IJA "Reinforced" Divisions in EOS (plan)

[witpqs]

Never thought anything sinister was afoot.

How exactly is any of this 'James Bondish'?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: JWE

I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for you to generate a superficial survey paper or anything. We would like to get a copy of the JSDF article. For example, I have pub proofs in the file of everything of mine acceped for publication in the trade journals, I assume you do too. Maybe you could send a scan copy of yours along in a pdf? Or (probably easiest) just tell us the publication, date, author & title; we can get it pretty easily. Thanks again. Ciao.

This seems to be a sub thread about the China materials. I have more up to date stuff - although it now needs updating again as I have been doing WITP for a while and need to revise (time marches on). This stuff is all stored electronically and can be sent if you give me an address - which I posted above. Otherwise, go to the FAS site and see Progosis for China. Or send your address to the address posted above (trevethans@aol.com) and say what you want (Forum names often are not real names). If you want to join the Strategic Studies List we need to know who you are?

The other materials posted above were for Mike and relate to the WWII Japanese stuff. And we seem to have somehow still forgotten the subject of this thread!

No, it wasn't China materials. You said you would provide a copy of your article, if anybody wanted it. We want it. A simple post of a pdf file will do. If you can't do that send it to me by pm. If you can't do that send it to jw.eldredge@cox.net . If you can't do that send it to ccaflisch@planetdds.com . If you can't do that please advise because I have about 20 additional valid addresses you can send it to.

We need to figure out what you are referring to here? I posted the Japanese vehicle article above. I specified the China article location. I also mentioned the RFI materials - but they also are China materials. What are you looking for?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Oh my goodness, we are getting quite James Bondish. Nothing sinister here.

Me and the guys read trade journals. Sid indicated he wrote an article for an officer of a recognized allied military establishment. It was a logical assumption that it was published in a recognized military (or govt) trade journal and that assumption was clearly stated at the time of each request. Sid never indicated otherwise during several exchanges. If he just wrote a private briefing paper, that's all he has to say.

Did not suggest he wrote his opus for my benefit, don't know or care where it came from. Was letting him know he didn't have to go to that effort. His post was a general survey containing info that anyone could glean from those little glossy paperbacks in a bookstore. It was not what we would expect to find in a professional journal. It was not what anyone would expect a serving military officer, especially at that grade, not to know already. Because it was so superficial, and neither syntactically nor contextually organized as professional journal article, we naturally assumed that it was not Sid's 'article'. Still looking for that, by the way.

A private paper written FOR a RETIRED officer who works for a library is not exactly a claim that something was published in a trade journal. This has been confused with China materials that WERE published by Red Team Journal (which seems to have gone away) and by FAS (which still exists). Or with materials written for Congress, but previously given to US agencies - in neither case for publication. And those were about China - which is engaged in a massive building program (at five shipyards EXCLUDING the one that might be building LSDs) of the very small ships that allegedly no one has any use for - or ever did (never mind all those LSMs, LSTs, APAs, etc the US built in WWII and right up to the end of the century in the case of LSDs). I tend to write as a techie guy or a lawyer (I do legal, technical and historical research) so I tend to say precisely what I mean. Only if you mix up different references will it tend to be misunderstood.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Actually, it might not take any time at all. The vehicles are so similar you could even produce both at the same time. But I assumed delays imposed by different parts start up requirements.

Two possibilities here Cid. ONE is that they actually have a real "production line" (doubtfull given the numbers being produced). In that case, It could take a month and more just "re-tooling" to make a different "Mark" of the same aircraft or vehicle model. Worst case was the B-29, where keeping the line going was so vital that they actually flew brand new completed A/C fresh from the plant straight to an "upgrade center" where they had parts and entire systems replaced before going overseas.

The other, and much more likely given the numbers, is that the Japs didn't have a "production line" in the American sense and were just doing "piece work" assembly in the same building. This method is actually easier to "re-tool" as it uses more "hand work" to begin with, and many parts are built on-site. The guy(s) who built the original part are just given new blueprints. Downside is you get 10 vehicles a week instead of 100, and it takes more skilled labor to build them.

