I made a couple of gun purchases this summer that were my first dip into the realm of historical arms. An M1903A3 rifle made by Remington Arms and an M1911A1 pistol made by Remington Rand. They were both manufactured during World War II. Being the sort of person that I am, I checked into the history of the manufacturing of those particular weapons.
Springfield Armory (in Massachusetts) was the main manufacturer of the assault rifle of the day – the M1 Garand. From 1937, when the Army bought the rifle, until the war ended in 1945, they made 4.5 million of the rifles.
16.1 million Americans served in the military during the war, about 12 million served outside of the US. 4.5 million Garands weren’t enough to arm them all so Remington Arms (Ilion, New York) and Smith Corona (the typewriter company in Syracuse, NY) helped out by making the World War I era assault rifle – the 1903 – to augment arming troops. Many of the Marines who initially went to fight the Japanese in Pacific were armed with 1903s. Remington and Smith Corona changed the design of the rifle using a sighting system similar to the Garand to facilitate cross-training between the two battle rifles.
The main difference between the two rifles was that the Garand was an eight-shot semi-automatic rifle while the 1903 was a bolt-action with a five shot magazine. Big difference in a firefight. But you go to war with the Army you have, not always the Army that you want.
The military had the same problem with their .45 automatic caliber pistols, the M1911A1. They had to ramp up production of the handgun and Colt, the main manufacturer, couldn’t handle the demand, so the military signed contracts with other folks; Remington Rand (900,000 M1911s produced), Colt (400,000), Ithaca Gun Company (400,000), Union Switch & Signal (50,000), and Singer (500). Remington Rand made typewriters before the war, Singer, of course, made sewing machines. Union Switch & Signal made railroad signaling equipment. All five companies were mainly in the northeastern part of the country – in the good old days, that’s where all of the manufacturing took place. Well, until the Leftists chased all of the manufacturers south with their taxes and over-regulation.
A little more history of my Remington Rand; a gentleman brought it home from the Korean War (remember when you could do that?) and it was stolen from his home in the early 60s. The thief ground off the serial number. Law enforcement eventually caught up with the thief and returned the gun to him with a new ATF-assigned serial number etched into it (we checked out his story with the ATF before we took possession of it). I guess the days of the ATF going through that kind of trouble to return a stolen weapon to a legal gun owner are probably gone, just like the manufacturing capability we had in this country before World War II.
I just wonder if we had an emergency the size of World War Two again if we have the capability to respond as a nation in the way that folks did back then. The capability and the willingness to respond on that scale.
Why wouldn’t we be able to produce in that way again at facilities capable of machining? I mean, it’s profitable. Stupidly so. It meets a demand, and any intelligent company will work to meet a demand that exists as a way to make a quick buck. Then, consider how many AR’s that are out there right now that are Mil-spec or better.
My bigger worry would be poorly made AR’s by people who don’t really understand machining and are, for better or worse, working the machines they operate by rote memorization. In World War 2, even a FURNITURE factory built a few quality BAR’s. These people had know-how. You don’t find a lot of mechanical know-how these days.
“Rome didn’t fall until her freedmen gave up the will to fight”
I don’t remember who said that, or the exact words, but the concept is close to reality. The Romans lost 10s of thousands of Soldiers in a single battle, but they kept fighting, even when the enemy was on the verge of threatening Rome… or when they actually did get to Rome.
Today, if we lose 5 people in a war, the liberal side of the American population scream about how we should just “get out of the war” and “mind our own business” … ironic considering that they insist that the US pull out of a war that it’s winning when they refuse to pull out of an argument they’re losing. 🙄
Heck, liberals were demanding that we “compromise” with the south, and that we should “end the war” during the Civil War. 🙄
There’s actually a federal law on the books that identifies the male members of the non-military population, ages 17 to 44, able bodied, as members of the militia. This is everybody that’s not a member of the military and its reserve component including the retirees, that’s able to pick up arms and respond to threats against the US or its stability.
This law was common law during the colonial period, during the American Revolution, and during the Constitution creating period. It became codified shortly after the U.S. formed.
This is tied into the Second Amendment of the Constitution. People understood this concept, and were generally ready to act out on it. Any law that attempted to get “guns” out of the hands of the people was a law attempting to “disarm the militia,” a dangerous proposition considering that the people are ultimately responsible for both, self governance and national defense. An armed populace acted as a counterbalance to the government.
