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
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