[el cid again]

As noted above, I worked for Chevrolet Engineering at the GM Prooving Grounds in Milford Michigan. Further, my primary childhood home was Rochester, Michigan - not far from then Pontiac Motors - and I spent a lot of time in places like Greenfield Village (a gigantic Ford Museum) and Ford International HQ - both in Deerborne - with my father (either exploring historical machines or helping repair things). On a real production line, changeover occurs in August and lasts about two weeks.

In Japan, the automobile industry was explicitly modeled on the US one in Detroit (I don't say "American" deliberately because it offends Canadians and some Latinos - who are equally American). This was not so difficult as it sounds because in the early days, production lines were small (e.g. Federal), and the Japanese also often adopted sponsors that were small - although Ford and General Motors also were sponsors. It was US engineers that set up these lines, and in many cases, it was just licenced production of US products that got them going. By WWII there were still many models produced in Japan that were simply US vehicles.

Tanks were different. No one licenced production of such vehicles in Japan. And the US didn't sell any to Japan either. Mainly, Japan bought single examples of foreign equipment and reverse engineered them. [Two French WWI and post WWI light tanks were bought in tiny batches - and put into service - apparently as few as ten per batch] The first attempts to engineer tanks were done by the Army - and were generally failures. Partly that is because they tried to build "land ships" which were popular in most countries - and equally failures. But Mitsubishi changed that big time. And being a single company, each series was pretty much homogenious - using the same basic concepts and even parts. If they wanted a heavier vehicle in a family, they would lengthen it, add bogie wheels or sometimes carrier wheels, and keep exactly the same track, wheels, ax, etc. Further, Mitsubishi was the big guy - the largest of the Zaibatsu (eight major industrial corporations) - and most experienced both in a design sense and a production sense. A new design would generate a logical set of orders to component makers in a proper time frame - so that you would have a set of parts on hand for production when the time came.

However, production rates for Japan (for just about everything) are unbelievably small by US standards. And the other companies - Isuzu and Hino come to mind - did exactly what you speculated: each vehicle was built in place by teams - although different teams might move from vehicle to vehicle (doing body, engine, etc). I did this myself at the Prooving Grounds: the very first GM vehicle of any model is built by only 3 men, by the 1970s one of them a technician. It is never driven. It is simply built to find out what is wrong with the design, and the 3 guys write all over the plans, which are then modified so dies can be made for the first preproduction stamping - 40 to 200 will be built for actual testing.
This is a very slow process and takes months - and indeed did for the special vehicles made in wartime Japan. Numbers of specialist vehicles were tiny. At Mitsubishi, on the other hand, if you wanted a battery of SP (fill in the blank) - they just put the order in for that - and instead of Type 97 (or derivitive) tanks - you got 4 (or whatever number) of that vehicle - which used exactly the same body and engine. Mitsubishi is the only institution in Japan that has gone public with its wartime vehicle record - which maintains a museum (as Ford does) - and which has techincal-historical staff to answer questions. Because the vehicle industry was US based, technical materials tend to be partly in English - and Japanese as a lanugage is structured (or more properly restructured) so that ALL technical terminology is in English (albiet British rather than US usage, so you have valves instead of electron tubes, a boot rather than a trunk, etc).
If you bother to learn basic Japanese connecting words (like "to be" or "is") you can read technical material for yourself (unless a term of art is used, in which case modern Japanese linguists cannot read it either). Japanese (and Asian languages in general) are more sophisticated than IndoEuropean languages - by which I mean they are simpler and more logically structured. There is only one word order - subject/verb - one you can live with. A question has (in Japanese) the addition "ka" at the end (consider it to be like saying "question mark"). Forget number, tense, gender, case, all the junk that makes a Western language hard - you say "was" "will be" and every other form of "to be" as "is" -
two pen is yesterday, two pen is tomorrow, two pen is period - but never "pens" or "were" or "will be" - so it is possible to learn to read Roman letter type Japanese (Romanji) in about two hours (which I did on a train en route from Yokosuka to Tokyo - reading a book titled Japanese in 60 hours - we finished it reading aloud in only 2). Reading other writing systems is different - Japanese has a pair of syllable alphabets (one for foreign words, one for domestic, called hiragana and katakana), it can be written in Chinese pictograms (called Kanji), or it can be written in Roman letters (Romanji). Reading a newspaper takes eight years to learn, a novel 20 years - it is so complex. My ex CIA software produces up to 12 translations for each Kanji - and commonly at least 4 - so figuring out what is meant requires mastery of the whole sentence. And culturally Japanese don't say what they mean (a subject is implied rather than stated for example). But TECHNICAL Japanese is different: it is easy as pie - because you have to say what you mean - because Japanese had no words for these things and adopted English - and because it is almost always done in Roman letters (unless a note needs to be brief and a Chinese symbol or two are so well known everyone will understand). And Chinese symbols actually are very easy to learn as well - the problem is there are so many - and the Japanese love to mix up ancient and modern usages - and Chinese and Japanese usages. [But learning 1, 2 and 3 in Chinese is so easy it takes seconds: Imagine Roman Numerals on their side, and with a little wave in the lines: l, ll, lll (horizontally, as -, =, etc): it does not matter if you read them in Vietnamese - the first Asian language I learned - or Chinese - or Japanese - or 632 others: it means 1, 2 and 3 - and for the rest of your life you will know that.] But they don't do that in technical material - it would not permit it to be understood. [Even in a newspaper written entirely in Kanji you will see Arabic numbers - they are so easy to understand truely Asian symbols are not used] So go to the Mitsubishi Museum, and read the techincal material (which in general has not been preserved by other institutions in Japan).

