Could the US mount an industrial effort equal the effort of WW2?

[Guest]

about the original topic
I think its not so simple as this
Suppose Al Qaide had pulled off a nuclear explosion (this is for thinking about US reaction, I dont think they are close to this although they are probably trying).
What would be different today. No amounts of tanks would help to find Bin Laden or confirm his death or even hit harder the Al Qaida organization.
The thing is against terrorism, you dont really need taht many aircraft carriers, tank divisions and such.
Its more about intelligence, public relations, international policy making etc...

[GePap]

Serb, the T-34 and most immediate postWar designs where based on the American "Christie" tank suspension aquired in the '30's.

Yes, a private design that was utterly ignored by the US, and none of the tanks used by the US in WW2 had it, while the Soviets took that suspension, added their own desgns (like slanted armor) and made the best overall tank of the war (beats the panther only becuase of the ease of manufacturing).

Serb is correct to say that Soviet armor design was ahead of the US's (and had the soviets added radios and such to thier machines, then even better) in WW2. But the the Sherman was still the one tank that was produced in biggest numbers in WW2.

As for the original question: I don't know. I think not.

There is no scenerio (the nuke one is just silly really) that I can see that would allow the congress to start appropriating pirvate industry to swithc to wartime construction (which would be more expensive now becuase the facilities need to be mroe specialized and the workers more skilled) that would not end anyway in a nuclear exchange making the whole bit meaningless and impossible anyway.

[Sava]

It's not true. Russians always had more tanks and much more superior tanks then USA.
Have a nice day.

oh please....

Abrahms ownz u!!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Serb
Why not kilometer? And why not T-34?
I guess T-90 can do the same with M60.

Unfortunately,

(a) You don't have T90s force wide.
(b) The performance of the Russian Army in Chechnya indicates that your line doggies aren't any better or more professional than the Soviet army in Afghanistan
(c) We just issue M60s to reserve units now, and even some of them have Abrams.

Yeah, and try to destroy turret of T-72 equiped with latest ERA and active defence system 'Arena'. General constructor of Abrams always looks like this smile-
" " (the same eyes) when he visit my home city and watch our active defense in action during military exchibition.

Civilians don't get to see things go "boom" much, so going is a natural response to the fun. Tankers in the US Army, though, are used to it, so they just go "How many is that we've gotten so far?"

Too bad that "superior" (my ass ) American tanks never had such system. And too bad that we don't sell it to him, no matter how hard he is begging for this.

We don't need to - we don't allow anyone on the battlefield to live long enough to hit us.

have a nice day.

BTW, does that iraqwar.ru site still say how badly we're getting our asses kicked by the Iraqis, courtesy of all that Russian intelligence and real time intercepts of our secured communications? I hope your "arena" system works better than your intelligence and comInt capabilities?

[Colon™]

In case anyone's interested in a couple of data sheets...

Share of world manufacturing output:

US
1929: 43.3%
1932: 31.8%
1937: 35.1%
1938: 28.7%

USSR
1929: 5.0%
1932: 11.5%
1937: 14.1%
1938: 17.6%

Germany:
1929: 11.1%
1932: 10.6%
1937: 11.4%
1938: 13.2%

Steel output in 1938:

US: 26.4 million tonnes
Germany: 20.7 million
USSR: 16.5 million

Please keep in mind, that output doesn't correctly reflect capacity because of the Great Depression. The US had enormous unutilised capacity, about 2/3's of its steel plant capacity wasn't utilised for instance. The economies of the USSR and Germany were operating near maximum in the later 30's. This would suggest US' steel capacity was 4 to 5 times as large as USSR's when WW2 began.

Tank production in 1944:

US: 17,500 (29,500 in 1943)
Germany: 17,800
USSR: 29,000

Accumulated aircraft production in 1939 to 1945:

US: 324,750 planes (biggest in a single year: 96.318 in '44)
USSR: 158,218 planes (40,300 in '44)
Germany: 117,881 planes (39,807 in '44)

USSR's manufacturing was affected less than the gains Germany made would suggest. Stalin had the foresight to locate the country's heavy industry near the Ural mountain chain, far out of range of Germany's war machine.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Serb

Don't worry. I remember it.

You forget about 'Hellfire' missiles. 25mm light cannon aside Hellfire missiles can't seriously harm armor of MBT.

There isn't an MBT in the world with rear or top armor than can take a Hellfire hit. There's a big advantage in having mobile air-launched platforms.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
If in fact the turret of a T-72 flew back a hundred metres, you need anti-tank missiles. The 30mm chain gun just doesn't cut it.

