If I am going to shut off this video early its because it is so brutal and depressing, not because I'm bored.

Exactly. This hurt to hear. Brutal for IH/Farmville who were all gung-ho to make a tank that eventually just got 86'd.

yeah, man story times with chieftain is the best

I "watch" these at 1.75 speed. Usually just listening occasionally scrolling through comments. I hope speeding up does not affect his algorithm. Good news is I often fall asleep and "watch" all the ads so he gets paid.

The story is, however, missing the appropriate background music: Julius Fucik's "Entry of the Gladiators" ( kzfaq.info/get/bejne/lahgdtyAprWcqWQ.html ). You may recognize the theme from another industry with which it is more commonly associated.

Amateurs talk tactics, professionals, eh you know the rest.

My jam as well.

Influencers are boring. Tanks are not.

Its like nick forgets we are all a bunch of nerds

"Toolroom methods" is also why German tanks like the Tiger cost so much. While plane production was fairly modern, tank production hadn't been modernized in the 30s. Nor did Germany have the capacity to produce the machine tools needed.

Yeah, the toolroom were the guys that my Uncle, an engineer specialized in water systems, spent many happy hours learning from so he could understand how to design stuff that would work better for the company's needs. After seeing a half-dozen of his first designs for the company shot down as too complex, he went to the toolroom and asked them to explain why the stuff was too complex. They showed him what the tools could do, he adjusted his designs, and soon, he had a reputation for the most cost-effective and efficient designs in the company's long history, designs still being used to this day all over the world despite his being dead for several years now.

The first 10 production T26's from November 1944 were all done by this method.

@@genericpersonx333 Clever bloke your Uncle. Smart enough to design stuff and humble enough to learn from the people who have to make his designs work, on how they make things and how he could make things easier by simplifying his designs. Now, if we could have more people like your Uncle in this world, working on problems from both sides in cooperation then a lot more things would get done a lot more affordably. It's a universal problem for everyone except perhaps the Taliban.

@@swmark78 In the 1960's Germany was touted as a great place to buy machine tools.

Chieftain made watching paint dry work, this is a cakewalk in comparison!

Well plowed?

@@Kaboomf c’mon man, that was a seedy joke

@@williamgandarillas2185 I dont know . It took some time for it to germinate.

I think that all of you need to apologize and show yourselves out.😅😅😅

IH reaping government issued contracts like wheated sacks left behind amongst the chaff of industrialised growing output from The Arsenal of Democracy.

I used to work at a machine tool shop in the late 70's. I had to stop at another shop to pick up prints which was around during WW2. They had rows of various machines in like new condition that all had War Department brass tags on them.

When the lockheed plant in Marietta, GA had a open house tour abt 10-ish-?- yrs ago,so public could go thru . The plant was still producing F-22s on one production line and new C-130s on the other.Amazing to see the varioys stages of assembly. Many of the machine tools. For stamping & milling still had their early-to mid-1940s mfg data plates on them. The actual final stamping/ machining jigs can be chaned out for whatever assy is required for parts. Quite interesting. The machines were still in use,and a wall sign that tool dies had originally been in use when Bell Aircraft was license building the B-29 superfortresses there staring in 1944 iirc.

@@lostalone9320 I knew an old timer whose first job had been at Westinghouse. He once described to me how (before his time) certain parts manufacturing was done on huge machines that would run 24/7 for weeks or months. Local men would work on production runs as gigs, more less, with whatever time off they chose to take in between.

@@lostalone9320 They were not. Modern material science is vastly better. We can make five times as durable drills that cost half and use 30% less material. Old stuff was overengineered and heavy because it was made out of crap parts. There is this story we can't make F1 engines anymore - because they were hand welded junk made out of 6000 parts and now no one sane makes them like that. Redesigned F1 engine with the same dimensions was built out of just 300 parts, weighted 20% less and had 50% more power. Modern stuff is vastly superior, it's the capitalist crap planned obsolescence that keeps it from blowing old out of the water...

@@KuK137 Like anything, it's not the system that's the problem, it's how it's implemented. Your are right though, things are too a degree, designed to fail so customers come back sooner.

I hope so

Interesting..

Most likely

I hope so too

Yup, the first tank where you baled out instead of bailing out, and leaders in training for combined arms tactics..... I'll get my coat.

YT ANALlytics can go F themselves. I love hearing about the shenanigans that happend behind the curtains in war.

Turns out the entertainment factor of studying logistics is...hugely underrated.