[Mike Scholl]

"However, production rates for Japan (for just about everything) are unbelievably small by US standards. And the other companies - Isuzu and Hino come to mind - did exactly what you speculated: each vehicle was built in place by teams - although different teams might move from vehicle to vehicle (doing body, engine, etc). I did this myself at the Prooving Grounds: the very first GM vehicle of any model is built by only 3 men, by the 1970s one of them a technician. It is never driven. It is simply built to find out what is wrong with the design, and the 3 guys write all over the plans, which are then modified so dies can be made for the first preproduction stamping - 40 to 200 will be built for actual testing.
This is a very slow process and takes months - and indeed did for the special vehicles made in wartime Japan. Numbers of specialist vehicles were tiny. At Mitsubishi, on the other hand, if you wanted a battery of SP (fill in the blank) - they just put the order in for that - and instead of Type 97 (or derivitive) tanks - you got 4 (or whatever number) of that vehicle - which used exactly the same body and engine. Mitsubishi is the only institution in Japan that has gone public with its wartime vehicle record - which maintains a museum (as Ford does) - and which has techincal-historical staff to answer questions. Because the vehicle industry was US based, technical materials tend to be partly in English - and Japanese as a lanugage is structured (or more properly restructured) so that ALL technical terminology is in English."


That definately makes me suspect "batch" production..., even more primitive than I thought (though very flexible). The kind of thing you were doing in the '70's. A group of highly skilled mechanics using "generalized" tools to build individual units of whatever was demanded. As opposed to "assembly-line production" where relatively unskilled labor performs the same simple task on each unit as it comes by on the line. A major change (redesigning the body and power train) can take quite a while because it requires changes in the line itself. The kind of "cosmetic changes" (redesigning the outer body style while keeping the underlying vehicle the same) are the ones you are thinking of in the "two week changeover" so beloved by US automakers. I've never seen any evidence that the Japanese ever built any "unit specific" plants for their war-time production in the manner the US did in dozens of locations. (ie. the B-25 plant in Kansas City, the B-29 plant in Wichita, the B-24 plant in Willow Run, or the Orlicon plant in Chicago).

[el cid again]

Not the way it works. A production line often produces more than one model at the same time. Japan did this for aircraft FYI. You just put the parts for "Model I" in the right sequence - and the same for "Model II" - so when the vehicle reaches "station 9" the right parts are waiting for it. This of course does require the models be in the same series - with the same body type - and nothing in the set can require different handling machinery (more a problem in this age than that one).

