Pre-nuclear wartime production.

[JHart]

US production would already be ramped up, assuming that production was increased to help the Chinese. Munitions such as small arms ammo, AT weapons, possibly arty ammo should be easy to produce. Trucks of all types could be shipped to China. Aircraft and tanks would take longer to build and ship and production of both may proceed in the assumption that if the Chinese hold on they will get tanks and planes, and if they don't, then the US and NATO may need them.

As an aside, I wonder if nations near China would provide material aide, especially if the US agrees to replace what ever is given. Japan could easily ship trucks and munitions, and Taiwan may side with the mainland and help. I thought they did in canon by i don't recall at the moment.

[RN7]

American heavy industry such as automobiles, steel making and shipbuilding has declined since the 1970's as foreign competition has eroded its competiveness and American industry has also refocused on newer technologies. American aerospace production is probably an exception to the rule if it is considered a heavy industry. It has consistently remained large and America's manufacturing capacity remains greater than any other countries. However building a B-2 or an F-22 is a bit more complicated than building a P-51 Mustang or a B-17, but America could still build them quicker than anyone else.

American commercial shipbuilding has practically disappeared, but America's naval shipbuilding infrastructure is probably the most extensive in the world. America can still build a nuclear powered aircraft carrier or a submarine quicker than any other country. However unless it builds new shipyards it won't be churning out many new destroyers, amphibs and freighters at a much higher rate than it does at the moment.

American auto and steel making and many other heavier industries have remained under capacity despite some investment in the auto industry from Asia. It can produce more and with huge government contracts and orders being dangled in front of it and exports to allies as WW3 breaks out, American manufacturing could massively expand and there would be no foreign competition for these orders or transplanting factories to China either. What factory capacity doesn't exist could be very easily added to by building new factories. Building new factories to produce jeeps, trucks, guns, bullets, uniforms and artillery shells would not be challenging for America and it could produce them in huge numbers over an 18 month period.

Building tanks and armoured vehicles might be more of a problem. At the moment (and in the 1990's) there are only a limited number of factories that produce them. Regarding tanks there have only been three American tank factories since the late 1950's.

Chrysler Delaware Defence Plant in Newark produced the first M60's. Newark stopped making M60 tanks in 1960 as production switched to Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant. Chrysler retained operational control of the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant until it sold its defence division to General Dynamics in 1982 who stopped production of the M60 in 1987. General Dynamics built the M1 at Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant until 1996 when General Dynamics consolidated all of its tank production to Lima, Ohio. The United States hasn't made an all new tank from scratch since 1996.

Olefin would probably know if it would take a lot more time to build a new tank than recondition a tank, but General Dynamics reconditioning of the M1 is very intensive so maybe not so much.

M1 tank reconditioning at Lima averages half a tank per day (15 tanks a month). General Dynamics can easily ramp that up to two and a half tanks a day (75 tanks a month). In wartime that figure could conceivably rise to over a 100 tanks a month. If we say that reconditioning takes the same amount of time as producing a new tank, then the addition of the still existent Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant production to Lima's figure could probably produce about 200 Abrams class tanks a month (2,400 a year) with 1996 infrastructure. Would building a couple more tank factories be all that difficult?

[Olefin]

Again the issue comes down to availability of armor plate for the tanks. Producing light vehicles, trucks, Hummers, even military vehicles with lighter armor like Bradley, M8 AGS and M109 would be easier because they dont require the heavy armor plate that vehicles like the M88, the M60 and the M1 require. While you could build new factories the question is would there be enough time to get them up and running from say the beginning of the Russian invasion of China to before TDM?

That could also explain why the military took over the export production of the Stingray tank for its own use - its lighter armor would be easier to make and thus could make up for a shortfall in heavy tank production caused by a shortage of armor plate to make or repair tanks like the M1 and the M60.

[RN7]

How far does the military-industrial complex really reach?

Its ironic but the state controlled arms industry of the Soviet Union and China is actually more transparent than in the West. The Soviet's built a tank factory to build tanks, and they built a refrigerator factory to build refrigerators. In the West private enterprise plays a much bigger role in industry and its harder to discern the true arms manufacturing capacity.

