I don't think that happened or that storing bombs for that long is possible or if they would see work

Give this a read

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-tha...o-World-War-II

Not only the issue with fusings, but different explosives were used in WW2, stuff has a much lower flash point then modern bombs, something the order of as much as 100 degrees lower, RE the USS Forrestal fire in July 1967, this involved 1,000-pound bombs left over from the Korean War, these had been improperly stored and in some cases were leaking chemical residue.

Considering that this was ordnance that had laid around since 1953, one has to wonder the conditions ordnance left over from 1945 would have been in!

Most likely it would be just the casings for the bombs that were made and never used - which given how much production there was for the war could have been considerable - remember they were stocking up for an extended campaign against Japan when they suddenly surrendered

Another thought is that the Picatinny Rail was standardised in 1995.

It could be assumed that every weapon was modified for this attachment by the general engagement in the Twilight War

Generally takes time for something to be introduced on a wider scale, even if standardised.
I'd be interested in knowing when IRL the number of rifles with the rails outnumbered those without. Perhaps Paul can shed some light?

I can not say when there were more with than without, but first unit I got them in was in late 2002 (got them in preparation for Iraq deployment but we did not know that at the time), and every unit after that had them when I was transferred to them.

Heh. I was explaining the game to my teen son and his pals, and had to explain that the timeline took place before the Picatinny rail. That just blew their little videogaming minds.

A GM could assume that the rail /was/ adopted in the buildup to war, maybe some units got them by the US intervention in late '96, maybe most of them by the '97 offensive, but there could still be lots of weapons floating around without them.

You could also assume that they never got standardized in the rush to get more weapons out to the field NOW. I was just reading (again) about the Union Army's opting against breechloaders in 1862, so there's precedent for that kind of decision.

I totally agree. Here's another real-world example supporting said conclusion. Mass production of the M1 Garand began in 1937, first deliveries to the U.S. military in 1938. That's three years before the U.S.A. officially entered the war, yet many Marine and quite a few regular Army units were still carrying the old M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifle into battle well into 1942.

That's a five-year spread between the beginning of mass production and near universal service. Apply that to the T2K timelines: between new-production and retrofitting, I reckon 60-75% of American M16s and M4 carbines would be sporting Picatinny rails. Yes it would be standard by 1997, but it takes time to replace and/or retrofit every service rifle/carbine, especially when a nation is in the midst of total war.

Prior to Picatinny rails being adopted there were at least four major systems introduced by different manufacturers. H&K had the most common rail after the Picatinny and the Mark23 SOCOM Pistol carries a proprietary example of that rail.

I remember when the 10th adopted a "rail" for designated marksmen. At this time (1996), the Marines were using M14 Conversions but the Army used M16A2 rifles fitted with the then-new ACOGs as DMRs. The "rail" in question was inserted over the A2's carrying handle (forming a "tube" to allow the use of the iron sights) and secured by a bolt through a hole in the carrying handle (through a hole originally put into all A1s/A2s carrying handles to secure scope bases). There were MAJOR issues with this piece of rail/scope base for the ACOG. The first was the ACOG's short 1.5" eye relief. This required you to smash your nose against the charging handle to use the ACOG. The second issue was the security of the mount. With a single bolt holding it, it could allow the scopes to fall out of adjustment. The bolt also BLOCKED the shooter's view of the front sight from the rear sight, rendering the iron sights USELESS. It was also interesting to see the "field-expedient" methods of putting some form of cheek/stock riser on the A2's stock to raise the shooter's eye high enough to use the ACOG. A lot of duct tape and foam was employed here. All of these issues eventually resulted in "Flat Top" AR15/M16 platforms.

I think that rails would flow into the war zone until the Exchange. A person being equipped with a rail would require a Scarce Scrounging roll in my game.

I think you will see "off the self" procurements just like you did in the War on Terror. When it became CLEAR that there weren't enough helos in the country to supply the units in Afghanistan and several of those lacked the Altitude Ceiling to reach some OPs, the Army began weighing its options. The more "redneck" soldiers gave the Army that solution. ATVs (4-wheelers in American slang) were employed to navigate the narrow mountain trails and move BOTH troops and ammo. Those 4-wheelers became critically important for resupplying troops, recon, and the removal of casualties to LZs. Now the Army has PURPOSE-BUILT CanAm quads and side-by-sides for Special Forces and Calvery Units operating in mountainous terrain. All of this due to a few off the self Polaris ATVs being deployed in Afghanistan.

