Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
Leg - I dont agree on the US not going to full wartime production earlier that July of 1997 - given the scale of the fighting and the earlier orders from China I think that the US would have been on full scale wartime production by as early as January 1997-March 1997 - possibly even earlier - especially if China had placed large orders
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It really depends on what you consider "full wartime production". "Full" as in how we didn't produce a single automobile for consumers from 1942 to 1945 (because the automotive companies were too busy producing tanks and aircraft engines)? If that's the benchmark, then I think the answer is quite clearly no. Has the U.S. ever gone to full wartime production
just to aid an ally? No, not even prior to its entry into WWI OR WWII did the U.S. do that. Only
during its direct involvement in WWII (after Pearl Harbor) did the U.S. ramp military production up to its maximum capacity.
Yes, the U.S. would increase production significantly in the wake of the Sino-Soviet War, and this would help the U.S. further ramp up military production as soon as it enters the war, but I'm not sure full wartime production would have been achieved by the TDM. This is because modern weapon systems are so much more complex and time-consuming to produce than those in the early-to-mid 1940s. Compare the time (in man hours) it took to build a tank c. 1941 to the time it took to build an M1 Abrams, or a P-41 v. an F-16. I think a more realistic military production rate (by the TDM) would be between 80-90% of total capacity, if that high.