old shipbuilding

[johnakay]

http://www.sanpedro.com/Kaiser_Richmond ... ond_22.htm

[H2RICK]

Thanks for the link, John.
Yes, once Henry Kaiser showed shipbuilders that ships could be built assembly-line fashion like cars and trucks, US yards turned them out like crazy. If Hitler and Doenitz (head of the U-boat arm and later the whole German navy) actually saw how the yards were turning out Liberty ships, they would have shite themselves.

[Suzsmokeyallan]

Another case in point was a certain level of thinking in the German command at that time. They built a lot of high quality vehicles for the war effort with impressive levels of technology, but the problem was, BECAUSE of this type of engineering, they could not make them in vast quantities or quick enough to supply the need.
The Americans on the other hand had the industrial might and facilities to churn out hundreds or even thousands of items in a quick and timely fashion to keep their war effort going.
One case in point, the Sherman tank versus the German Tigers, Panzer and Panther tanks. Even though the Shermans were known for lighting up instantly if hit in the right place, aka 'the Ronson lighter', there were so many of them that the German tanks were overrun by vast US numbers.
While the German tanks were superior in build, armor and overall technology, it didnt help them even as good as they were.
With so many Shermans on the battlefield constantly coming in waves of hundreds, the smaller numbers of King Tigers,Tigers, Panzers and Panthers didnt stand a chance and well,,, the rest is WW2 history.
I believe the final number of Shermans made was close to 49,000 in total in a few short years, thats a very impressive number.

[H2RICK]

Another little vignette about design philosophy from a guy I worked with who was there back in the day:

MG38 and MG42 were the Wehrmacht's light/medium machine guns for squad support. The guy I worked with said they were works of art with deadly accuracy and high rates of fire....but if a fly shite in the mechanism, the things jammed immediately....something you definitely don't want happening at ANY time.
Meanwhile, the Russians built a much simpler man-carried sub-machine gun called the PPShK, fondly known as the pippeshka. This weapon could be thrown in a swamp for a week or so, then dragged out and the action worked a little and then the weapon could be fired without disassembly.
Large tolerances and lotsa stamped (rather than machined) pieces made the Russian weapon far simpler to mass produce and use/maintain. This philosophy was carried over to the AK47 and its replacement, the AK74.
Both were/are crude but effective and can be used/maintained by a soldier of the meanest intelligence.

[two-stroke-brit]

high tech verses low is not always the obvious choice,
sometimes you just have to put a lot of boots on the ground so to speak.
i visited the normandy beaches on the aniversary of d-day and it was a humbling experiance to see how anyone could survive on the beaches from the vantage points on the cliffs above.
there were alot of americans on halftracks or in jeeps and motorcycle sidecars charging around most of them in there 70s and 80s.
mark

[Frank]

The high-tech vs. low-tech approach was used by jet engines for MIG's in the old days (at least that's what I've been told.) In a former life I was heavily involved in jet engine parts manufacturing; a colleague who had examined Russian parts said that while "ours" were sophisticated and complicated to manufacture, "theirs" were very simple and cheaper to make. The difference was level of control and fuel consumption.

[two-stroke-brit]

talking of high tech, i used to work for the uk side of a lockhed martin partnership producing the seeker units on the front of the javlalin shoulder anti tank system and asked why the tolerances were so small.
how can a tenth or two cant make any differance when it is self aquiring,
but was told, its the between hitting the door or the letterbox.
enough said.