08-22-2011, 02:54 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 735
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Quote:
Originally Posted by schnickelfritz
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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Even if plants are not hit there will be enough problems with transportation, both in getting the resources to the plants and distribution once (if) this has been done. Note that the dispersion of Soviet industrial plants (a policy designed by Stalin to increase inter dependence of the republics) makes the Soviet position even worse.
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