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.
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