U.S. Auto Industry In WW II

[BangkokDean]

Officially classed as one of Hitler's top 5 mistakes.
Under-estimating the manufacturing capacity of the USA.
His others?
Well, I read:
Assuming Britain would not go in to honour our pledge to help defend Poland.
Persecuting Jews instead of utilising their talents (and having too many soldiers involved in their imprisonment and slaughter)
Going against the Russians in winter
Failing to land troops in England immediately after we were chased off the beaches at Dunkirk.
He was recently described as "a brilliant politician who rose to the ranks of his own incompetence in the military".

Visual record of the huge variety and volume of aircraft, engines, vehicles, weapons, tents, etc. that Ford built in WWII for the war effort. Found it surprising.

Subject: U.S. Auto Industry In WW II

A nice reference for your files if you don't have it.

http://usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/ford.htm

 

[mrvette]

Yeh, WE got a very similar 'leader' now....promoted WAY beyond his intelligence, but good at active communism.....

Aside from the Corvette plant some ~18 years ago, I took a GM assy plant tour in Baltimore, back as a frat boy.....been about 1/2 a century, and the one thing that was shocking to me was the sheer SIZE of the plant, that parts came in boxcars, pulling the train right through the plant, positioning the car where the parts came out and onto the conveyor feeding whatever machine/effort they went to.....and the size/ROOM around the assy line, as if they were making tinker toys and not vans/trucks, obviously capable of making any vehicle the .mil guys would need and in great quantities, I suspect the Feds help spec many if not all major manufacturing plants.....I have a friend in the aircraft maintenance/inspection trades, and visited once when he was working on a DC10, as I recall.....:nuts:

A man I used to work with some 30 years ago, retired WW2 Admiral Roy White, one of his sayings that reinforced what I had seen was that we never out fought the Germans/Japanese, we out PRODUCED them, they sunk one boat, we built two, they down a plane we put 3 more in the air....he really had a command voice too, not long before the product line was sold, he stood on the steel diamond plate deck overlooking the production floor, and called for attention, then he says 'you all hang together, or most assuredly you will hang separately'......I was clued in as to what was about.....the whole crew going to Texas as to train the new production line as the product line was sold to another company...so everyone got a month's pay for separation, and a trip to Tejas to train the replacements,....I got to stay after the engineers left, as to spill all the beans to the new tech/engineers as to how everything worked, hands on demonstrations, etc....I had built all the prototypes, so it was nothing for me....went back to DC, and a week later thinking I be laid off also, I walk in and the Mechanical Engineer I worked for hands me a stack of D size drawings over an inch thick, says to look them over carefully, as you going to be building something for us......so I ponder the drawings with a ton of questions, I go back to Don after maybe 4 hours ...and ask WTF IS this thing......automated QC test gear for the Rolls Royce RB211 first stage compressor...the big fan you look at inside the big end of a jet engine.....Off and running in a whole series of new and interesting projects.....

 

[73 Mike]

A lot of really interesting stuff on there. I found the tank pics and stories particularly fascinating. For whatever reason, I thought the idea of dual, built in fire extinguishers in the motor compartment a little ominous. Not sure I'd see that as a feature if I was part of a tank crew.