The Japanese did built unit specific plants during WWII. This was done for several classes of standardized ships, for example, and for aircraft. But the automotive plants were pretty much not built during the war - some converted to aircraft (and then back sometimes) - but they mostly used the existing plant system. They could change over to a different type entirely - but WITHIN a chassis type could make as many as 40 models. That is the extreme case - the TU-10 truck chassis - but an outstanding example. You can build any model you like - so long as it is on a TU-10 foundation - all on the same line in the same hour. But it has to be set up ahead of time - automotive plants are not really empty at night - they are fixing broken things and setting up the next day's production by putting what will be needed in the right order in the right location. The assembly line gets the attention, but it is "fed" by something else - lines, bins, racks - something has the parts for the things coming down the line. Those places need the right stuff - and there was never any reason it had to be one model. Only Ford did that - and it almost went bankrupt until it too changed and became flexable.

[el cid again]

The reinforced divisions are working well in tests - for both loading and combat - and seem to be something of an antedote for supply sinks.

They are going to be redesignated so the names of the tank regiments are preserved:

14th Tank Rgt + 5th Division
4th Tank Rgt + 48th Division
7th Tank Rgt + 16th Division
8th Tank Rgt + 54th Division

All the above are (in EOS) semi-motorized divisions (half the transport regiments are motorized, half draft; the infantry also have bikes;
two of these units are semi-motorized in non EOS scenarios and IRL)

ADD to this list the following special case

13/13 (13th Tank Regiment + 13th Division) in Central China. NOTHING was done but attach the regiment to the division - BUT the division will slowly re-equip over time to the standard of a semi-motorized division. It may be overstrength in non-motorized support, obsolete tanks,
or "heavy weapons" like 70 mm howitzers (which have been replaced in the semi-motorized divisions by 37mm ATG).

AND ADD the following case which does not start the game

The Guards Tank Regiment + Second Guards Division

which is simply a new tank regiment attached to a Guards Division equipped to the semi-motorized scale. Because it is later in time,
it also has newer tanks - the nice light tank I described above (all it has that you can see in WITP terms is 4 mm more armor)
and what amounts to a Chi Ha with a 47mm high velocity gun. This is the strongest division in the game as it enters play - although eventually any in supply reinforced division will be the same.

[witpqs]

Some of the units that now have really long names cause a problem with the unit display in game. You lose the end of the name and - importantly - you lose the percentage information about the unit: [percent of TOE enabled]/[percent of TOE present].

That's already a problem for a few units in the database (I didn't write down which ones). If you use names as long as those you list, those units will have the same display problem. Suggest you abbreviate more.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

"However, production rates for Japan (for just about everything) are unbelievably small by US standards. And the other companies - Isuzu and Hino come to mind - did exactly what you speculated: each vehicle was built in place by teams - although different teams might move from vehicle to vehicle (doing body, engine, etc). I did this myself at the Prooving Grounds: the very first GM vehicle of any model is built by only 3 men, by the 1970s one of them a technician. It is never driven. It is simply built to find out what is wrong with the design, and the 3 guys write all over the plans, which are then modified so dies can be made for the first preproduction stamping - 40 to 200 will be built for actual testing.
This is a very slow process and takes months - and indeed did for the special vehicles made in wartime Japan. Numbers of specialist vehicles were tiny. At Mitsubishi, on the other hand, if you wanted a battery of SP (fill in the blank) - they just put the order in for that - and instead of Type 97 (or derivitive) tanks - you got 4 (or whatever number) of that vehicle - which used exactly the same body and engine. Mitsubishi is the only institution in Japan that has gone public with its wartime vehicle record - which maintains a museum (as Ford does) - and which has techincal-historical staff to answer questions. Because the vehicle industry was US based, technical materials tend to be partly in English - and Japanese as a lanugage is structured (or more properly restructured) so that ALL technical terminology is in English."