People also used the term “rifle” back then, so liberals can’t use the, “they didn’t have rifles back then” argument.
People back then generally had a better understanding of American History, and the circumstances surrounding the founding of the U.S.
Today, far too many people are “provincial” when it comes to current events and geopolitics. Too many care more about Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Hollywood gossip, or similar junk news, than they do about actual history and real news.
This is tied to something else that our founders understood, that’s not so much understood by our confused liberal counterparts. Our founders insisted that Christianity, and its philosophy, remained strong. “This government is for a Christian people and for no other” has multiple applications. Respecting property rights was one of them, this included efforts to return property to the rightful owners.
The manufacturing history in this country is part of economic evolution. At one point in time, most the population were farmers, and held agricultural related professions like carriage makers, goldsmiths, cobblers, metal smiths, etc. At the beginning of the industrial period, the first “manufacturing” jobs were “shit jobs” that didn’t pay as high as many of the traditional jobs paid.
In fact, there were attempts to “sabotage” the industrial revolution as it threatened what was seen as “traditional” American jobs. But, as economic evolutions go, less people were able to do the traditional jobs… causing more people to work in the “new wave” jobs. This trend continues. A smaller percent of the population is feeding the rest of us and large populations outside the US. A smaller percent of the population is involved with manufacturing thanks to technological advances and outsourcing.
Outsourcing is no different from a woman purchasing cookie dough ready to cook in lieu of her making the cookie dough from scratch. It’s efficient and allows the outsourcer to focus on more productive work.
Our economy has evolved into something that allows us to make up for “the loss of industrial capacity” with jobs that involve intellectual effort. We didn’t really lose industrial capability, it has gotten better. Like agriculture; however, less and less of the population is involved with it. those that remain in those areas have better quality and quantity outputs than those that came before them.
I dispute your statements about industrial capacity. Used to be, we had steel mills in the Chicago area, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Alabama – there were probably other places but I have seen large-scale shut-down mills and foundries in those states. Most of them are gone now. Most steel is made overseas. So if there is a world-wide conflict and the US wants to have things, then (a) they have to be made overseas and shipped here, (b) the steel has to be made overseas and shipped here where we manufacture the item, or (c) we have to reopen iron mines and train miners, reopen mills and train millwrights, and find and make the tools and train machinists. Both a and b assume that we are not at war with the people creating the materials and weapons and that we can keep the sea lanes open so that they can get raw materials and both of us can get energy and we can receive the steel or manufactured goods.
That sea lane issue is also problematic. During WW2, the Germans sank a lot of allied shipping across the Atlantic with submarines who operated without radar. These days, an air-to-surface missile is a lot cheaper to make, it can be delivered via airplane, ship, or submarine, and we have multiple modes of detecting ships. I’m thinking that targeting is better so there will be more strikes. Both the weapons and the targets are high-tech so somewhat delicate and expensive. Seems to me that there will be a lot more expensive systems destroyed so the country with greater manufacturing capacity has a better chance. Any holes in full-spectrum manufacturing may be a significant weakness. We outsourced most of our manufacturing capacity. I’m thinking that a imported iPad won’t stop a bullet from a cheap AK.
I am an Army guy but heavy stuff has to come on ships.
Outsourcing any significant part of our economy creates a gap in our national security. I work in IT. Are you aware that many computer programmers are Indian and most of them work in India? I may try to find out where chip fabs are located – I think that most are in the far east. If there are no integrated circuits, then there are no controllers for those fancy weapons.
Please tell me why this is the wrong way to look at it.
And I dispute your statement in response to my statements… not just with what you said about industrial capacity, but with your analysis of what it means for this country. I do this based on 3 decades of studying history related events to include the evolution of our industry/economy, and during the time I worked on my MBA. My concentration was in global logistics.
Since you focused on steel, a look at the following PDF link shows the steelmaking capacity in the United States. Contrary to what you claim, the Chicago area, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Alabama STILL have still making capacity. They’re not the only locations that have them though. They’re also in other states in the country.
The large scale shut down of steel mills in those areas has everything to do with economic evolution, business to business demand trends, economic environment as set up by the laws affecting the areas the steel mills and other “industrial revolution” type industries.
With steel, changes in technology, and the companies that utilize that technology, are going to impact older facilities that use older technologies to do the same thing.