Nope, those were M829A1 hits. The "Silver bullet" is the 40 mm Sabot round fired from the 120mm gun on the M1A1 and up Abrams.

40mm x ~800mm DU penetrator at ~2000 mps velocity.

The big turret booms are due to the fact that the plasma spray is so effective it simultaneously cooks off everything in the entire tank, and if you catch one in that pathetically slow autoload process, you have everything right there to go kablooey. Instant fireworks show.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin


How do you retaliate against a terrorist organization which doesn't leave a return address?

assuming the attack can be traced to al qaeeda, AQ's principle return address is the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. For now we are allowing the Pakistanis to deal with that, and and we are allowing them to take their time in dealing with it. Which makes sense - pressing them to deal with it too quickly or intervening directly could result in the dissolution of the Pakistani state, forcing a massive US (or coalition) intervention. Given the low level of AQ activity, steady progress in the global war against AQ cells, progress by the Pakistanis both directly against AQ in NWFP and more broadly in state-building, the patient approach makes sense - versus the direct costs of intervention and the broadening of the war to a "clash of civilizations"

Given a nuke attack traced to AQ however, it is possible that we would accept much higher costs to attack AQ directly in NWFP. This would probably require an invasion and occupation of Pakistan that would dwarf the invasion and occupation of Iraq. US ground forces, at least, would be subject to severe overstretch, even with substantial mobilization of national guard combat components. In that contingency a broader mobilization might be called for, though as others have pointed out, it would certainly look quite different from WW2.

[MichaeltheGreat]

48th Brigade, Georgia Army National Guard, anyone?

[lord of the mark]

in fact our ground forces are close to overstretch now.

US army consists of 10 divisions, plus 2 airborne brigades and two armored cav regiments. Marine Corps consists of 4 divisions.

In Iraq we now have 4 army divisions 3rd ID, 4th ID, 101st AB, and 1st Armored. Plus 173rd AB brig and both arm cav regiments. Plus 1 Marine div. Plus some other combat elements.

IIUC, In pacific we have an Inf Div in Korea, a marine div Okinawa/Hawaii, and a another inf div on the west coast. Plus AB brig in Alaska. IIUC all are essentially in place for contingency on Korean peninsula.

Most of 82 airborne is in Afghanistan, fighting taliban/al qaeeda.

That leaves essentiall 3 army divisions (including 10th Mountain, recently rotated out of Afghanistan) and 2 marine divisions as entire strategic reserve.

In the event of large contigency elsewhere - Pakistan, Iran, or wherever - even assuming significant allied support - we'd be reducing our strat reserve unacceptably low - would have to mobilize NG combat divisions as strat reserve. IIUC NG have been mobilized for specialized support, or for force protection in CONUS. Pentagon has been reluctant since GW1 to use them as combat forces.

Gradual inflow of coalition forces into Iraq will allow 1st marine div to move back into CONUS, then maybe an army div. Still I think this is closest to overstretch we've been in a long time. (though i suppose it looks a lot different from USAF point of view)

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Serb


Yeah right, using your aproach:
French with British support had enough forces to kick German ass and go to Berlin while bulk of Werchmaht was pretty busy chasing Polish divisions. Or they could invade earlier and don't kiss Hitler ass trying to please him in all possible ways- surrending Austria and Czehoslovakia to him, letting him to violate Versale treaty and letting him to create such war machine at the first place.

Those 21 months weren't wasted. Soviet Union started to re-arm its military. Most of the military designs that were used later were completed and put in mass production during this period. (T-34 and KV tanks or rocket artilery for example)

They couldn't have successfully invaded Germany. They could have raided deep into Germany or overrun the Sudentanland - but while they had a lot of forces on paper, the reaility on the ground were hugh shortages of ammo, fuel, and above all training.

Neither side had done any significant planning or preparation for such an operation. If they had been ready to go, then maybe... but enough German units were on the Frontier to dissuade them otherwise.

Sending those UK/French forces off on a wild goose chase would have meant a much quicker conquest of France - meaning a quicker attack on the SU.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
48th Brigade, Georgia Army National Guard, anyone?

your unit, MTG?

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Main_Brain

Historically the only Answer to a Nuclear Attack is immediate Surrender.

Not for a country with enough capacity to destroy the Earth.

[Dis]

but there has been no historical precedence for that... yet

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Dissident
but there has been no historical precedence for that... yet

Let's hope not.