The Evolution Of The 1943 Steel Coinage

Interesting but no where near detailed enough to answer the original question. The original question was asking for more exact details of dates, reasons, other materials, etc.
There is a book out by someone named Charles D. Daughtrey on just the Lincoln Cent. In that book there are 8 pages of info about that 1943 Cent.

So another words if we go to war with North Korea ,we'll have to change our Zinc cents to plastic . ( need zinc to coat the heads of our missiles ) NOT ,but hey you never know .

The book you want is United States Pattern and Experimental Pieces of WWII by Roger Burdette. 190 pages covering what lead up to the composition change, stop gap measures, experimental materials tested (glass, plastic and different metal compositions) the different pattern designs, the companies that made test pieces, the results of tests conducted by the National Bureau of Standards, the change from the zinc plated steel to the shell case cents, the experiments conducted for the change in the composiion of the five cent piece, and a complete listing of all known patterns. The book is well footnoted with locations of all pertinent original source documents in the national archives.

Available from Wizard Coin supply for $30