Wartime production

[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

I can see even selected companies having bought new tooling to expand production and getting it online in time for the war to expand to include the US - a perfect example would be Cadillac Gage - the Stingray I and II tank would have been perfect for Chinese use and could see them getting it to where they were building it at Cocoa Beach and in Louisiana as well even before the US got involved

I do agree with you on research and development in most cases not being able to get stuff to the battlefield in time except perhaps things like getting the LAV-75 up-gunned so it had an actual chance against a decent Soviet tank or rushing some ships by cutting corners or focusing on them to the detriment of others - i.e. if you have four destroyers on the ways in various stages concentrate on the ones you can get out the earliest and let the others go

or putting everything you have into getting Harry S Truman commissioned and into service by say mid to late 1997 due to the earlier fleet losses so instead of being nuked at Newport she is actually deployed and at sea for the TDM - given the war and the losses earlier in 1997 that I can see for sure - even if it means you pull resources off other ships to do it

[Raellus]

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

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.

[Olefin]

Let me redefine - what I mean by full military production isnt a WWII all guns no butter production rate - what I mean is pushing the assembly lines/production facilities to their full maximum rate and putting a second shift on to increase production to their full maximum rate (meaning the most the lines/factory could make given the tooling/machinery/supplier base that they had)

i.e. as per my example the current M1 line makes 18 tanks a month - but when it kicked off in the 1980's it could make 120 a month - and most likely with a second shift might have been able to hit 180-200 a month

or what we did at BAE when we put on a second shift when I was there and got the Bradley rework/rebuild and the M88A2 line up to maximum production rate using our current tooling/machinery both that we had and our suppliers had

But I dont see any WWII style "hey lets convert the automobile plants to all making planes and tanks" kind of build up in any way - at least not pre-TDM

now post TDM probably any factory that still had power and employees was most likely converted to war work of some sort to whatever extent they could do so - i.e. as per the canon using machine shops to turn out mortars and mortar shells by 1999-2000 or bicycles for transporting men or small amounts of equipment (which dont need fuel to run)

now I could see individual plants that were working with the Chinese having time to possibly tool up to get either a new plant going or new assembly lines - i.e. Stingray tanks by Cadillac Gage at both the Louisiana and Cocoa Beach assembly lines instead of just at one if the Chinese ordered them big time - there would be just about enough time to get said second line up and running by about August or so of 1997

[Olefin]

hey do we have an actual thread where Leg, Raellus and I all agree - doesnt that mean the end times or something like that is here?

[Legbreaker]

There's no way anyone can really look at this purely from a military viewpoint (or any one view point for that matter) and even come close to what the situation would likely have been. All factors, military, political (domestic and foreign), economic, social, etc must be considered before we have a hope of guessing what might have happened.

Only have to look at the Vietnam war period for an indication of how complex the issue is. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed, social unrest at home in the latter years, an economy still recovering from the effects of WWII and Korea, the risk of widening the war, and so on.

For another example look at Iraq/Afghanistan over the last 15 or so years. Not a total mobilisation for sure, but still significant numbers of troops and equipment involved.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Let me redefine - what I mean by full military production isnt a WWII all guns no butter production rate - what I mean is pushing the assembly lines/production facilities to their full maximum rate and putting a second shift on to increase production to their full maximum rate (meaning the most the lines/factory could make given the tooling/machinery/supplier base that they had)

i.e. as per my example the current M1 line makes 18 tanks a month - but when it kicked off in the 1980's it could make 120 a month - and most likely with a second shift might have been able to hit 180-200 a month

America now has only one tank factory at Lima Ohio. They haven't build a new tank from scratch at Lima since the mid-1990's as all tanks are reconditioned. But the tanks are reconditioned to such a degree that they are practically new tanks. Although the Trump administration may start building new tanks even if the army doesn't need them.

M1 tank reconditioning at Lima averages half a tank per day (15 tanks a month). General Dynamics has stated that it can ramp that up to two and a half tanks a day (75 tanks a month). In wartime that figure could conceivably rise to over a 100 tanks a month. If we say that reconditioning takes the same amount of time as producing a new tank then that would be up to 1,200 tanks a year. Building another tank factory would not be that hard but it would probably take at least six months to either build from scratch or refit with the right machine tools and equipment. So with the right infrastructure it is possible that America could build up to 2,400 tanks a year.

[Olefin]

The plant was originally laid out to produce 120 new production tanks per month - but with a second shift and weekend production it could have made more - and given the V1 timeline it would have been still making new tanks right up to and including the war - V2 there would have been that time where they switched to just recondition and rebuilt but would have been easy to make new ones

There was a second tank plant in the US that was building the Stingray Light tank - Cadillac Gage built the Stingray Tank at Cocoa Beach FL and that plant was still there and still ready to build tanks as late as 1994 in our real timeline, with the machinery and tooling transferred to the Louisiana plant after that - thus in the V1 and V2 timeline they could have two tank plants if Cadillac Gage decided to put in a new line in Louisiana instead of transferring the line from Florida - which could have happened given the order for Pakistan in the canon - and if China ordered tanks from them as well

And in both timelines the M8 Armored Gun system - which is a light tank - would have been in production at York PA - all new production tanks

Also you have the V1 LAV-75 as a production vehicle - thus you have a light tank plant (AAI Corporation) in Maryland as well

Thus the US would have had a total of four tank plants for the Twilight War and possibly five - one at Lima making the M1's, one (and possibly two) in Florida and Louisiana making Stingray light tanks, one in York PA making M8 light tanks and one in Maryland making the LAV-75 light tank

[Legbreaker]

And there I was thinking the LAV-75 was 1st ed and the M8 2nd ed and essentially the replacement/successor to the cancelled LAV-75.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

And there I was thinking the LAV-75 was 1st ed and the M8 2nd ed and essentially the replacement/successor to the cancelled LAV-75.

From what I remember the M8 showed up in Challenge Magazine between the two versions of the timeline - so thats a real question - is the LAV-75 V1 only and the M8 V2 only

Given the real timeline (i.e. not the game) the most likely answer would be that the M8 is the reality for both timelines (with the LAV-75 a rejected prototype) and should be used in place of the LAV-75 everywhere it is mentioned in the original game and modules

After all the M8 was greenlighted for production in reality - only cost cutting kept it from going into serial production - it had passed all testing and was approved by the Army - versus the LAV-75 which wasnt

Thus you would have the three different tank plants - the one making the M1, the one (or two) making the Stingray and the one making the M8

I know this has been discussed before but dont remember if there was ever a general agreement on this issue? (i.e. LAV-75 versus M8 for both timelines)