Agreed. Scarce would seem to be a reasonable rate of availability, with a rail equipped rifle perhaps only available during character generation to elite units and perhaps a few light fingered supply types.
Alternatively a rail equipped rifle might only be issued to those characters with a minimum rifle skill of say 70/7 (1st/2nd ed).

OR maybe a Difficult Gunsmithing roll? Someone who's invested time & learning in weapons work would probably be likely to have gear like that at chargen.

They'd have to have it first. Maybe substitute a decent Rifle skill for Gunsmithing to qualify for the ability to "buy" a rail at chargen?
Of course anyone with a rail on their weapon will be expected to be able to shoot well. This could be a negative modifier later on if they're found to be a poor shot - stolen valour sort of situation.

The rails that we got were operator installed, so a very easy task.

My guess is that they would in this time line only have been issued to elite units, Delta, Seals, Special Forces, and maybe the Rangers.

I've always felt as the war ramped up, the US would start buying things like rifles and pistols from other manufacturers of AR-15-type rifles and pistols which could subsitute for .45s and 9mms. Some of these pistols may come from the factory with Pictatinny Rails, Weaver Rails, or other proprietary rails. The Military would also begin to buy ACOGs, lasers, scopes, NVGs, etc, to equip those weapons. As usual, special ops would have first dibs on these items, and the Marines would scramble to get anything new. (Unfair, I know, but that's the way things were in the 1989s and 1990s.)

You have to wonder though how many of those things would be available given civilians (ie survivalist types) usually buy up everything in sight whenever there's even a sniff of danger.

Wartime production
 

As part of the research I'm doing for the Anzac book (which I'm thinking of renaming to better reflect the geographical area covered), I'm reading a LOT on Logistics. One very interesting book I'm about halfway through at the moment is "The Big L: American Logisitics in World War II" edited by Alan Gropman. https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/BigL/BigL-Fwd.html It raises several extremely interesting points on why the US was able to supply the allies with so much material. Essentially, it's in large part due to the depression and the massive amount of unused manpower and factories just sitting around idle, as well and the (relatively) very long lead time before the US entered the war.

The US really had several years of lead time before entering as an actual combatant, with the Lend Lease system effectively putting them economically on a war footing well beforehand. However, even with several years of lead time, it wasn't until 1943-44 that many of the production issues were finally sorted out - 1939-42 were absolute chaos logistically speaking.

How does this relate to T2K? Well with the Twilight War the US was not coming out of a decade + long depression which means there wasn't all that spare industrial and manpower capacity just sitting around idle. The US also doesn't get several years warning to build up before entering into hostilities - they get weeks, at best.

Another interesting point is the depression prevented many ideas and inventions being developed during the 1930's. This, in part, explains the huge leap forward in technology during the war years - development of radar for example. Yes, there were many breakthroughs during the war period, but quite a number of them would have occurred earlier but for the depression putting the dampeners on innovation, experimentation and exploitation. People were still coming up with ideas during the 30's, they just weren't acted upon.

Additionally, the US was not under direct attack in WWII. It's industries, population and research facilities were not being damaged, people killed and so forth.

In T2K it's a different matter - no lead time to war, and (depending on which timeline you're using, 1st ed of 2.x) devastating attacks on mainland US within a year, which, if WWII is anything to go by, is well before production has properly switched to war footing.

There's a LOT more in the book than I've touched on in my rambling above, and well worth checking out if you've got the time. I've come away with a strong feeling that ALL combatants wouldn't have been able to make very many technical advances before the nukes flew, and industry would barely have begun switching over to wartime production. Really drives home the scarcity of the more advanced munitions and the like in T2K...

Leg you are forgetting something - the Chinese Soviet war - the US was sending over all kinds of munitions, food, weapons, armored vehicles etc for close to a year before they went to war with the Soviets - and during that time the Chinese were also buying anything they could get their hands on - so that would have ramped up production of military goods before the start of NATO and the Soviets being in combat.

Keep in mind that I worked at a US military vehicle production facility - i.e. BAE in York - and we were able to ramp up production very quickly during the Iraq War - produced several thousand MRAP's in the course of a year along with tripling production of remanufactured Bradley's, M109's and M88's.

