Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
You need to add 144 M88A2 tank retrievers - used to work at BAE in York and we could ramp the line up to 12 per month quickly with a max of 18 per month on the single production line if we went to two shifts - and we were capable of making brand new hulls instead of just upgrading old M88 hulls
If you are looking at V2.2 you would have M8 AGS Bufords being made at BAE in York PA - that line was built to make 12 per month at low rate and we could have ramped it up to as many as 36 per month if we went to two shifts
As for the Bradley's - they would have been most likely making new hulls as well as upgrading old vehicles at York PA and doing refurbs at our facility in Lemont Furnace - that plant opened in 1993 and probably would have been where damaged Bradleys would have been sent to get them repaired and back in the fight
I worked for BAE on the Bradley, M88 and M109 line from 2008 to 2014 - talked to guys who worked there in the 90's
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Thanks! I hadn't seen a number on the M88 line in the 1980s documents I was working off of. For the Bradley, I kept the Santa Clara plant going (it was shut down as a result of the merger of FMC and BMY in the post-Cold War defense industry consolidation), so York is concentrating on M109 and M88, plus the M8 for the v2.2 timeline. I also have a plant in Johnstown subcontracted to help with M109 hull work.
I didn't know about the Lemont Furnace facility. I'll also have a lot of repairs done at the Army facilities, Mainz in Germany (plus the POMCUS sites, once emptied, the crews and faciltities there could do some repair work), Red River, Anniston and the others in CONUS.
One thing helping the US production is the massive orders for ordnance placed by the Chinese in late 1995. That pays for the activation of the second shifts at the existing munitions plants as well as the outfitting of additional mobilization plants. I have the Atlanta, Leeds, Missouri and Framingham GM plants, Bridgeport CT ammo line, DeKalb tractor plant, Indiana Army Ammunition plant, Madison TN truck plant and a few others (plus shipyards) all coming on line to meet Chinese demand. Unfortunately for the Chinese, when the US enters the war much of the output from these plants gets fed into the maw of the US military.