That definately makes me suspect "batch" production..., even more primitive than I thought (though very flexible). The kind of thing you were doing in the '70's. A group of highly skilled mechanics using "generalized" tools to build individual units of whatever was demanded. As opposed to "assembly-line production" where relatively unskilled labor performs the same simple task on each unit as it comes by on the line. A major change (redesigning the body and power train) can take quite a while because it requires changes in the line itself. The kind of "cosmetic changes" (redesigning the outer body style while keeping the underlying vehicle the same) are the ones you are thinking of in the "two week changeover" so beloved by US automakers. I've never seen any evidence that the Japanese ever built any "unit specific" plants for their war-time production in the manner the US did in dozens of locations. (ie. the B-25 plant in Kansas City, the B-29 plant in Wichita, the B-24 plant in Willow Run, or the Orlicon plant in Chicago).

I'm tempted to weigh in here, because this whole business of Japanese production and the dichotomy between piece work and production line manufacturing, as expressed by Sidney, is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen. I suggest a new thread where this can be discussed in context. I will come prepared.

John W. Eldredge

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Some of the units that now have really long names cause a problem with the unit display in game. You lose the end of the name and - importantly - you lose the percentage information about the unit: [percent of TOE enabled]/[percent of TOE present].

That's already a problem for a few units in the database (I didn't write down which ones). If you use names as long as those you list, those units will have the same display problem. Suggest you abbreviate more.

I once thought that myself - and I spent long hours abbreviating names - and defending the practice in the Forum. But eventually I noticed this is a problem in the way things are presented in the display system - that it has two solutions - and submitted the issue to Matrix. It is "on the list" of things that will be fixed one day. The simple fix is to wrap around the messages to more than one line. The harder fix would be to increase the display window.

Now there are variations of this problem. In some editors in particular long names run together - and I try to shorten them one character less than is a problem. But names are a big part of what makes players understand what is meant - and I focus on accuracy - leaving presentation mechanics to those who can fix them (which we cannot).

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

It is "on the list" of things that will be fixed one day.

Good to know, thanks.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

"However, production rates for Japan (for just about everything) are unbelievably small by US standards. And the other companies - Isuzu and Hino come to mind - did exactly what you speculated: each vehicle was built in place by teams - although different teams might move from vehicle to vehicle (doing body, engine, etc). I did this myself at the Prooving Grounds: the very first GM vehicle of any model is built by only 3 men, by the 1970s one of them a technician. It is never driven. It is simply built to find out what is wrong with the design, and the 3 guys write all over the plans, which are then modified so dies can be made for the first preproduction stamping - 40 to 200 will be built for actual testing.
This is a very slow process and takes months - and indeed did for the special vehicles made in wartime Japan. Numbers of specialist vehicles were tiny. At Mitsubishi, on the other hand, if you wanted a battery of SP (fill in the blank) - they just put the order in for that - and instead of Type 97 (or derivitive) tanks - you got 4 (or whatever number) of that vehicle - which used exactly the same body and engine. Mitsubishi is the only institution in Japan that has gone public with its wartime vehicle record - which maintains a museum (as Ford does) - and which has techincal-historical staff to answer questions. Because the vehicle industry was US based, technical materials tend to be partly in English - and Japanese as a lanugage is structured (or more properly restructured) so that ALL technical terminology is in English."


That definately makes me suspect "batch" production..., even more primitive than I thought (though very flexible). The kind of thing you were doing in the '70's. A group of highly skilled mechanics using "generalized" tools to build individual units of whatever was demanded. As opposed to "assembly-line production" where relatively unskilled labor performs the same simple task on each unit as it comes by on the line. A major change (redesigning the body and power train) can take quite a while because it requires changes in the line itself. The kind of "cosmetic changes" (redesigning the outer body style while keeping the underlying vehicle the same) are the ones you are thinking of in the "two week changeover" so beloved by US automakers. I've never seen any evidence that the Japanese ever built any "unit specific" plants for their war-time production in the manner the US did in dozens of locations. (ie. the B-25 plant in Kansas City, the B-29 plant in Wichita, the B-24 plant in Willow Run, or the Orlicon plant in Chicago).

