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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Wartime surge production of supplies
Message-ID: <1990Nov19.002909.10520@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 19 Nov 90 00:29:09 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.015054.3895@cbnews.att.com> <1990Nov16.053847.23433@cbnews.att.com> <1990Nov17.015847.29373@cbnews.att.com>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
>The chokepoint in most weapons would be, I think, the electronic components.
>Circuit boards aren't something you can just crank out overnight unless you
>have a highly automated factory ...

The circuit boards themselves might not be that big a deal, if they were
sufficiently behind the bleeding edge of technology to be in commercial
use too.  There are lots of PC-board shops.  I think the real problem would
be the parts.  The prime contractor's assembly lines could probably be
speeded up without *too* much trouble, given that the US military buys
most of its weapons at production rates that are on the edge of being too
low to be practical.  The problem would be keeping those assembly lines
supplied with parts.  Many of the components used in high-tech weapons are
specialized devices with no civilian market, built in tiny quantities by
rather specialized production facilities.
-- 
"I don't *want* to be normal!"         | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Not to worry."                        |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry