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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35553 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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Production is irrelevant when the time to produce the stocks is measured in years,

The history of WWII stands in direct rebuke to this thesis

Any reason you left off the second part of that clause:

"when the rate of production is measured in years, and the rate of consumption measured in months"

WW2 no one was consuming materiel at rates vastly in excess of what even US production kicked out. The allies had to bomb german factories to get them falling into shortages, they weren't consuming 30% of global stock in the first 5 months of Barbarossa.

It's not your grandmother's country these days.

Irrelevant, the claim being made is still demonstrably false

Manufacturing was close to 25% of the US economy in that era, it's 10% today (and far more narrowly focused on a smaller number of high margin industries rather than low value businesses like assembly that are pretty important if a nation wants to convert to building weapon systems). GM could quickly make diesel engines and jeeps or tanks, Intel can't convert to missiles or something similar nearly as quickly.

Dunno if that's a good analogy. Intel probably can't switch to building whole missiles, sure, but they probably can build the electronics for guiding said missile.

10% of US manufacturing capacity is still an order of magnitude more than what the Russians got.

Sure, but they already have a gigantic stockpile of old weapons, they don't have to match manufacturing.

Most likely most of that "gigantic stockpile" is fictional or doesn't work.

As evidenced infamously by the ripped tires in the first week or two of the invasion. Sure, you can store a tank for 50 years. Good luck keeping the rubber parts still up to spec without regular maintenance, and we all know how good Russia is at such maintenance.

Not saying the US wouldn't beat Russia in raw steel output, but the number isn't "% of manufacturing capacity", it "% of GDP that goes to manufacturing", which, if this whole affair has taught me anything, is a silly number.

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