I knew they made telegraph keys during WWII and rifles during Vietnam. I didn’t know about navigation equipment for the Iowa class ships.
Lionel's work with the U.S. Navy produced good results, but some background shenanigans by their Agent (not an employee) and demands by the wartime Price Adjustment Board to refund excessive profits cut into the bonanza. Lionel also made lifeboat parts, percussion primers for antiaircraft shells and other compass components, including special alcohol-resistant paint for compass bowls. The paint formulation required very fresh eggs, so Lionel had a hen house set up on its plant site. Lionel engineers even worked a mechanism that would illuminate a red light when an egg was laid! With materials in short supply during the war, Lionel produced cardboard trains and wooden structures.
I swear to you that somewhere down the line I saw a WWII information film in which an O gauge train was used to train pilots. It had a model airplane attached to the top by servos, and the students had a control to make the airplane go up and down. They were doing beginner training on strafing, I guess. I'll have to fire up the VCR and rewatch my tape full of propaganda. Maybe I have access to the title of it. Of course, for all I could tell from seeing the short clip, it could have been made by Marx.
In later years, Lionel capitalized on the Cold War, with an entertaining collection of missile launchers, cannons, submarines and exploding boxcars and ammo dumps. Here, the soldier was literally in the hot seat seconds after the missiles were launched. I wanted one of these SO much when I was a kid, but Santa never delivered.