Thus the US did have enough time to ramp up production and get a lot of weapons, armored vehicles, food, etc. made - its what allowed the US forces to keep fighting for three years after the nukes. And per the canon there was still some production even after the TDM - they were turning out mortars, light cannon, mortar shells and even some vehicles and armor as long as there was power.

BAE York back then had nearly 6 months of spares on hand and parts - this was long before just in time and reduced inventories. So as long as there was any power or fuel for their backup generators they could have kept production up for as long as 6 months after the TDM until finally they ran out of parts.

Now the US did take several hits that really screwed over any chance to produce more main battle tanks after the TDM. The only place they had left to produce tanks was the Detroit Arsenal Tank Factory - so the question is how long did that stay active after Lima stopped producing after the nuke hit in their area and Cadillac Gage's facilities in Florida and Louisiana got taken out

Other than that all you have is the M8 AGS being made in York at the BAE plant.

So yes their build up got aborted - but it wasnt in the infant stages, it was more just as they were hitting their stride - and the Mexican and Soviet invasions of the Southwest and Alaska pulling away troops that could have kept order and kept production areas going was the final straw.

You are correct, that did slip my mind, however that wasn't on anywhere near the level of Lend Lease and only ran about a third of the time. Although the US (and others) were supporting an anti-Soviet country, China still was in no way the wests ally. Given that no other war was envisaged at the time (unlike in 1939), there's little need to ramp up US production - existing stocks and production facilities would be more than enough (and political considerations and interference would stop much more anyway).

Existing facilities are one thing, and prior to WWII, the US did have some industrial capacity devoted solely to war material, but it was nowhere near enough. It took several years for more facilities to be constructed, and existing factories manufacturing consumer goods to be converted (some which ended up making radically different products to their peace time lines - a refrigerator factory being one example which produced machineguns).

After the war, the US government owned a lot of recently constructed, purpose built factories which were sold off in the following decade, although some (such as the one you've mentioned) have been maintained and updated as the years have passed.

In theory, it doesn't take long to convert, but as the book details, reality is a LOT different. There's lack of machine tools, necessity to construct new factory buildings, acquisition of manpower, housing, feeding and entertainment of said manpower, availability of raw materials, sourcing supplies of vital components, and of course the political and bureaucratic hurdles which are ALWAYS getting in the way. Just look at the political games being played over the Mexico-US border at the moment for examples of that last bit.

The book, and the papers it's based heavily upon, dates from 1997, right in the middle of our timeframe. Well worth a read to see just how difficult it is, and how many factors are involved in ramping up to a "total war" situation. Comparing WWII and the (obviously fictional) Twilight War, using the historical records and assessments in the book shows the US (and others) would have been nowhere near full production by the time of the nukes.

I'm sure we've all know somebody who absolutely INSISTS that technical advancement would have occurred much faster in T2K than in reality, with for example night vision gear being far more available in the game than in real life. Given the points I've already mentioned, and others in the book (seriously, read it if you can) it's clear this just isn't so. A few prototypes perhaps, but there's just no way everyone's carrying around the good stuff, or in most cases even aware of somebody who's see said goodies.

It is interesting to note that the US was the only country on the globe that had living standards actually improve during WWII. They were also the only country where the civilian population actually increased their annual food consumption even though there was some rationing (which was actually used as a tool to help minimise inflation and profiteering rather than a real lack of most food stuffs). Meanwhile, in other parts of the globe, people were dying of starvation, disease and exposure.
It's no wonder US troops had the negative reputation of "over paid, over sexed, and over here".

North America was producing enough food that the US was able to supply food to the Soviet Union as part of the aid it sent. While it's reasonably well known that the US sent food to the UK, it's not often mentioned that tons of food was also sent to the Soviet Union.
I think it's on Youtube, there's a video of one of the Russian groups that scour WW2 battle sites that discovered tins of pork (or beef? can't recall) in lard that had been shipped over as US aid. They said it was so well packed in lard that the meat still appeared unspoiled in any way and still edible, (although none were willing to try it, not surprising given that it was nearly 70 years old!)

Apparently they fed upwards of one million Soviets. Not that the Soviet leadership would publicly acknowledge it was going a long way towards keeping them in the fight.
Another issue which isn't widely known is US infrastructure was cannibalised to support other countries - several electrical generators in the LA area were removed and shipped to the USSR as part of lend lease, the shortfall in local electrical production made up by other generators across the country. Just goes to show that not everything sent was new - a percentage was second hand and it's removal simply reduced the over capacity in some areas.