I'm tempted to weigh in here, because this whole business of Japanese production and the dichotomy between piece work and production line manufacturing, as expressed by Sidney, is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen. I suggest a new thread where this can be discussed in context. I will come prepared.

John W. Eldredge

Which is why General Motors (for whom I once worked) lost the top spot in automotive production to Toyota (which I at least have visited). There are vast differences between Japanese and foreign production methods: I remember when we sent a team to Japan to find out how one dealer was able to sell GM products in great numbers? He replied "we tell them these cars are not built to American standards - we disassemble each one and reassemble it - and we tell our customers they are built to Japanese standards." Then he took us to a gigantic shop where they did exactly that. I once detected a problem with a monitor series by a Korean company (Korea was part of the Japanese Empire in our game period - and Koreans were wholly integrated into the Imperial economic system). I called Samsung and asked to speak to the manager in charge of quality control. Turns out they had no such thing. A US company of great reputation like Tektronix or John Fluke would never dare put things out without any inspection - 85% of US made high end electrnoics product will not work as it comes off the end of the line - and technicians do not dare turn it on without first checking for shorts both visually and with special equipment. [This is testimony - that is how it was done in the 1970s - when we still made a lot of things] But in Asia - production standards at high end plants are higher without quality control than we have with it. Lots of things have been written - and no doubt passionately believed - about how awful Asian technical abilities are, but WITP buffs will know something about Long Lance Torpedoes, Zero Aircraft, and other such industrial fruits that put the lie to the general proposition. Yet Japan in the Pacific War era was a curious mixture of old and new - the first Zero was deliverted to its test airfield by ox cart! Many companies farmed out production of components to tiny shops - to such an extent targeting residential areas has been defended as legitimate. A great deal that has been written - sometimes in very reputable materials - is plain false: Japan DID build dedicated plant for production of standardized ships - Japan DID divert automotive plant to aircraft production - things I once didn't believe because I read otherwise in places that should have been credible. I don't know what in particular you have a problem with - because you didn't say? But I have cause to say every thing I have said - and at least I have been to Japan and examined materials in museums and in original documentary form. I suspect you are misreading materials about how things are done in the largest of manufacturers as somehow representative of general practice - just because this or that was done does not mean it was always or generally done. If someone said "they didn't build specific plant EVER" I can reply with "yes they did" without meaning "it was the only thing they did" or even "the main thing they did." If you want to be technicial, you must read precisely.

It is true I do not come at these matters with the assumption "Japanese" or "Asian" is "always inferior." And that I guess is still a shock in some quarters. But I was married in China, I was home ported in Japan, advanced home ported in the Philippines, and have traveled extensively in East Asia, learning a bit about its languages, histories, culture and geography. I am often told "you to not talk like other Americans" - because I don't speak only to give orders - or ignore what I am told - which is a behavior pattern of more educated and important people from our country in a number of places (Hong Kong in particular). Neither do I assume everything Japanese or Asian is always better. The bag is mixed. If you don't want to hear that the bag is mixed - or the story complex with heros and villans on both sides - don't read what I write.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Which is why General Motors (for whom I once worked) lost the top spot in automotive production to Toyota (which I at least have visited). There are vast differences between Japanese and foreign production methods:

This is a valid point..., 25 years AFTER WW II when devestated Japanese industries had been totally re-built to incorporate (and improve on) American production ideas. When talking about WW II, it's superfluous and misleading.

[DuckofTindalos]

"Superfluous" and "Misleading" are his middle names...

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Which is why General Motors (for whom I once worked) lost the top spot in automotive production to Toyota (which I at least have visited). There are vast differences between Japanese and foreign production methods:

This is a valid point..., 25 years AFTER WW II when devestated Japanese industries had been totally re-built to incorporate (and improve on) American production ideas. When talking about WW II, it's superfluous and misleading.

Actually, I quite agree with Mr. Scholl and believe his point deserves amplification.

Your point is a crock. Moreover, you know it's a crock. Japanese production capabilities were pathetic in the 50s and 60s. Quality was deemed poor, to say the least, and efficiency was (productivity/man hour) was in the bottom third globally (Wharton School, National Economic Scale Analysis, 1962). At the time, Egypt had a marginally more efficient economic infrastructure.

