I had a Reagan 1980's build up that didn't stop with the end of the cold war. I do stand by the numbers. I have a prewar production of 500 LAV-75, 480 M-8's and 900 Stingray's. 20 armored divisions, like 40 mech divisions.

sorry you don't like it.

As I said, everyone's welcome to approach things the way they want. If you want that many tanks rolling off the production line, go for it.
On the other hand, I like to limit things so that there isn't a tank over every hill and when PCs find new toys to play with, they're a bit more interesting, unique, and valuable.

cool. I play large games with each player controlling divisions at a min battalion sized unit. they and I like lots of tanks :D

So it is T2K at a wargaming level? Interesting.

The tank production numbers seem huge, but I have planned for similar. Not necessarily for T2k, but for a general fantasy WWIII scenario. I think you would have to have Reagan win the presidency in 1976 and some type of incredible economic boom. Perhaps some sort of economical way for the US and Canada to process their massive Oil shale reserves came our of the oil shocks of the ealry 70s.

As a programming and numbers nut it is always fun for me to take numbers to the extreme and see where the points of failure are. I think the tanks could have been made but for each one you would also need almost one and a half M2s variants, half an M113, 30+ trucks and at least 120 personnel (plus another 100 in the Reserves). Personnel in a non conscripted US army always seems to be the limiting factor in my calculations. And if you have a booming economy the problem becomes even more difficult as recruitment becomes harder.

Leg reiterates a couple of really good points.

First of all, producing a current-gen tank like the M1A1 takes a lot of skill, resources, and money. It's not like WWII were a Ford automotive factory could be relatively easily converted to producing M4 Shermans, and its assembly lines staffed with former autoworkers or relatively inexperienced "Rosie the Riveter" types. The engine technology in the M4 was similar to existing tractors and trucks and the most hi-tech components were the simple gun sights.

Now compare that with the Abrams. It's gas turbine engine is a lot more complex than a tractor or truck engine. It's "Chobam" [sic] composite armor is much more difficult to make than molded steel armor. It's gun systems are incredibly complex. All of this also requires highly skilled labor to produce and assemble.

So, best case scenario, it's going to take months just to get the "extra" M1 factories up and running. Are they already up by '96, making M1s for China? I don't think so. I'm not sure the Chinese could afford many full-priced Abrams and I don't think the U.S. gov would be willing to subsidize the sales (think Lend-Lease). Then there's the political implications of providing a nation-at-war with current-gen weapons sytems. There could be the perception in the administration that this could constitute a causus beli in the eyes of the USSR, dragging the U.S. into the war. For these reasons, I think less expensive, less complex tanks like the Stingray, LAV-75/LAV-75A1, and or M8 AGS are all more likely options. So, it's going to be a while before additional M1 factories are set up and running at full capacity. By then, the TDM pretty much makes the whole issue moot.

Lastly, there's the question of cost. I've mentioned this already in the Defense of the Red Army thread a few weeks back, but even a relatively robust economy like the U.S.'s (at least in the mid-'90s) is going to have a helluva time sustaining maximum production rates for hi-tech systems like the M1A2, F22, JTF, Seawolf, etc. They are just too expensive and difficult to produce. WWII levels of production are simply unsustainable with modern weapon systems. Production-wise, the Soviets would be in a much better position with their comparitively more simple tanks.

But hey, that's just my take on the matter. It's totally up to others whether they want to pump it up the numbers for their T2KU. More power to ya.

I agree that given the standard T2k timeline those numbers would be impossible to achieve. Even if you throw all the resources possible at it. One of my favorite quotes related to that concept is "Nine women can't make a baby in a month". But the alternate history buff in me likes to see how far back you need to go and how you could get there. Are they tremendously optimistic, absolutely, but I tried to apply the same optimism to the USSR (by discovering massive gold, diamond and oil reserves) in the scenarios where I just wanted to see what two titans at their maximum possible capabilities would do against each other. In my case this really does apply more to wargaming (TWW and Harpoon series) than to T2k but since there is quite a bit of crossover in the underlying data, it seems appropriate to discuss here.

"Nine women can't make a baby in a month". love that. :D

1080 a year from both plants combined.

That and other weapons production rates are at
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/62xx/doc6...21b-Entire.pdf

The "maximum economic production rate" represents making full use of the production machinery. Higher rates are possible with an expansion of industrial plant. Whether that is possible in a T2k context is debatable - there are a host of issues with trying to start up new production capacity. There's a lot on this issue if you dig a little on google - when the US shut down new tank production in the 90s there was a lot of concern on what would be needed to reactivate a cold production line.

