Production Line Relocation

[Wolfman]

Could someone please refresh my memory of where various aircraft production lines relocated to?

I seem to remember that Grumman moved the Tomcat line to their St. Augustine plant alongside the E-2 line, but I don’t remember where the Intruder/Prowler line went…

[Kendog52361]

Could someone please refresh my memory of where various aircraft production lines relocated to?

I seem to remember that Grumman moved the Tomcat line to their St. Augustine plant alongside the E-2 line, but I don’t remember where the Intruder/Prowler line went…

I honestly don't get that, are you sure you aren't thinking of somebody else? I mean, Grumman was building the F-14 at it's Long Island Plant, for decades, and it's... Never mind, it just dawned on me why they would move. The New York Nuke caused the move, didn't it?

Separately, I think Lockheed may have partnered with General Dynamics, with them moving the F-16 Production line to Lockheed's Greenville, South Carolina Plant, on the grounds of the former Donaldson Air Force Base.

(OOC: It's the same plant area that Lockheed Martin moved F-16 Production to, IRL, after they changed Air Force Plant 4 in Ft. Worth/Carswell AFB over to F-35 Production, again IRL.)

[Wolfman]

Yes, it did.

[Matt Wiser]

Theodore, before he left, suggested Grumman move the F-14 and A-6/EA-6 lines to the Kaman factory in CT: it's shorter to there than FL is to Long Island, and there's plenty of room.

The F-16s went to not just Greenville, but also the Rockwell International plant in Columbus, OH (where the RA-5 and OV-10 were built, and also busy with B-1 work).

[James1978]

OOC: I remember that somebody took over the old Martin Plant outside Baltimore.

McDonnell Douglas's St. Louis factory had to be evacuated later. That's the F-15 and F/A-18 line.
I take it whether the AV-8B line is even worth relocating is up for debate?

Boeing Wichita needs to be evacuated. In addition to the commercial side of things, Wichita is where Boeing did their military modification work. There should be room in the Puget Sound area.

Air Force Plant 3 in Tulsa, OK also had to be evacuated. McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell both had operations there:
McDonnell Douglas
* F-15 (aft fuselage, pylons, launchers, and external fuel tank)
* F-18 (pylons, launchers, and external tank)
* AV-8 (external tanks)
Rockwell
* B-1B (over-wing fairings, wing flaps, and doors)
* Space Shuttle

Not production lines, but two USAF depots also had to be evacuated and relocated - San Antonio ALC and Oklahoma City ALC.
Oklahoma City ALC: E-3, A-7, B-1, B-52, KC-10, C-135, KC-135, E-4
San Antonio ALC: B-52, T-37, T-38, C-5, F-5, OV-10

Due it's location, Corpus Christi Army Depot was probably lost. It's the Army's rotary wing depot, so that's gonna hurt short term.

[Kendog52361]

I just posted this over in the A-7 Fact File, but one idea I had, after reading about the conflict with the parts of the B-1B being built in Dallas at the same plant the A-7 was worked on, was that as tensions grew to the South, and country after country fell to Communism, maybe Congress started passing bills, to support the relocation of manufacturing of Defense equipment to more Northern Areas, starting with things relating to Strategic Weapons/Aircraft, like the B-1B or B-2 (what little may have been done, in the "danger zone"). They likely would have been planning on later Appropriation Bills for the relocation of more tactical systems, along with varying ground forces equipment, starting in, say, 1986, but WW3 started before then, leaving them scrambling on the tactical equipment manufacturing side.

[James1978]

I'm just not seeing that happening in peacetime.

For starters, the companies and the workers are where they are. I'm not sure DOD can mandate that neither the prime nor any subs can be located within ??? miles of the southern border.

Draw a parallel line 350ish miles north of the border with Mexico and look at what else has to be moved.
Texas
* Corpus Christi Army Depot
* Johnson Space Center
* San Antonio ALC
* Air Force Plant 4 (General Dynamics - Fort Worth): F-16
* LTV Dallas
* Bell Helicopter - Fort Worth
* Bell Helicopter - Amarillo
* Pantex [though I had to go to 375 miles to get this one]
* Dyess AFB - Abilene: 96th Bomb Wing, 1st B-1B unit from June 1985
* Carswell AFB - Fort Worth: 7th Bomb Wing, B-52H

New Mexico
* Los Alamos National Laboratory
* Sandia National Laboratory
* Kirtland AFB - Manzano Weapons Storage Area

Arizona
* McDonnell-Douglas Helicopter - Mesa: AH-64

Nevada
* Groom Lake Facility

California
* General Dynamics - San Diego: Tomahawk cruise missile
* Naval Air Depot North Island - San Diego: PACFLT F404 engine, F-14, F/A-18, E-2
* McDonnell Douglas - Long Beach: KC-10
* Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station
* Los Angeles AFB
* Jet Propulsion Laboratory
* Santa Susana Field Laboratory
* Air Force Plant 42 (Palmdale) : B-1B
* Vandenberg AFB

Florida
McDonnell Douglas - Titusville: Tomahawk cruise missile (though I had to go to 400 miles to get this one

And those are just the one off the top of my head. How far do you think mass peacetime industrial relocation is going to get once those state's Congressional delegations get involved?