"You are correct, that did slip my mind, however that wasn't on anywhere near the level of Lend Lease and only ran about a third of the time. Although the US (and others) were supporting an anti-Soviet country, China still was in no way the wests ally. Given that no other war was envisaged at the time (unlike in 1939), there's little need to ramp up US production - existing stocks and production facilities would be more than enough (and political considerations and interference would stop much more anyway)."

Lend Lease went into effect in March of 1941 so the US only started really supplying the Allies only a about eight months before the start of WWII - so its really about the same length of time in both models (i.e. US supplying China). And China would have had its own people buying stuff from US factories - could see a huge upswing in purchases of things like MRE's, medical equipment, trucks, etc. from US factories - but not necessarily military equipment per se

One thing I would argue is you might see a hell of a lot of reworks of older US equipment being done for sale to China and thus some of it going into US formations when the war started - especially after the TDM - stuff like tanks or APC's pulled out of the boneyards

One place I could see a big military order being placed fyi would be to Cadillac Gage - i.e. for Stingray tanks and armored cars

one data point that we are missing. it is how long the tensions were building up between china and Russian. Even if China was not "a friend" tensions in that area would alert SK, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam (depending on timeline), Singapore as well as India, New Zealand, and Australia.

if there were 24-36 months of building tensions. that would drive those counties to start building up. this would drive the US into building up also. that would give 2-3 years of building up and conversion of some assets to military production.

It also would "feed" the smaller complies to put product out now that there is market share available. Think about a company that builds unarmored SUV's and Limos. now they can make jump in and sell wheeled APC (lights) or scout cars. the F-20 also comes to mind along with Cat-Gage. Also think about how Caterpillar and John Deere could get in on the act.

You might have some cross palliation of weapons. Like say Germany can not make enough ATGM's they contact company X and they start up a line to help with the load. (Enfield rifles in WW1 and WW2 made in the us) if you can come up with a way to make 10-12 armored vehicles a month... that is a Company (10-12 companies a year or 3 to 4 new or upgraded Bat a year)

I agree with you about a build up of tensions - and there is no mention in canon of the Soviet invasion being a bolt out of the blue - i.e. that they just invaded China for no reason after being best buddies right to the end - i.e. this wasnt Barbarossa where the Soviets were sending trains of supplies to the Germans right up to the moment they opened fire

Also keep in mind how fast you can convert a factory - JLG went from not making any armored equipment to making MRAP's in less than a year- yes they had to get the tooling made but you would be amazing how fast you can get tools made if money is no object under wartime conditions

And it does depend on what you are making - i.e. heavy tank factories dont just spring up in a year - but you can make certain armored vehicles and transport vehicles pretty easily using existing facilities - or convert facilities to get vehicles that are in storage ready for combat - i.e. like the hundreds of M47 and M48 tanks that were still in storage

Wasn't some of this covered in this post

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread....war+production

Also keep in mind that the build up that I am talking about here doesnt make the US unbeatable or change canon in any way - i.e. it may in the end just be what gives the US enough to stay in the war all the way until the end of 2000 three years after the nukes flew - it also gives the US enough to properly arm the divisions it stood up during the war

And keep in mind the canon losses to US shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific - i.e. how many tanks, APC's, artillery pieces etc.. ended up at the bottom of the Ocean and never made it to Korea or Germany or Kenya. Look at what happened to the 6th Marine Division in the US Army Vehicle Guide - they showed up after the TDM and lost most of their equipment and men on the way over - and the 278th Cav lost half its equipment on the way over as well

I have that shown in the East Africa Sourcebook when the Sheridans that were supposed to show in the follow up convoy after the initial air landings in Kenya were all sunk along with their ship by a Russian sub

Another missing factor is the sheer amount of stuff the US just had at the beginning of the major fighting. The government could have (and did during WWII) run buyback programs for dual-purpose civilian equipment. Buying a bunch of 1-ton and 5/4-ton civilian pickups to repurpose as CUCV trucks would net thousands of vehicles requiring minimum modifications and industrial output.

The same goes for a lot of other high complexity devices. Every Humvee (or equivalent) spared from rear echelon duty is one that can be assigned to front line units. Every repurposed civilian pickup was capacity of a factor freed up to build fighting vehicles.

