Explosive ROF

An Explosive ROF was a UK Government-owned Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF), which specialised in manufacturing explosives during and after World War II. Note: In World War I, the name used in the UK for Government-owned explosives factories was National Explosives Factory; and the Cordite factory at Gretna was known as HM Factory, Gretna.

These Second World War factories were built for the Ministry of Supply with the Ministry of Works, in all cases except ROF Irvine, acting as . Explosive ROF's specialised in producing either high-explosives, such as TNT (trinitrotoluene) or RDX; or propellants, such as cordite, but there were minor exceptions to this demarcation. The products from these Explosive ROFs were shipped to Filling Factories for filling into munitions.

Pyrotechnics, such as fuzes and screening smokes, tended to be made at the Filling Factories and filled directly into munitions.

A number of UK World War II explosives factories were built and owned by ICI. These privately owned explosives factories were not considered part of the ROF Organisation and they were not called ROFs. ICI also managed numerous munitions factories constructed with Ministry of Supply funding; these were known as Agency Factories. ICI Nobel's Ardeer site and its World War II agency factories produced, for example, 35% of the combined ROF and Agency Factories output of Cordite and 15% of the combined output of TNT.

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