One of the bottlenecks (can't find the reference offhand) is that the DU armor production facility turned out no more than 25 sets of armor a month, so only 300 of the 1080 tanks produced per year have the HA armor set.

WOW thanks!

looks like I'll have to build more plants.

Be interesting to see how you intend to deal with all the issues that would require - cost, materials, skilled labour, transportation, and above all, time.

LOL me 2. :D

cost is the only issue I see.

I think a bigger factor to new construction is TIME. The time it takes to BUILD the new facility. From the time the decision is made, the location selected, construction of the buildings and related infastructure to support the facility. Two years would be fast I think, and if the decision was made too late, the bombs will make it moot.

Of course if you use v1 timeline, the cold war never ended. SO there would be a possability of continued production and perhaps increased number of plants. Still not sure why in the general context however as there was not the rush to do it until the spontanious war started by the Germans.

Agreed. And don't discount the time it would take to train new factory employees. Once again, I don't see a production increase to support the Chinese so more than maybe one new plant likely wouldn't become a priority until the Germans make their move. And then, as you mentioned, it would take a while before any additional plants were up and running at full capacity.

I can agree with that -- IIRC, in World War 2 they took the P-51 from the drawing board to a production-level prototype in 68 days. Try that with even a HMMWV-type vehicle today -- you'll be sorely disappointed. Equipment is just more complicated these days.

guess I'll have to start building them in the 80's some how. probably have to fudge the money for them too.

oh and btw pmulcahy11b why no SA-11 on your website?

Paul acknowledged your first mention of this. With 1000s of items something is bound to fall through the cracks. Just a note this is a perfect thing for a PM as it is really not related to this thread (and was mentioned elsewhere).

he did? Hmmm must have missed it . my bad.

Ah, but remember when it comes to the Government "Who cares how much it's going to cost, think of all the jobs it will create."

I mean if you really want to look at it the government would just pass an Appropriation Bill, and worry about the 'cost' later. In their eyes the increased weapon production means jobs in their community "Bringing home the Pork".

very good point.

I just did a few calculations of continued Reagan era spending, inflation adjustment, and the Current stimulus/Bank Bailout Packages. By my calculations if a theoretical Reagan Republican Legislature was willing to make the similarly sized fiscal decisions they are being made currently (for bank bailouts and stimulus package) the Military Budget could have been expanded an additional 29% beyond the Reagan Levels during the 1985-1996 fiscal years.

In my mind that establishes the theoretical upper limit of what could be accomplished. Just as today's excessive spending is starting to see significant political resistance (even with a single party in charge), I believe the same would have been seen then.

Not that I feel that is likely (the Republican legislature part occuring that early seems really far fetched), but I always like to start with a maximum or minimum limit to make sure I don't pass it.

Thanks kato that helps a lot. :D

The really bad part of defense spending and Bring Home the Pork is that Congress will try to get components of weapons systems built in as many places as possible. Look at the F-22 Raptor -- components were built in 47 states. IIRC, for the M-1A2 SEP, components are built in 14 states, and testing is done in 3 others. This would become a detriment in wartime, particularly after the November Nuclear Strikes.

I just thought of something -- Saudi and Egyptian Abrams production. While they are built locally, there are some things the US Government will not allow the Saudi and Egyptian workers to do. GDLS personnel in both countries install the frontal armor, the computers and software, the GPS systems, and (in the case of Saudi M-1s) the Battlefield Management System. Those components are built in the US and they are practically NOFORN (No Foreign Personnel) -- foreign personnel are only allowed to look at an abbreviated version of the tech manuals for those components.

This may lead to versions of the Abrams during the Twilight War that are sort of "M-1A2 minus" versions -- with reverse-engineered, not as efficient components and armor.

Or with other systems, similar to how some Russian vehicles have French protection systems factory installed.

Money doesn't grow on trees. When the global economy is being pulled in all directions and virtually every government is trying to borrow money from the same international banks to fund their own war effort, those funds just aren't going to be as available as they once were.

Sure the governments might manage to bluff their way past creditors, etc for a time, but eventually the whole national economy will fall like a house of cards and politicians would be scrambling to protect themselves.

Now where's the pork?