I would also think (and used IMT2KU) as soon as major fighting started overseas life in CONUS would change to a total war footing. Rationing would start in earnest and you'd see victory gardens spring up through the suburbs. Any sorts of infrastructure that could be distributed would. Smaller subcontractor fabricators would be paid to relocate to the boonies so a nuke doesn't destroy all the manufacturing capability of a region. Colleges could expand more courses to use broadcast lectures and correspondence work. Civil Defense would start back up and every town would be doing seminars on canning, gardening, and first aid.

Even if the federal government didn't run such programs NGOs and local governments definitely would. Blood drives and every stockpiling idea would go into effect. It doesn't have to rewrite canon effects of TDM but the US wouldn't just be a Mad Max wasteland in 2001. Since T2K alcohol can power any ICE vehicle stills will pop up everywhere to run generators to run factories. Every small brewery and vineyard surviving TDM will be running constantly making go juice for the survivors.

at the very least they would be going thru every boneyard and stored vehicle to be able to provide them to the Chinese as aid - and those that werent ready to go when the war started with the Soviets would have either been kept for the US or used to arm training units or National Guard units - now you arent talking top of the line equipment - but there were a lot of older M47, M48 and M60 tanks in storage along with older APC's and the lot

After all they did it with ships - and thats canon - at least one of the destroyers that were with the the Virginia in Satellite down had been brought back from the boneyard - USS Decatur was a Forrest Sherman class that was retired in 1988 and docked at Suisun Bay, California. The US got her back up and running in time to join Virginia by December 1997.

Thus wartime production isnt merely looking at new vehicles or ships or aircraft but how many old ones could be made operational again.

That is actually what we did at BAE when I was there - every M109 we built for the Army came out of various boneyards and cranberry bogs that they were stored in. Same with a lot of Bradleys - and our M88's were all rebuilds

I don't suppose anyone's actually bothered to begin reading the book I linked to have they?

Leg - there are those of us who have actually worked for the military,auto, truck and transport industries - and we know just how fast you can tool up for production if need be and what the capabilities are. And given the timing of the war and the Chinese Soviet war there was more than enough time for the US to ramp up production and get the US juggernaut started - most likely they were just getting to where they would have been able to start replacing their losses and re-equip their forces when the Soviet missiles hit.

Are we talking about a WWII build up and the Arsenal of Democracy - no. But are we talking about being able to triple to quadruple production over that time on existing lines and get some new tooling made for things like light armored vehicles - yes that for sure can be done.

Our line at BAE in York was designed to be able to accommodate up to three times the volume we produced at if we had to do it. During the time I was there we ramped up to two times our regular volume using stored tools and hiring and training new workers - it took a total of six months to do it. Three times would have taken nine months to a year.

You are so right. In the 90s, military industries had the capacity to ramp up production fairly quickly. Plus, the tooling for a lot of weapon system not in current production was still maintained. For example, production of B-1B was supposed to be able to resumed with stored tooling within at most one year. Mothballed aircraft were suppose to be returned to service within about 30 days. There were plans in place for aircraft refurbishment lines at all the major USAF depots.

Most that poo poo any ability to rapidly expand production seem to forget that the US went from no nuclear weapons program in 1942 to a fully operational weapon and massive support infrastructure within 3 1/2 years.

I will give you an example - we had the tooling for the M8 AGS in storage in a warehouse near BAE York from when the program was cancelled all the way until at least 2015 - we could have taken it out, set it up where we were producing the M109 (and moved that line) and been in serial production within 4 months of go, with limited production at first and full production 6-7 months after go under wartime "get it down now" conditions. We even proposed to do just that in 2012.

Same with the tooling to make new Bradley's. Its still in storage and we can be back in limited rate production within 6 months and full rate new production within 8 months of the go signal.

When we built new M88's for Iraq (i.e. new builds not reworks of older vehicles) we pulled the tooling out, made new parts and got the first one delivered to Iraq six months after program Go.

Keep in mind this DOES NOT apply to turning a car factory into a tank factory - this is ramping up production at existing military production facilities. You want to build a new factory from scratch or convert a factory that takes much longer.

That's good to know, Olefin.

As you pointed out, it would take longer to convert civilian industries to military production (for example, a Ford truck plant switching over to AFVs of some sort). How long, I wonder. Is twice as long a reasonable estimate?

