Arsenal

An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned.

[3] The term in English entered the language in the 16th century as a loanword from French: arsenal, itself deriving from the term Italian: arsenale, which in turn is thought to be a corruption of Arabic: دار الصناعة, dār aṣ-ṣināʿa, meaning "manufacturing shop".

[4][5][6][7][8][9] A lower-class arsenal, which can furnish the materiel 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.

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 branches in a great arsenal are usually subdivided into storekeeping, construction and administration: 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.