So, it could be done. The salient question then becomes, why? Even had the Cold War continued past '89-'91, what would have motivated the administration to spend that additional 29% over the relatively high Reagan defense spending levels on tank production? (and what about Raptor, Crusader, Seawolf, etc.?) I can see an increase in defense spending once the Soviets invade China but, once again, it's going to take time to build up the infrastructure (factories, skilled workers, etc.) to start turning those extra millions of dollars into tanks, especially since, as Paul pointed out, production in the U.S. tends to be very decentralized and much coordination is required. By the time those factories started nearing peak production, the TDM would effectively kill it.

I have discovered during some reading that this is only partially correct. The suspension and track system contains elements from the M113A3, the M2 Bradley and some M8-specific components. The hydromechanical transmission is from the Bradley but the engine, the 6V-92TA 6 cylinder Detroit Diesel, has 65% parts commonality with the 8V-92TA 8 cylinder Detroit Diesel used in the M977 HEMTT truck. The Cadillac Gage Stingray and Stingray II light tanks actually use the M977 HEMTT's 8V-92TA engine as well.

One of the ironies of this is many of the civilian stuff that these same industries were trying to retract the foot print of their manufacturing establishments and shedding the parts that they had been making in-house. With the ironic twist that did spin-off several things that did spread their overall foot print of their goods.

A couple of nights ago, I watched a new show on the History Channel hosted by R. Lee Ermey (the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket) called Lock N' Load about the evolution of AFVs. The last AFV profiled was the Stryker-based version of the AGS.

The unmanned "turret" with the 105mm gun looked like it would fit perfectly on the M113-based LAV-75 chasis. A 105mm armed LAV-75 (the LAV-75A1) would make a good light tank alternative to the heavier, more expensive, and slower to produce M1 Abrams series for the American airborne, motorized, and leg infantry divisions going into the Twilight War/WWIII. The 105mm gun would be able to provide infantry with effective direct fire support and would be able to take on and defeat the armor of most Soviet MBTs.

It would sort of be like the long-barreled 75mm Sturmgeshutz "assault guns" of the WWII German Army. They were originally designed to provide direct fire support to infantry but later became de facto TDs and were often called upon to perform the same role as proper tanks. They were based on an existing tank chasis (the Pz.III) and were much cheaper and faster to produce than the Panther or Tiger.

The more I think about it, the more I like the 105mm LAV-75. It's not entirely canonical (v1.0) but it still makes sense on almost every level.

Something like this?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...onary_Tank.jpg

Bless you, James! That's it!

I'd seen the picture years ago, but it took some guessing to Google-up a picture of the darn thing. From what I can find, the Expeditionary Tank was the Teledyne Vehicle Systems (later General Dynamics Land Systems) entry into the AGS competition that the M-8 ended up winning back in the 80's. GDLS continued development of the Low Profile Turret and an evolved version is what ended up on the M1128 MGS.

So in T2Kverse, the basic turret was out still out there and being refined by GDLS and would probably be ready to be put into production to up-gun the LAV-75 when the need arose.

Ye gods, what a beauty!

Webstral

Is it just me or does it look like the tanks from Tron?

Indeed it does.:)

I'm a fan of the 2.0 and 2.2 timeline, so I use the M8 AGS.

Anyone know what happened to the M8 AGS prototypes? Supposedly there were 4 prototypes. According to Army Times, they were pulled out of storage and sent to Afghanistan as an interim gun system?

anybody have any more info on this?

Also, according to wikipedia, United Defense was developing a hybrid electric powered 120mm armed version of the M8 AGS.

found this M8 AGS video on youtube. I'm guessing the language is Turkish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yqxr3tqtog

I hadn't heard that, but it's intriguing. Please let us know what you find out.

If no one minds, I'm going to petition the proprietors of the nearest thing to official T2K canon, Paul M. and Chico (the DC group rep), to canonize the LAV-75A1. I'd like to use Web's backstory (Chinese combat experience with export models of the original LAV-75 leading to requests for a bigger gun, with the subsequently more successful, upgunned version being ordered by the U.S. for its "light" divisions) and James'78's "photographic evidence" to support my original 105mm-armed LAV-75concept.

In case you hadn't noticed it, I'm in love with the LAV-75A1 concept.

I have come around to your way of thinking now Raellus and I don't mind. I think there is room for the M8 as well in the Twilight universe but perhaps the M8 never made it past the production prototype phase and therefore the only examples in the Twilight universe would be within the CONUS.