This ties in to what I mentioned in the post, which you disagreed with. Our economy is evolving, and integrating with neighboring economies. This is all ultimately driven by consumer demand. This is going to cause industrial infrastructure to change in order to meet business to business consumer demand… which is ultimately meeting our collective consumer demands:
http://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/Public%20Policy/Member%20Map/NorthAmerica-Map2013/SteelPlant_NorthAmerica_AISI_version_June252013.pdf
This map includes facilities in Canada and Mexico. Seeing this just in terms of the United States is archaic. Realistically, we have to see our economy in terms of our continent instead of just in the US. Our economy has gotten to the point to where we have to see things in continental and global terms, not in national terms.
Here’s another website that show steel facilities:
https://www.ussteel.com/uss/portal/home/aboutus/facilities
What they have listed as “Number 4” is located in the Gary/Chicago area. Even if it’s gone, there are other locations in the US.
Here’s a list of manufacturing in the United States:
http://www.manta.com/mb_33_E7_000/manufacturing?utm_expid=82789632-25.oHnsZFf0S6aL6ZTTV65kcg.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
Here’s a Forbes article that talks about manufacturing in the US… hint… it’s not dying or disappearing:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2013/05/15/americas-manufacturing-boomtowns/
Again, this ties in with what I talked about in the earlier posts. The economy is evolving. Just because steel producing facilities in your area are closing down doesn’t mean that they’re leaving the United States.
It simply means that the free market dictated that these facilities be elsewhere… in the United States, in North America, or the world. There’s a chance that those facilities weren’t replaced with ones operating overseas. There’s a chance that a facility, either in North America or in another part of the world, stood up long before the old facility closed in your area. There’s also a chance that those facilities weren’t replaced, period.
It so happens that our demand for steel requires us to purchase steel not just from within the US, but from overseas facilities… some of them are outsourced US steel facilities operating under US management.
Gone are the days when we could focus exclusively to what’s going on inside in the United States. Our economy, thanks to consumer demand and business to business demand, has outgrown the United States and requires integration with economies adjacent to ours… what’s happening in the United States is also happening in every developed country in the world.
The assumptions in the first part of your statement won’t be a factor, and don’t take in the fact that the United States shares common interests with countries that we import steel from. It also doesn’t take into account the geopolitical undercurrents that come to play that lead countries to conflict.
Japan and Germany were motivated a lot by the chance to get natural resources into their hands. The rhetoric was just a way to get the national populace behind the government’s push to expand territory and, through territorial expansion, the acquisition of natural resources to feed each country’s industrial capacities.
Nations are driven to defend/pursue their interests.
As our economies evolve, and integrate more, the less likely the “member” countries to this economic integration will fight each other in a war.
We combat deployed troops into Canada and Mexico at different points in the 19th Century. We have no such plans in our future. Through NAFTA and other initiatives, we could pursue our economic interests in those countries in a way that benefits both sides of the border.
No war needed. If a major global war broke out, those two countries would have our back with regards to industrial support. So would our economic partners in CAFTA, and in South America.
This is applicable in other parts of the world as well.
Now, in order for your “world war” scenario to play out, we have to have major players invading countries left and right. We have Russia, which doesn’t have the power projection capabilities that the United States has. They couldn’t even succeed with a combat operation in their own territory.
China? Same story as Russia, although they’re building that capacity to the extent that they need to combat their neighbors if necessary to get their way with the disputed islands. This is a motivator behind their new air defense areas/zones… the ones that the US, Japan, and South Korea disregarded.
Say a war does break out in SE Asia. We have an industrial capacity in North America and in Europe that’d support our war effort. Vietnam would be willing to support us, industrially, in this effort in a hypothetical war against China. They wouldn’t be the only country to want to help us out either.
They could fly combat missions over the shipping lanes adjacent to their borders.
As much rhetoric that Chinese Generals have given against the US, there’s too much economically involved for them to carry their threats out.
The assumptions in the second point of that statement ignore a reality… technological and economic evolution. For example, it used to be a simple matter of converting merchant ships to man of wars. That’s not practical now.
If we need to expand steelmaking capacity in the United States, it won’t necessarily be a return to those steel facilities that have closed. Those steel facilities are old school compared to new facilities utilizing new technologies being created today. They’ve structurally aged, and are more than likely maintenance heavy compared to the new facilities that they could build elsewhere in the US, North America, or the world.
Given the political and economic environment in the areas that you talk about, save Alabama, most new plants would prop up in the South, southern Midwest, and parts of the west where the business environment is friendlier to operate… where the logistics infrastructure is available to support those plants… where it’s not as expensive to employ people… where there isn’t that much of a union influence, etc.