Regarding the U.S.A. getting a head-start on wartime military production when the U.S.S.R. attacks China, I don't think it's a given.

First off, although the enemy of my enemy is my friend applies here, as the Soviets would be seen as the greater of two evils, the PRC is still a communist nation and, after Tiananmen Square, tensions between the U.S. and China were high. I think some in the U.S. gov't and military-industrial complex would be reluctant to provide the PLA with large quantities of AFVs or combat aircraft, and/or particularly advanced ones.

So, I think only a few plants would see an upsurge in production before the Germans start WWIII in Europe. The U.S. might increase Stingray/LAV-75/M8 AGS production for export to China, but not necessarily add a line or open another plant making M1 Abrams. When it becomes clear that the U.S. is going to back the FGR militarily, it would be full steam ahead and, as noted, arriving at full wartime production would take a minimum of 12 months after the outbreak of hostilities.

Also, I made this point in the other thread (now merged with this one), but modern AFVs, combat aircraft, and naval vessels are far more complex than their WW2 equivalents. Therefore, it would take a lot longer, on average, to crank out a new F-16 in 1997 than it would a P-51 in 1943. For all of the reasons cited above, I don't think WWIII would see WWII-level production figures.

Oh I completely agree with you Raellus on producing anywhere near WWII production levels - thats not going to happen except perhaps for production of trucks (both heavy and light) for the military - i.e. the military orders the full production of every truck Ford can make - ok there you could get WWII levels.

But definitely not for tanks, fighter aircraft, etc.. - I agree with you there as to production levels -

The AGS line would most likely be at full tilt as soon as the Soviets and Chinese went to war - remember it would have just been kicked off and you could see the US wanting to get as many of those built as possible for the airborne to replace the Sheridans - that would have been a priority for sure as the airborne is your early deployment force and desperately needed a replacement light tank

As for switching over a civilian line to make military vehicles I can also give you an example

Oshkosh got the contract to make MRAP's but couldnt make enough of them - so they switched over part of JLG's line to make MRAP's - they had to get tooling made and get the line ready to go - and it took about eight months total - and after that they had an MRAP line where before they were making boom lifts. That was done under an emergency effort because of how bad the IED issue was in Iraq - which would be similar to what happened in the Twilight War

Now that wasnt a car line - i.e. it wasnt automated with lots of robots - so it could be done relatively quickly

You could see the same for heavy truck manufacturers - turning out chassis for instance that could be modified into AFV's

Auto companies are a special case - especially today - in WWII they were still mostly building manually - now there is so much robotics and special tooling that switching a car company to make tanks would take a year minimum to even get to very limited production and probably 18 months to get to anywhere near full production

Plus no one thought that the war would go long term - i.e. military planners in general in the 90's werent looking at years long wars - they wear planning for short very violent 4-6 month at longest wars

Given that I could see them ramping up military production at existing plants as quickly as possible and select civilian plants that could make stuff that could easily be converted - things like:

clothing
MRE's
tents
shoes
boots
medical equipment
light trucks and SUV's for military use (i.e. like the Ford Ranger)
heavy transport trucks (Mack, Peterbilt, etc.)

but it would probably have been close to May or June for the US to see that this wasnt going to be a short war and decide that it was time for Honda of Marysville to be turned into a tank factory or to order all companies making electronics in the US to be turned into military production

FYI there is canon mention that US factories were on overtime producing for the military

Howling Wilderness in the Attack and Its Aftermath mentions a wartime boom in production that brought the US economy out of a recession and an industrial boom with some shortages in civilian goods but no rationing

To me that implies that some factories did get switched over (i.e. a shortage of good boots because they are all making combat boots, a shortage of winter coats because they are switching over to make cold weather gear for the Army, a shortage of freeze dried foods for camping because those companies are making MRE's) but not an en masse switch starting in November 1996

I was once a PC in a campaign where my character was in a stateside unit that was raised late in the war (after the TDM). They were told to "come as you are" and to "bring as much military and survival gear, food, and weapons as you can. Basiically, it was an ad hoc unit composed of troops who supplied their own gear, and the recruiment for this unit targeted those who could take care of themselves. I ended up with a lot of gear and ammunition, along with a BM-92F and a LeGendre .458 carbine as personal weapons.