@@Neuttah it’s almost ironic

Couldn't have said it any better myself Ryan. This stuff is the shit! Of course, I work in logistics so I'm probably a tad biased 😊

@@PeterDavid7KQ201 Not necessarily Peter. I have a book on the B-29 that I loaned to my big boss the Finance Director, because of a reference to using electronic valves in an armoured box to run the Fire Control Computer system for the machine gun turrets on the B-29, and he has built his own valve powered Hi-Fi to listen to his music from his MP3. When I collected my book, he commented on just how fascinating it was that the US were building so many factories to build the B-29 from scratch. It was and still is amazing just how much infrastructure had to be built in order to build all of the ships, the tanks, the jeeps, the trucks, the guns and the aircraft needed for the war. Not forgetting all of the components that went into each item. Anyone with a thinking mind would find it a interesting and complex puzzle.

I live in davenport and had no idea of this stuff. This is all interesting

@@stevenessex1932 We had Davenport Screw Machines in the Shop that I worked in right after High school .

A little off topic but I read a piece about the Rock Island Arsenal Commanding Officer who in Dec 1941 decided that the hobos living on Silvin Island which is attached to Arsenal Island were a security threat. So they mobilize company’s of the Moline Militia and Rock Island Militia. They were sent to Silvin Island where they burned the hobo camp to the ground and ran them off.

Must have been one hell of a vacation

Is Rock Island Arsenal affiliated with Rock Island Armory?

Was it's warranty still enforceable...and it needed repair ?

@@jayklink851 No

@@christopherb9667 Roger that, "Rock Island"--> fill in the blank, is a rather appealing name. I suppose it makes since that companies adopt it when they can.

@hognoxious It is easier when you are building one, but when the army asks you to build several thousand, even in WW1, the factories needed tooling.

Love an IH 140. Family still owns 1.

And I own a '48 Farmall. Kinda like the tank of the cornfield

Living in Chicagoland we see remnants of IH all over. McCormick place, Cantigny Park, Harvester Park and the current CNH facility in Burr Ridge to name a few. There are old IH tractors all over in parks and in front of old IH locations. One could argue IH was one of the main forced to form modern Chicago and put it on the map.

"That sounds exactly like couple of projects I was involved in." Yupp.... Sigh.

Wish they would have the designers/engineers at my job put in the work on the shop floor for the changes they made.

Mr. Ford: "See that little building down there?"

Don't forget Chrysler. They had a tank factory.

As a 20 something young 'un running around a shop, allow me to add that's still very valid to this day.

@@benlubbers4943 make sure you add "and a penalty for you changing your mind in the middle of production!"

Worked in a shop where they gave me a drawing of a part with no tolerances young apprentice asked 4 different people for the print or at least tell me the tolerances. Shop specialized in military parts (close tolerances true position all that sort of stuff ) finally got an answer plus minus 1/8 inch . After I picked myself off the floor was told that the part I was supposed to turn a shoulder on cut 2 chamfers and face to length from a piece of black iron pipe was the exhaust for a lawnmower.

@@danielbackley9301 hope you bought a few brews for the headache that fall gave you!

100%

"This is the motor city, and this is what we do."

We don't have the tools and need tools, so why don't we make them? Nah, just bitch and moan.

Easy to do when your country isn't bombed to stone age or trying to move its industry eastwards for thousands of kilometers.

Oh true, but in the quad cities, the bombing was done by bureaucrats.

Sounds like what's called a comparator today.

@@michaelmarks5012 yes , I believe so.

"This unit conforms to the orders of the war production board, and fit and finish do not reflect to care usually taken by the (insert manufacturers name here)" The castings were not dressed and ways were not flaked as well as standard, and there was no flaking on cosmetic surfaces. They were incredibly well made, but not as aesthetically pleasing as was common. The radial drill delivered on time was likely a cannedy-otto......they were chicago made, and, well.......utter crap. Everyone would have wanted Carlton radial drills, (Cincinnati Ohio) and they would probably have been hard to come by! 🤣

No shame in it. The business of doing everything as fast as possible starting from scratch implies a certain amount of waste.

Beats never used, stifled by production issues, and fated to be forgotten by history because the factory and surrounding city was bombed into oblivion

Well, as with everything, it could be worse. Like working in a factory that built crap products that got people killed. There was no shortage of those from any of the combatants in WW2.

One of my relatives served in the USAAF and spent the war stateside testing aircraft bomb sights that were never adopted for use, not quite the glorious type of role one might associate with military service in WWII. I suppose it was a good way to survive the war though.

My maternal grandfather spent the war in an essential industry, driving a log truck for the lumber mill, a job he continued doing for several more decades until retirement. His brother-in-law was a B24 crewman in the Mediterranean, KIA when his aircraft was shot down (supposedly by an Italian fighter jock flying a capture American P-38).

There's a ship building firm in Sturgeon Bay WI that used to do work for the US Navy. Auxiliary vessels, minesweepers etc. They told the Navy years ago that they would longer submit bids or accept contracts on Navy vessels. The reason. Constantly changing specifications on vessels while under construction.

And that's why you have to anchor in the specs in writing and put in penalties for changing the specs.

That's literally the case in every field. I once had to send 25 versions of a 1 minute ad video. The fact that they were being charged per cut didn't faze them or reign in their unnecessary tinkering and indecisiveness. Those people are the worst. Clearly I wasn't charging them enough.

RR first asked Ford about producing the Merlin and sent them an engine along with the blueprints. Ford was working on a V12 aero engine to compete with the Allison and Merlin so turned down the offer, saying they needed the exact specifications for each part that was required for mass production. Ford sent the engine and blueprints to Packard that told RR the same thing. RR asked Packard to do that for them so they did and redesigned the motor while at it to improve the reliability of components and reduce the number of parts it used (the similar Allison V12 used 50% fewer parts). Torque wrenches were invented around 1918. Chrysler began producing their own improved beam-style torque wrenches in the late 1920's and early 1930's. The US military provided their mechanics with torque wrenches after their inception. In the 1930's Blackhawk Tools made a beam-scale torque wrench that would flash a light when the set torque was reached. Britain imported torque wrenches so in 1942 allowed two Brits to start manufacturing copies of US torque wrenches. Standard torque specs were determined by bolt/stud size and thread pitch which often came listed on a sheet with each new wrench.

@@billwilson3609 we definitely didn't use them before I have a number of maintenance manuals for RAF planes. Absolutely no mention of torque wrench settings. I know you can work it out from a table if you know what the bolt material is. I wonder if in those days even that was standardised. Some years ago I watched a documentary on Cosworth F1 engines perhaps 1980s not a touque wrench in sight!

@@womble321 I don't know what the British did. Common sense would suggest using torque wrenches during assembly then an approved tightening sequence out in the field due to shortage of torque wrenches. The US Army supplied torque wrenches to the mechanics at the repair depots and field repair stations. Had a neighbor that was a mechanic with a 3rd Army armor recovery unit and said they had 1/2" and 1/4" drive torque wrenches that were "liberated" from a repair depot so they could replace the cylinders, heads, oil and fuel lines on the radial engines to ensure that the gaskets and fittings didn't develop leaks.

@@billwilson3609 hi early in the war they simply didn't exist. Everything was done by feel.

@@womble321 I know that by the 1990s that was part of the US Federal Aviation Regulations. Had a table in the book but I don't remember if it was in Part 43 (general design) or Part 65 (maintenance). Annoyingly, my books took a walk about 20 years ago. And the FARs are basically all the WW2 standards.

Jerry, all across the old northwest territory/upper midwest (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota) you get clusters of related manufacturing. John Deere, International Harvester/Farmall, Case, and White were all started within about a 200 mile radius of the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois.

Along the Oregon Trail, towns are only 4-8 miles apart, especially in what is now Oregon state along US 20/26. Basically where people got tired of walking all day.

@@ScottKenny1978 in Utah I would of said 5 to 10 miles from pioneer Park which was the desonation for new immigrants from the east. The colonizing party's were sent out by the church and towns were spaced half a days journey apart near as could be based on local geography like streams and road conditions the idea being to be able to lunch at one town and overnight at the next mormans generally got along with local native Americans but there was lot of friction as whitesbbegan to farm the best land Shoshone chief walker was famous for horse stealing raiding mexican California before the mormans came in 48

Nothing east of the Mississippi has towns that far apart, no desert, much smaller mountains, more rivers….

The M7 was a prototype that was still under development. The Army had a habit of having a good number produced for testing so they could modify the designs to get the final desired product. The M7 was an experiment in up-arming a light tank that now had thicker armor so was low on the machine tool priority list.

Why and how do you think having the arsenal nearby had any effect on anything?

@@Alpostpone "good idea fairies" visiting. "The 37mm is too small, redesign for the 57mm (that is itself not in production yet)" "The 57mm is not a good tank gun due to lack of good HE shells. Redesign for the 75mm, just like the Sherman has!"

@@ScottKenny1978 That was due to the official requirement changing, not some enterprising officer popping over during lunch break. The whole story is about why it's a bad idea to set up a production for a design that is still being, you know, _designed._ The features you mentioned are sound and ended up in M24 Chaffee. The "good idea fairy" is involved in design choices that are anything but.

Another significant issue was a heavy use of "file to fit", so parts generally couldn't just be bolted into place. This slowed both production and repair. This was also an issue for the US building Bofors 40mm guns. The US had to completely redraw the prints and re-work the tolerances so that parts from any manufacturer could be bolted on instantly. Because when you're building a million or so units and need them yesterday, well, there you go.

Or Santa joined the Dark Side.

Two different facilities. Rock Island Arsenal is the federal facility on the island. Quad Cities Arsenal was the one International Harvester built just across the river to the NorthEast. The former still exists, the latter does not.

Perhaps on or near the same aisle as the Lost Ark?

@@RexKarrs any fule no that’s in Groom Lake…

Everyone *should* be afraid of the deadly Cobra Chicken!

Absolutely!

What are you saying there? So, if a high priority thing depends on a low priority thing, you should: A) make the low priority thing jump up along with the high priority thing? B) *not* make the preceding thing be affected by the priority of whatever comes after

And this system still exists. Now known as DPAS (Defense Priority Allocation System). And all parts have the same priority as the finished product (up to a specified number). Tooling, equipment, and raw materials were our problem. I remember looking at my shop's production plan for the next two months. Spent days carefully tracking every process and planning things so that every one of our customers would get their stuff on time. Then my phone rings and the guy on the other side told me he had a rush project with a DPAS rating one level lower than that of our biggest contract. (Which had a really, really high DPAS rating). I apologized to him and told him that we had an Air Force contract with a higher DPAS rating and that our production schedule was full. At this time I was certain that my carefully laid production plans were safe because the only person who could approve a higher DPAS rating was the Secretary of Defense. The next day the guy called back and said that his project now had that higher rating. And that he needed the parts next week. My shop was already working 50 hour weeks and none of the stuff we were working on could be sent out to the main shop. So me and my shop now worked a 60 hour week and got those parts ready to be picked up by their courier on the day specified (3:30 PM but that still counted as the specified day). And I socked all of the overtime charges and overtime for the machines (plus a 'you pissed me off' markup) to the bill. Two days later I got another call from them. They broke one of the parts and needed a replacement.

It's easier to make the priority changes now with computer systems. Can still be screwed up, but it's easier to make sure your stuff all has the same priority level.

@@MrNicoJac obviously, you didn't charge enough of an asshole tax the first time.

Lol literally no one calls it the quad. I live in the quad cities

@@stevenessex1932 Lol everyone in Iowa calls it the Quad because nobody gives a damn about what we rate a third-rate city. It's not a fair rating because the Quad Cities are cool, but they're no CDR, Iowa City, DSM or Waterloo/Cedar Falls unless you LIVE in the Davenport or Bettendorf.

another problem was we need tanks. tanks need factories and special tools. we dont have enough factories to make the tools. US at least had enough factories that they could make Tool factories to make said tools. some nations during WW2 did not even have enough factories to build tool factories whit. if you play Hearts of Iron 4 you know the Dont have enough civilian factories to make Civilian factories dilemma even less Military factories to make guns and tanks whit or what it now is your nation need to build anything.

Bespoke.

Always has xD

I'm sure the guy chipping out stone axes had the same kind of problems with the hunter/gatherers wanting modifications and machine tool scarcity for the handle makers guild slowed things up.

Til the 80s if it was farm related it was built in the QC, we had all the big names and the feed industry that supported them, then IH went bust and everyone else went overseas, even the arsenal is in house subcontractor

I'd be very surprised if it hasn't been used for more than a few MBAs...

Yeah and he forgot to mention Silvis home to the huge Rock Island Railroad shops and yard.

Along with rifles, submachine guns, ammunition, artillery, walkie-talkies, ration cans and the stuff to put in them, trucks, jeeps, bazookas, PT boats, Norden bombsights, etc., etc., etc. It's amazing what we used to be able to do.

@@RexKarrs Some stuff we can still produce a lot. It is amazing how the shortage prices of lumber, etc. has come down. Except toilet paper. 🤣