It won’t cost these companies as much to train workers in these areas as it would to train them in places like Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere.
If an enemy country wanted to completely cut us off from importing resources into the United States, they’ll have to blockade both North and South America, all of Pan America, and they’ll have to launch a ground assault against every country in this hemisphere.
They need their own logistics capability, across the globe, to accomplish that.
Again, given their relatively weaker power projection capabilities, and the populations of those countries in Pan America, neither Russia nor China has the resources, time, or money to accomplish such a feat.
Neither Russia nor China could afford to embark on a major military operation without losing grip of their own home populations.
This is part of the reason to why even the Russians and Chinese are arguing that a major war over something that should be politically resolved would be counterproductive…
I was in the Navy before I joined the Army. I was an Operations Specialist, one of the MOSs that was involved with detecting and tracking both air and sea platforms. Over the horizon targeting and tracking was one of my main focuses.
This isn’t as easy as you make it here.
Back in the old days, the shipping lanes were known. The vast majority of shipping transited the exact same shipping lanes. A submarine commander that knew these shipping lanes needed to be at the right place and he needed to have patience.
It’s not that simple today. The advance in technology that you mention makes it possible to not use the same shipping lane as was used during WWII.
Today, these ships could pick their own shipping lanes, so you have to find these ships first.
If you don’t follow them out to sea from port, and they slip beyond the horizon, good luck in finding them. Because of our power projection capability, the US military could cover shipping for those that transit a designated military and industrial shipping route.
If you do follow them out to sea from port, then you have to use active communication to “spot” for the aircraft coming in. You can’t do that without being detected by our Electronic Warfare, Intelligence Specialists, and other Navy MOS’s onboard the ships you’re tracking.
If we’re talking about a submarine in the high seas, and it decides to attack, then its destruction is guaranteed in the hands of the surviving escort ships in the convoy.
Let’s go back to power projection capabilities. I followed an article about Russian ships that deployed beyond their normal AO near northwest Russia. They sailed the Atlantic and into the Caribbean. The amount of time it took for them to make the voyage? Longer than it would’ve taken many of our slower than average ships to take.
The main ship was a line ship, a combatant. It was barely seaworthy, a VIP refused to risk his life riding it.
Let’s talk about satellite tracking. Without going into details, because of the nature of the technology involved, you’d have a better… and easier time… looking for a needle in a five story high, one block base hay stack than you would finding a Navy ship in the middle of the ocean.
When it comes to securing the sea lanes, the West dominates the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They dominate the Mediterranean as well as the seas surrounding the UK. The main countries that could threaten the United States, Russia and China, are predominantly continental powers whose navies generally don’t operate far from their maritime territories.
Granted, Russia deploys submarines and long range bombers close to the continental United States. They could afford to do that when we’re not actively at war with them. If we were actively at war with them, it’d be costly, and risky, for them to do that.
Again, they’re mostly a continental power, not a maritime power. So is China.
If a war were to break out now, we’d be able to keep selected sea lanes secure, and receive resources and materials from outside the western hemisphere. Even without this capability, we’d be able to bring in resources from the Pan American region.
Now, you mentioned both of us getting energy.
The vast majority of the oil that we use in the United States comes to us from points of origins in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and offshore sites on those countries’ continental shelves. Venezuela is the next major supplier. The United States is moving ahead in the energy producing sector as well… to the point that OPEC is starting to take our energy production capacity seriously… they’ve all of a sudden started to inch towards letting the markets dictate the price of oil over trying to artificially set it.
If you look at the way goods flow across the world, you’ll see that our economies are interconnected. You’ll also see that most of the world’s economy is set up to support specific country’s economy, with “all” roads leading to the US economy. If our economy “sneezes”, the rest of the world’s economy catches a cold. Both the Chinese and Russians know that what’s bad for our economy is generally worse for theirs.
If either disrupt the sea lanes, they negatively impact their own export markets.
Bottom line… the world’s economy has evolved to the point to where the geopolitical environment today is “alien” compared to what was in place in the years leading up to World War II, and during World War II.
With all things equal, the chances of a WWII like conflict get more remote with each passing year.
Now, the sun’s pending entry into a solar grand minima could change that outlook, depending on how cold our climate becomes… but that opens up a whole new other topic.
I knew that from both research and experience. There are exceptions though, like oil. We import the vast majority of our oil through pipelines.
You’re looking at this the wrong way, partly because you’re looking at this from a single dimension. You’re not looking at this the way you should be looking at this… globally.
Outsourcing goes both ways. We don’t just have US manufacturing in the US. We also have foreign manufacturing in the US. This foreign manufacturing represents an outsourcing from the home country to the United States.
Back in the early 19th Century, a governor wrote a letter to the president. In his letter, he appealed to the President’s sense of being an American. He talked about the American jobs that needed to be protected by the action he was requesting from the president.
These American jobs? The men that pushed the long ores along the canals… the men that controlled the horses that worked with these long-ores men… the farmers that grew the hey that feed these horses… the people that built the boats that carried goods across these canals… the people that operated the locks separating the different lakes… etc.
This governor “demonized” the “threat” to these American jobs, to include this “contraption’s” moving at breakneck speeds… we didn’t know the long term impact of people traveling at these “breakneck speeds.”
This job killing evil that the governor was trying to get killed? The train and the railroad line it needed. The breakneck speed whose long term impacts on humans we had yet to discover? 15 to 20 miles per hour.
Advance to the 21st Century. Our canal transit system doesn’t look the same, and doesn’t require many of the same positions that existed in the early 19th Century. But, at the same time, it has positions that didn’t exist in the early 19th Century. We still have waterborne platforms that transit the canals… huge behemoths compared to the boats that used to do their job in the early 19th Century.
This is economic change, economic and technological evolution.
Your steel facilities may be gone but replacements exists in the US, not just overseas. These replacements are generally more advanced, and are better able to meet business to business demand than the ones you’ve seen closed. It’s generally more efficient to build a completely new facility instead of refitting the ones that closed.
As for the chips that you mentioned. Remember my mention of Vietnam? The CEO of Intel Vietnam predicts that they’ll be creating 80% of the world’s chips. Intel is an American company, with parts in different parts of the world, and it’s based in the United States.
The Vietnamese have become more open to improving friendly ties to the US, to include cooperating in security ventures that secures both the US and Vietnam’s interests in the South China Sea.
http://tuoitrenews.vn/business/21324/80-of-worlds-computer-chips-will-be-made-by-intel-vietnam-by-2015-ceo
We have the production capability. The problem isn’t on anything that Ronald Reagan did, but on what generations of voting for Democrats would do. Massachusetts, like my home state of Minnesota, has this bad habit of consistently voting for Democrats into positions that allow them to create laws that discourage businesses in their localities.
Businesses relocate to make more money, which means relocating out of states like Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts, etc., and towards more business friendly states or countries. Don’t thank Ronald Reagan for your state’s demise, blame generations of democrat policies for your state’s demise.
The word “taxachusetts” is a parody of a bigger problem in Massachusetts.
Make that Pennsylvania, same problem as Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, etc., mentioned above.
So long as there is money to be made, I have no doubt that US industry can meet the challenge. And before we grant sainthood to the US of the war era, recall that there were laws passed to ensure everything from selective service registration to ration-coupon compliance. That is to say, the effort was not met solely through volunteerism but through legal coercion. It’s not popular to remind folks of this, inasmuch as the anointing of the Greatest Generation is now a given, but it was, after all, the Greatest Generation that gave us the Flower Children, Black Panthers, and assorted unwashed of the post-war baby boom.
3D printing-let Joe make his own firearms :D!
Lib’s love to blame Reagan for things that they did to shoot themselves in the foot.
So far the states that have capitalized on the forces that Reagan espoused have done well.
Those that continued to follow the liberal way of thinking have gone the way of the dinosaur, li8ke Detroit, MN and the rest of the high tax states.
Lib’s never take responsibility for their own actions and are in a river of denial…
Just like the crack addicts they represent…
Yeah-U.S. industrial production has increased dramatically over the past 30 years http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=INDPRO
Employment in manufacturing has decreased over time, but that probably says more about emerging technology than it does about policy http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonbruner/2011/08/22/u-s-manufacturing-surges-ahead-but-dont-look-for-a-factory-job-infographic/
Anyway-lefties love to talk about industrial jobs because it harkens back to the days of big, overarching government policies of the 1940s and 50s when the idea that the economy could be directed (with them being enlightened technocrats doing the directing) from D.C. was en vogue. A variety of factors have since shown that that is nonsense, but they cling to it anyway.