First off, although the enemy of my enemy is my friend applies here, as the Soviets would be seen as the greater of two evils, the PRC is still a communist nation and, after Tiananmen Square, tensions between the U.S. and China were high. I think some in the U.S. gov't and military-industrial complex would be reluctant to provide the PLA with large quantities of AFVs or combat aircraft, and/or particularly advanced ones.

to this statement above.

they US (Might not) send heavy weapons to PRC. But with as things got hot (before the shooting). Our friends that share borders with one or both or are with in weapons ranges of both. They will be getting very worried, and start looking at what is on the shelves. That is were first orders would start to flow from MBT, Aircraft, ect. that would be before the shooting war between PRC/USSR.

if Boeing or McD got even a hint that they might be able to sell as few as a dozen fighters or P-3s. they would jump on it like a dog on three legged cat. Now how many?

they built 100 F-35s this year (Jan-Nov). so you could look at new lines for major end items 1 year, production in year 2 (4 per month) year 3 (10 per month warfooting) every year after that (15-18 warfootting), 1 per month due to damage of TDM for one year, than your stored parts are done.) this is just me spit balling.

Don't get me wrong, I think the U.S., encouraged by defense contractors, would send the PRC a significant amount of weaponry, but I'm thinking this aid would consist of second or third tier systems. Kind of like how the U.S. is currently supplying Ukraine a few select modern systems, and more of the basics. There's an unsaid red line that could provoke the enemy of the folks we are assisting. That's why Ukraine gets Javelins and .50 sniper rifles, but not M1A1s or F-15s. I think the same would apply to the Second Sino-Soviet War.

In the T2K timeline, that second or third tier aid would look like Stingray/LAV-75/M8 AGS, Dragon, TOW II, maybe Tankbreaker (basically the Javelin ATGM), Stinger MANPADs, and F-5 Freedom Fighters.

One also doesn't want to risk one's own most advanced weapon systems falling into the wrong hands lest the enemy reverse-engineers them for his own use. This is why it was such a big deal when an Israeli missile interceptor didn't detonate and landed in Syria (because the Syrians will no doubt give it to the Russians so that they can develop countermeasures and/or duplicate it).

Lastly, the F-35 might not be the best example to use when trying to extrapolate production figures because it is so advanced. I reckon is takes significantly longer to build an F-35 or F-22 than it does an equivalent type from an earlier generation (like the F-16 or F-15).

In fact the first edition timeline specifically mentions that the renewed Soviet offensive in 1996 broke down when they encountered Tank Breaker and Assault Breaker systems sold to the Chinese by the US and others.

It also states that winter had witnessed a flood of new modern equipment thru the Chinese ports from NATO countries specifically from the US. That right there means that it wasnt probably all old obsolete equipment.

And keep in mind that the Stingray and the M8 AGS have the same gun that the M1 has - which can take out most Soviet tanks handily.

Let's also not forget, in the spirit of logistics, that the US could/would be supplying the PRC with replacement parts/ammo/POL for their own equipment damaged in the fighting. They send the US a bunch of engineering specs (which include licensed Russian specs) in exchange for manufacturing. Just something like advanced gunsights or night vision that could be retrofit onto Chinese tanks would be high value.

There's also the question of transport across the Pacific. Tanks and AFVs might be of great use against the Russians but getting them from the US to the Chinese front takes a lot of infrastructure. Whatever sealift capability used to supply China is sealift that cant be used in Europe for NATO or other theaters.

Consider Desert Shield's sealift. From the first order of the operation MSC ships set sail from Diego Garcia and Guam to deliver vehicles and weapons while Marines were delivered by air. It took about a month to get enough personnel and equipment to Saudi Arabia to have a meaningful fighting force. It took six months and hundreds of MSC operated or contracted ships to deliver the US forces used for Desert Storm. That's six months and hundreds of ships in completely uncontested seas/skies.

The Twilight war would be a tougher row to hoe as I imagine the Russians would do their best to interdict military sea and air lift. The US/NATO/ANZUS logistic movements would need pretty serious escorts. US pre-positioned equipment for US-force use would probably get moved into position as tensions ramped up but supplies from CONUS to allies would be more difficult.

I point this out as I think aid to a country like China would be mainly stuff that could be effectively airlifted in. That would be high density stuff like gunsights or night vision like I mentioned before or things like radios or computers.