My biggest point is that in the US, there are a lot of major manufacturing facilities that are not near areas on the hit list....in fact Caterpillar has at least 5 plants in Illinois alone, of which only 1 was within even 50 miles of a strike. John Deere has plants in the Quad Cities area (along with the Rock Island Arsenal), and my Chevy Suburban was built to the north outside of Janesville, Wisconsin. Chrysler has a BIG plan in Belvedere, IL, and Rockford IL is just next door, housing a number or hydraulics and aerospace plants. Go figure, no?
Heck, there's a BIG Mitsubishi plant in central Illinois (near Bloomington). None of these facilities are completely vertically integrated...they are fed by a web of suppliers and subcontractors. I've worked at these suppliers and used local tool and die shops to complete my projects in return.
My point is that while there are a number of heavy industry plants (auto/truck/defense/construction) here in the states that would be caught in the TDM destruction and that while US industry would take significant losses from 11/97-01/00, not all is lost.
Look at the Challenge Magazine adventure "Rifle River" for example. I would have thought that the USSR would have nuked the plan..but I guess not. A plant that made Rockeye cluster bombs is also mentioned in Urban Guerilla.
Here and there at these plants or at their suppliers...or sub-suppliers, there will be machines that can be returned to service here and there and powered by generators to help communities here and there manufacture weapons and refurbish/repurpose others to give them an edge over the lawless hordes. In many cases, it will be a small machine shop here and there or a lab in a community college with a mill and a lathe (I took classes in one just like it) making mortars or bazookas in ones and twos. High school/college chemistry teachers can help make explosives and propellants that are good enough for the job.
Museums and Historical Villages are another example. There is an excavating company that has a pair of STEAM POWERED tractors...Holts or Bests, I believe, 15 minutes from me. In the fall they take one to the local 1900-era farm run by the county and hook it to a thresher and harvest as they did 100 years ago here.
-Dave
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