some of my mother's family were Armstrongs men
Perhaps production was delayed by your armstrong men and their sabotage.
I remember reading some thing written by an individual employed as an apprentice whose job was tightening bolts in the Spitfires spar and he kept snapping the bolts through over tightening. In those days they didn't have torque wrenches and instructions were to use a spanner of a stipulated length which was meant that the average person would torque to an adequate figure, not so with the armstrong men, or ladies I guess.