In the quest for more powerful weapons, the service of Artillery subjects the manufacturers to increasingly larger requirements. Consecutively, the manufacturing standards rise, controls get tighter and the number of weapons refused for the service increases. The technical and financial balance was broken. The contractors refused to have any cuts in their profits. The “€œaccelerating” processes invented by Honoré Blanc then came just at the right moment. The way of an increased qualification of the workmen and a state-control was ruled out. Eventually, mechanization and disqualification of the work force were the final choices. Mechanization was the only way to meet the needs of the army while protecting contractors’ interests. The war made it easier. Supported, with some subtleties, by almost all the engineers, mechanization, without being inescapable, was a political choice which proved to be necessary.