the State Prosecution Company in Delft was established. It was not the only one in the Netherlands. For example, the
Grof Geschut Gieterijin in
The Hague and the
Geweerfabriek in
Culemborg were also known. With the creation of
United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 following the
Napoleonic Wars and the period of
French Occupation, there was a need for a strong army in order to provide a buffer against France. The artillery was improved under the direction of
Prince Frederik. Arms production was reorganized and came under military leadership.
The Delft Company In the period of peace between
Waterloo in 1815 and the
Belgian Revolution of 1830, the Delft company developed rapidly. By 1813, the company was already utilizing
steam power and producing
artillery,
field guns,
small arms and
military vehicles. Other products were manufactured in facilities located in
Liège, but this ended after 1830 when the Belgian Revolution geographically split off these facilities, leaving the company's production entirely in Delft. Again, a reorganization was undertaken and non-core tasks such as woodworking were rejected. The company focused its efforts on metalworking under the leadership of Colonel Ultich Huguenin (1755-1833). The company began to manufacture
small arms and
ammunition as well, while continuing to produce
machinery and precision instruments. Because it was also a
mining plant,
lathes were required for the
machining of
artillery munitions and the like. Their manufacture of precision instruments required custom machines and, by 1836, the company was producing
lathes for their own use. By about 1850 there were 500 people in the company. The quality of production was high. In 1860 a
pyrotechnic plant was set up for the manufacture of
explosives. About 1880, the company consisted of a logistics center, a pyrotechnic school, a
foundry, a
workshop, a
saddlery, a
woodworking center, a gun shop, and a
pattern factory. In 1884, the company introduced a small
foundry for
cast steel, which was the first industrial scale
steel production in the Netherlands. With this addition, the company began using cast steel for the production of
war materiels which were previously manufactured from
cast iron or
wrought iron. In 1940, a plan was put in place to deny the
NAZIs use of Artillerie Inrichtingen's facilities, but this plan was not implemented before
The Invasion. The old Artillerie Inrichtingen
Hembrug factories fell into disuse. In 1983, the
Hembrug Bridge, for which the area was named, was made obsolete by the
Hemtunnel, then torn down in 1985. The former munitions factories were replaced by Eurometaal, then Rheinmetall facilities. As of 2017, the
Hembrug Machine Tools company still makes
precision lathes including the Mikroturn line in
Haarlem. There are still a large number of industrial manufacturing plants in the
Hembrug area, and the area is considered as an important industrial monument. On the site of the old Artillerie Inrichtingen Hemburg factories, the
Hembrug Museum is furnished to provide information about the past, present and future of its activities. As of 2021, the name Artillerie Inrichtingen is being used by the private company AI Armaments. The goal of this company is to provide domestic small arms and ammunition manufacturing within the Netherlands ==Association with the AR-10 battle rifle==