USMC went into WW2 with the M1903 because they had turned down the M1 in 1940, Cue guadalcanal and suddenly they wanted them, but were now last in priority for them. USMC took on the Johnson Rifle for PAramarines, and at one point had the 03, Garand, and Johnson all in the same platoons.
Col Hurley Fuller who commanded the 23rd Infantry, 2ID at Normandy had his Regiment use the M1903 over the garand, it wasn’t until he was relieved that the regiment started the switch to the M1.
Also the 36th Texas divisions Infantry preferred the 03 up to 1944
MG Maxwell Taylor carried an ’03 at Normandy, Holland and Bastogne he preferred its accuracy
That I prefer my Garand to my ’03 doesn’t mean that my ’03 isn’t still a damn good weapon!
It’s amazing, the stories that vintage weapons come with. My very first rifle was an M1 Garand purchased from Big5 for $400 when I was 14 in 1998. No GI serial numbers, because it was assembled from the ginormous cache of spare parts–I read somewhere that for each of the 4.5 million complete rifles assembled during the war, parts were made for four more. While still pretty (she IS a Garand) she doesn’t have the classic look, with every part having a mismatched finish. But she still shoots beautifully, never malfunctions, and will punch the dots off a dice at 500 yards. That rifle has even gotten me laid! I still have that M1, and she is definitely my favorite rifle. Due to my familiarity with it, accuracy, and reliability, it is my go-to SHTF weapon. And I don’t understand why some people complain about them. I know I’m 6’1″ and 235 pounds, but 10 pounds of rifle is not all that heavy, and I find the recoil to be very comfortable. Plus, if I can see it, I can kill it. I now have two of them, the second has a serial number below 30,000–probably had a gas trap originally. It’s beat-up, but I’m 85% done restoring her. She has the occasional hiccup, but still puts every round through the same hole.
Then there’s my M1903A3, which I bought at a gun show from a Korean dude who educated me on how, “Dis lifle was actuary made by Lemington,” and gave me a solid rundown (in perfect Engrish) of the improvements made in the ’03A3 over the original ’03, where they were issued, etc. Language barrier aside, dude knew his guns. I nearly ruined it in a teachable moment regarding the potential dangers of home gunsmithing, but luckily a pro was able to unfuck my mistake. Shoots great, kicks a bit harder than the Garand (gotta love gas operation!), damn good weapon.
I think I’ve already told the story of my (step)Grandpa’s Enfield sniper mod that he took home from Korea. Speaking of great rifles.
I just recently got my wife an old Smith & Wesson Victory Model revolver in .38S&W. She loves it. It’s slightly worn, but still has its Navy serial number and “U.S. PROPERTY” stamped on the top strap. It’s no .45, but still a beautiful piece in its own right.
I’ve got my eye on an old Winchester/Enfield M1917 that’s been sitting on the consignment rack at the gun shop for a while now. A few extra overtime days and $850 and that ol’ gal will make a fine addition to the collection.
There’s just something about the old guns. I think NutNFancy on Youtube hit it on the head in his Garand review. They just have soul. You can just feel that each of them was made by somebody who knew–and CARED–that a serviceman’s life was going to depend on that weapon. New guns rarely seem to have that intangible quality.
Production capability?
Henry Ford invented mass production with the assembly line cranking out Ford cars – any model, any year – by the truckload. Ditto, the assembly lines for tire production. When WWII erupted, those facilities included war production by rapid conversion to manufacturing planes and other war equipment.
Detroit and other northern cities was where the jobs were. People left Appalachia to work in those cities instead of the coal mines.
Caterpillar still builds their own heavy equipment here in the US, just as Boeing and other aviation companies build planes here. Not everything comes from overseas. Some companies like the Swiss-owned company Terex produce equipment where they sell it.
Maybe the sweaters and blouse and jeans that we buy come from garment facatories in China, but that is not heavy industry of the kind needed for wartime production. Furthermore, the fabric-manufacturing, garment production, and furniture manufacturing industries have a long, long history of moving from one general location to another.
You can argue that the parts are manufactured overseas, which may be true to some extent.
It does not mean that everything is made in China, or that it can’t quickly be brought back here.
I have a box of vinyl-coated nails which I use for repairs to my front steps. I checked the label. They’re made in the USA.