Then along came Deming. You could do a lot with Deming. We were just too lazy to pay attention (besides, we owned the world, why do we have to work at it?). But be very, very careful, Sid, Deming improves process controls and, ultimately, yield, from statistical characterization of individual and agglomerated processes. Deming's techniques do not impact efficiency, per se (only as an adjunt to process baselining), so don't go off making more wild claims.

Japan Inc. (the 1970s-80s version) was very, very, good. But the majority of the technologies that they concentrated on, have long since been surpassed, in terms of quality, as well as efficiency, by domestic US manufacturers, c.f., domestically produced (in US factories) semiconductors; domestically produced merchant ships; domestically produced heavy equipment; domestically produced rice and cereal agricultural products; woof, there's about 6 more on the list, but my fingers are tired.

Basically, forget Ford & GM. Econ 101 will tell you why they are only marginally viable and it has nothing whatever to do with their production techniques. I am shocked that you would raise such a shabby exemplar; any college freshman would recognize the fallacy at once (unless, of course, they are in the humanities ciriculum at Harvard) and give you a well deserved hiding.

Working on a production line at GM or Ford, is hardly what I would call expertise.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Which is why General Motors (for whom I once worked) lost the top spot in automotive production to Toyota (which I at least have visited). There are vast differences between Japanese and foreign production methods:

This is a valid point..., 25 years AFTER WW II when devestated Japanese industries had been totally re-built to incorporate (and improve on) American production ideas. When talking about WW II, it's superfluous and misleading.

Japanese automotive industry PRE WWII was far more dependent on US industry and methods than it was post war. Companies like Ford, General Motors and Federal were the primary models for Japanese companies. Japanese companies lacked the ability to start from scratch. The nearest thing there was to development of military vehicles without basing them on foreign models was when the Army attempted to build its own major tank design. It was never considered for production. Instead, the primary lines of Japanese tanks were based on imported models (different models for different sizes) - and only one company - Mitsubishi - the very largest and most sophisticated - adapted them for production. Japan sensibly focused its indiginous automotive developments first of all on a 1.5 ton truck design - the TU-10 - but it still was found that military take-offs from US truck designs using US methods were more cost effective. It is wholly misleading to say that the Japanese industry was somehow not related to the US one: it was just weaning itself from being almost wholly dependent on it.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

"Superfluous" and "Misleading" are his middle names...

Just as never - not once - honoring the terms he agreed to for participating on the Forum is the motto of big T.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Which is why General Motors (for whom I once worked) lost the top spot in automotive production to Toyota (which I at least have visited). There are vast differences between Japanese and foreign production methods:

This is a valid point..., 25 years AFTER WW II when devestated Japanese industries had been totally re-built to incorporate (and improve on) American production ideas. When talking about WW II, it's superfluous and misleading.

Actually, I quite agree with Mr. Scholl and believe his point deserves amplification.

Your point is a crock. Moreover, you know it's a crock. Japanese production capabilities were pathetic in the 50s and 60s.

Au contraire, I went to Japan in the 1960s, and it was then I began to learn that views like yours - which I had heard in Detroit growing up - were the real crock. I guess you do not intend to be distracted by mere facts. Japanese production standards were always higher than ours. [In 1938 Japanese tanks going into battle at Nomanhan were probably the only tanks in history to have every surface polished. Japanese tanks from the first days of production until now have always been the most expensive in the world - per tank. Poor evaluations by US Army intel manuals during the war were in part a reflection of technical ignorance - they didn't understand the nature of self fueling vehicles - or that the engines given higher octaine gasoline or diesel fuel - the military used both - were significantly more powerful than those civil or military vehicles using alternative fuels. Continuing to repeat falsehoods will not make them true. Alleging I know what isn't true is a wierd way to evade the subject - but I never - repeat never - say anything without cause. If I say it I certainly do not know it is untrue- becuase if it were untrue I would say that. On principle - a concept you may have heard of somewhere.

[witpqs]

What is a 'self fueling vehicle'?