Quote:
Originally Posted by unkated
None of these make sense to me.
By the time things get bad enough for a a national production board to consider such a reconfiguration (post TDM), the ability to coordinate and execute the creation of a brand new production line for this simpler product (and that's what it would be; M113 production lines are long gone by 1997) is gone.
Promulgating simpler weapon designs that could be produced at a workshop level (such as the Sten or M3 Grease Gun) is one thing; an M113 is quite another.
Remember that the production line for an M113 or a cannon is NOT one workshop or even one factory. For the M113, the engine is built and assembled elsewhere; the shipped for inclusion in the M113; the transmission another; track components are forged in one (or more) locations; assembled in another; then shipped to the M113 assembly point; armor panels are assembled elsewhere.
I think post TDM things are falling apart too fast. The new (old) component assembly lines would never have completed. That's 6 months to a year of time when they are being built, producing nothing.
Rather than trying to coordinate retooling several factories in the face of growing chaos, I'd suggest a better plan would be to simplify the existing designs, such as cheaper electronic components (targeting, radio,radar, etc) - though I think these too would slow and break down due to failures in the transportation network.
Uncle Ted
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What you say is true, and I am not going to dispute that.... My point is that the M113 is simpler and easier to get back into production. Take the Sherman as a model, mediocre in every category. Spam the war with 100,000 of them and things go quickly into their favor.
The Continental engine and the Allison transmission of the A2 are the same as those in quite a few pieces of heavy equipment (bulldozer, front loaders, etc). Those are going to be built regardless of the war effort.
Most of the engines / transmissions in U.S. fighting vehicles are found in civil engineering equipment.
The one piece that is most difficult to produce in fact is the cast hull....
I might well be very wrong... but, I don't think the U.S. can even make a cast hull in 2016 with the current environmental laws and other compliance issues.