Despite the distaste by the lefties for money, they don’t have it if they don’t work, you know. They despise the very thing they need to pay the rent and put food on the table and buy all those cool toys they love so much. But if they don’t work, they don’t have any cash. I see them as essentially the laziest jerks on the planet, and not much else.
I’m not sure if it’s a relevant question anyway. Ever since WWII ended we’ve been operating on the assumption that we might have to fight another world war but history has shown that world wars are an anomaly, requiring a lot of factors that simply don’t exist today and probably won’t again (for example having multiple colonial powers that are roughly equal militarily, non-interconnected economies, etc.)
In fact, if you look back at the 20th century you can see that the mass slaughter that started in WWI, continued through the various revolutions and upheavals around the world during the inter-war period (mass starvation and massacre in the USSR, mass slaughter by the Japanese in China and East Asia) and then culminated in 1945, there has been a steady downward trend in the size and scope of conflicts. Korea saw massive fights, but not as large scale as WWII. Vietnam was even smaller scale than that.
By the time you get to the modern GWOT, you are talking about a conflict where most actions are platoon-sized or smaller.
Not to take anything away from the bravery or heroism of todays GIs, but consider that a company-sized firefight in which 10 US soldiers are killed would be splashed all over every news organ in the US, and would lead to much furrowed-brow concern about whether the war is “worth it”, but during Vietnam (much less WWII or Korea) such an incident wouldn’t even make it to the back page of the local newspaper.
In fact, I’d even go so far as to say the notion of large, industrialized nation states fighting wars against each other has become pretty much obsolete just by the inter-connectedness of the world. Once the cold war ended there was really no realistic possibility that we’d ever see that kind of struggle again.
“The capability and the willingness to respond on that scale.”
That single sentence captures all that needs to be said on the matter. I’n not quite ready to concede that we lack the capability. The willingness is doubtful these days though. I’ve never fully understood how 9/11 failed to engender something more akin to Pearl Harbor and WWII.
BTW, nice guns. My only experience with the 03 was on a drill team… Chromed to a fault AND with a chrome bayonet.
“I just wonder if we had an emergency the size of World War Two again if we have the capability to respond as a nation in the way that folks did back then. The capability and the willingness to respond on that scale.”
I hope so. I do believe, given a grave enough challenge America can rise to most anything. My concern is the lack of available plants and manufacturing systems needed to ramp up to needed production quickly. Most plants have become relics in need of demolition and then new, ground up construction for modern methods. Depending on foreign countries, who may not be friendly to our efforts during such a crisis, for steel and so forth is not a good plan. As far as the WWII era of Americans willing to pitch in with metal drives of all kinds, ration coupons for everything, I don’t think so anymore. It would mean the entitled, welfare class also would have to be willing to give up their fair share as well and do their part. They have shown no intention thus far of giving up anything for anyone, especially the betterment of our nation and I highly doubt they would suddenly be flying flags and signing up for the much needed, in demand manufacturing jobs in a crisis such as the one proposed. Just won’t happen in my mind. Long before that I see the illegal alien population clamoring for that work with the stipulation that citizenship comes with the paycheck.
Technically, Henry Ford improved the production line. He most certainly did not invent or figure it out. That accolade belongs to Eli Whitney and his interchangeable parts system.
I’ve talked to very intelligent and highly skilled engineers and OLD school machinists. They all say that the capability to make new barrels for the Iowa class battleships, is lost and almost impossible to restore, given today’s manufacture abilities. I responded in disbelief, that if a 16″ rifled barrel could be made with ease and speed in 1940, using cocktail napkins for design ideas and lined notepaper for the math calculations, that modern computers could do all that in a fraction of the time.
To a man, they said so what? There aren’t any PEOPLE that know how to do it, and the government would not allow such a factory to be built.
Sad.
Just wait, this loss of technology leads to a future with star ships that don’t have any seatbelts or airbags too…
Dreadnoughts are cool, and impressive. However, sadly, they are also obsolete as tools for mastery of the sea. Ponder the fates of the Prince of Wales, Repulse, Arizona, Yamato, and Musashi- all sunk by aircraft.
Thus, it makes a fair bit of sense why the skill of making 16″ naval cannons has gone out of practice. You don’t need the guns for naval operations, and it is waaaaaay to expensive to turn them out just to keep the skills current.
Last night, I was watching something on television, and it mentioned that President Roosevelt approved the Lend Lease program because it had the effect of successfully getting our manufacturing industries prepared for the eventual entry of the United States as a formally declared combatant in the Second World War.