In America for example a corporation builds a factory to make trucks, or steel plate or widgets. But how many were originally designed with the capacity to be able to switch over to military production relatively easy. Given the extent of America's military-industrial complex I would be very surprised if such factories don't exist.

Also building a new tank factory may not be that difficult. The blueprint would already exist to build a factory with the right dimensions, equipment, machine tools, and for what type of materials and parts would be needed from suppliers. In fact the suppliers would also have their own blueprints for what they need. America wouldn't have a new tank factory on the scale of Lima or Detroit up and running in two months, but in a year?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

re: soviet production...there's an old joke that goes like this:

Soviet woman wants to do something really nice for her husband and she notes that her neighbor finally got approved to buy a new mattress. So over tea she complains and says "I have waited for five years for a new mattress, and I work at the mattress factory! My husband has a poor back and I want to get him a nice new spring mattress."

Her friend says "Well, do what everyone else does, take a little part here, and a little part there, nothing that anyone will notice, and then in a month or two when you get all the parts, assemble your mattress at home!"

She sighs and says "I've tried and tried but every time I bring home all the parts and assemble them I just wind up with an AK47."

[unkated]

I think that on average, it would take 6 months to ramp up production to double it's normal production rate for aircraft and ground vehicles. It's not just a question of simply running more shifts - the components (and the components for the components) need to ramp up their production, too.

Ship production you can more or less forget about; while you might get construction started, you won't get a completed, outfitted frigate that starts after 1995 by the end of 1998.

For example, M1s need body sections, engines, track, drive wheels, cannon, etc. These components, constructed elsewhere, need to have their production ramped up - contracts agreed to, materials (steel, castings, chips, boards, seats, etc) supplied. And this is just to improve one production line; setting up another factory will be a year or so.

Recall for WW2, the US spent most of 1940/41/42 building or converting the additional factories & ship yards it would need before the massive production started. Today's more complex factories would take longer to set up. Again, starting in mid-1996, new production lines for large items (armored vehicles) would hardly have started production before TDM, 1998.

(Dumb) ammo production might be better than doubled in that time frame, because there are fewer supporting requirements. Ammo sent to China (I thought we had talked about that as limited) would be ramped up production, and probably not added production lines. Smart bombs and missiles have the same issues with getting production for components to ramp up before their completed item can ramp up.

As for rebuilds in a major war - I could see more effort (turret, engine, drive train replacement) being made to repair in theatre, as sending tanks home for rebuild would be a long trip, as well as taking a chance on surviving the trip home.

[rcaf_777]

If the west if already making items for China as they are first to fight the Russians, would you not see some plants alreay at full production and certians parts of the US industrial base may be already ramping up to meet demands.

[Apache6]

I think your underestimating the ability of the US to ramp up tank and ship production. "In order to maintain the industrial base," Congress has for a long time directed the Services (Army and Navy) to build ships and vehicles in U.S. plants and MUCH slower then necessary. The intent is to make it possible to keep the production lines open.

It results in slower production, and higher costs, but is intended to give the nation the ability to 'ramp up' for a major war.

A lesson learned from Desert Storm is that we (US Military) consumed precision guided munitions at a very high rate. In real world, this led to increased capacity to surge production (executed by the Goverment by writing it into contracts for producers), which was exercised/demonstrated in Bosnia Operations. During T2000K the increased production capability might just be starting to come on line around TDM.

Could led to an interesting adventure, when a PC group is tasked to go to the Lockheed Martin Plant in St Louis (and/or a rail siding just about anywhere) and recover and escort X number of semi trucks carrying Y number of Tomahawk Missiles or TOW missiles which were produced before TDM but unable to be shipped as they were 'lost' in post TDM confusion. They are vitally needed to help drive the Mexicans out of Texas.

I once GM'd a game where the PCs learned about and worked to recover a lot of prewar ordnance which was sitting 'dockside' in ISO containers when Breman was nuked. The area was heavily contaminated and the only one who knew where the munitions was a Army Logistics SgtMaj, blind due to nuclear flash, who was the operations chief at the logistics hub at the Port.