RyanCrierie
Posts: 1461
Joined: 10/14/2005 Status: offline
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A big reason why I'm interested in programming all this to give the Allied Player a backdoor production alteration capability is that the US aircraft program changed wildly, depending on the current events in play. For example, on 22 December 1941, there was a conference in General Oliver P. Echols' Office, and the minutes were written up on 24 December 1941. General Echols (LINK) was called by his subordinate, Benjamin Kelsey "The Man Who Won WW2" The reason for that sobriquet was that Echols from 1940 to April 1945 was variously the head of: Chief of Materiel Division, AAF Commanding General, Materiel Command AAF HQ Assistant Chief of Staff for Materiel, Maintenance & Distribution (MM&D) Basically, he decided what was gonna get made and where. Anyway, the minutes of that December 1941 conference are quite interesting. It was a review of the "New Army Program" and some highlights of it that are different than what happened are: Bell, Atlanta They were to assemble 65 x B-29s a month with parts coming from the General Motors Corporation (Fisher Body Plant) in Cleveland. Curtiss Wright, Buffalo They were to cancel their P-60 program and convert their pursuit manufacturing capacity to 300 x P-47Gs a month. An estimated 1,000 more P-40F and P-40E would be needed to fill in the production gap between the P-40F Warhawk and the P-47G. Chrysler Corporation, Detroit "as a matter of record, it is contemplated that Chrysler may be asked by the Navy to manufacture up to 250 F4U Vought fighters per month." General Motors, Cleveland "This will be a new plant to manufacture 90 sets of B-29 parts, of which 65 will be shipped to Bell, Atlanta for assembly and 25 assembled in Cleveland. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Akron "This company will manufacture A-25 Dive Bombers at the rate of 150 per month in its facilities now devoted to tire manufacture, using Pullman, Chicago as a major subcontractor Glenn L Martin, Baltimore "Plant No 2 will manufacture B-26 airplanes until the B-33 airplane is ready for production. It is estimated that 900 additional B-26 airplanes will be required prior to the production of the B-33. The peak production rate for the B-33 is set for 50 per month." North American, Dallas: Will manufacture AT-6 at rate of 400 a month. In addition, it is proposed that an extension of this plant be constructed to manufacture B-24 airplanes at a rate of 75 per month. North American Inglewood This plant will be devoted to the production of B-25 airplanes at the rate of approximately 85 per month and swing over to B-28 airplanes at the rate of 70 per month, at the conclusion of the present B-25 contract. In addition, this plant will be used to help get the B-29 into production at Kansas City. North American Kansas City This plant will produce B-25s at the rate of 115 per month and swing over into B-29 airplanes at 30 per month at the conclusion of the present B-25 contract. ========================================= I don't have anything DEFINITE to back this up, but to me, it seems that Goodyear's selection to produce A-25 Shrikes was an artifact of when there was to be at least 3,100~ A-25s built for the AAF. I located a letter that pointed out that the Curtiss-Wright, Buffalo factory was "going to be loaded to the gills" producing 300 x P-47G and 25 x C-46 a month, and that it wasn't considered economical to add a third model aircraft into the production mix at C-W, Buffalo. Meanwhile, the Navy wanted their own version of the A-25 at high rates, as the SB2C; which would have taken up most of Curtiss-Wright, Columbus' factory capacity. So by a process of elimination of which contractors posed credible manufacturing capability for that much A-25s, it fell to Goodyear Aircraft. When the massive A-25 order was downsized from 3,100+ aircraft to just 900, they found that they were able to program them in existing Curtiss-Wright plants. And so Goodyear was chosen to be the "shadow" producer for the F4U Corsair, instead of Chrysler, because they were now available...
< Message edited by RyanCrierie -- 8/27/2021 9:49:04 PM >
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