EDITS: Added Florida, soem bomb wings in Texas, and NADEP North Island.

[Kendog52361]

I'm just not seeing that happening in peacetime.

For starters, the companies and the workers are where they are. I'm not sure DOD can mandate that neither the prime nor any subs can be located within ??? miles of the southern border.

Draw a parallel line 350ish miles north of the border with Mexico and look at what else has to be moved.
Texas
* Corpus Christi Army Depot
* Johnson Space Center
* San Antonio ALC
* Air Force Plant 4 (General Dynamics - Fort Worth): F-16
* LTV Dallas
* Bell Helicopter - Fort Worth
* Bell Helicopter - Amarillo
* Pantex [though I had to go to 375 miles to get this one]

New Mexico
* Los Alamos National Laboratory
* Sandia National Laboratory
* Kirtland AFB - Manzano Weapons Storage Area

Arizona
* McDonnell-Douglas Helicopter - Mesa: AH-64

Nevada
* Groom Lake Facility

California
* McDonnell Douglas - Long Beach: KC-10
* Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station
* Los Angeles AFB
* Jet Propulsion Laboratory
* Santa Susana Field Laboratory
* Air Force Plant 42 (Palmdale) : B-1B
* Vandenberg AFB

And those are just the one off the top of my head. How far do you think mass peacetime industrial relocation is going to get once those state's Congressional delegations get involved?

That’s why I was figuring it being in stages starting with the “nuclear weapons industry” with Federal help to do it. I’m picturing, during the debate in the House, probably, a Congressman standing up and saying it’s only 635 miles from El Paso to Dallas. How long would we have to stop the Soviets from launching a surprise air strike from just across the border to the plants there?

Edit: To clarify a bit. Firstly, despite what that Congress Person may have said, they weren't actually expecting an attack/WW3, he was using it as an example of how fast a surprise attack could be launched, from across the border.

Secondly, I'm figuring that, while they would be focusing on the more strategic materials/aspects, such as the bombers, they would be doing it in stages, with Federal help in both funding and easing regulations/moving the personnel, and also working towards hardening the sites that can't be moved, such as (maybe) Pantex, or Los Alamos, with adding things like an air defense system, redoing the defense force weapons, making plans for them to get reinforcements from either the State National Guard or an Active Duty Unit, for larger security threats, enlarging the on site security team, and so on.

[Wolfman]

OOC: Part of the reason why we moved Tomcat production to St. Augustine is that Grumman already had a factory there where they built the E-2 Hawkeye, C-2 Greyhound, A-6 Intruder and EA-6B Prowler. We figured that Grumman would want to keep building Tomcats at a facility that they owned… I figure that they began expanding the facility in early ‘85, and finish it postwar, with A-6F production beginning in ‘92.

As for the Johnson Space Center, NASA stripped the place down to the bare walls and a message saying essentially ‘Catch us if you can!’ Khvostov was, to put it mildly, not amused by that.

[Poohbah]

1. The Pentagon has CONPLANs for EVERYTHING. Many were developed as planning exercises; "if _______ were to happen, how would we ______?"

CONPLANs were developed for rapid relocation of critical industrial plant in the event that GSFM decided to march north. Many federalized Guard formations were assigned to industrial relocation missions.

It's worth noting that DIA Chantilly was estimating on D+1 that Ivan's primary objective was capturing the Midwest breadbasket.

2. Setting up shop at the new sites probably worked akin to how Ivan did it in 1941:

A. Move tooling to site and lay out.
B. Build roof and start producing product.
C. Build walls as materials and time permit.

3. The Harrier line was absolutely the last priority for relocation.

4. There may have been a plan to move McAir, but it wasn't executed. Although they were operating in a similar fashion to the Red Star Tractor Plant in Stalingrad: the last step in the factory is to load a can of 20mm, hang ordnance, acceptance pilot performs a touch and go, then flies west and bombs/shoots down commies.

[Wolfman]

I’ve read that the Harrier line was ‘if you have time, move it, if you don’t, blow it to Hell’.

[James1978]

OOC: Part of the reason why we moved Tomcat production to St. Augustine is that Grumman already had a factory there where they built the E-2 Hawkeye, C-2 Greyhound, A-6 Intruder and EA-6B Prowler. We figured that Grumman would want to keep building Tomcats at a facility that they owned… I figure that they began expanding the facility in early ‘85, and finish it postwar, with A-6F production beginning in ‘92.

OOC: That is not correct. During the 1980s, St. Augustine was a modification and maintenance facility, not a new construction facility. Grumman didn't even acquire the facility until 1980. During this period, everything was still built in Long Island.
Now in @, St. Augustine is where the A-6E re-winging was done. But the E-2 line didn't move there until after 1994.

[Wolfman]

OOC: My mistake; it’s been an incarnation of the board since this was discussed…

[James1978]

OOC: Having a SHTF contingency plan is one thing. Relocating vast swaths of the US defense industry within a 350-400 mile swath of the US-Mexico border in peacetime is an entirely different kettle of fish. Y'all aren't just talking about moving factories. You are talking about sucking thousands of well paying union and professional jobs out of all those communities - in peacetime. And transplanting them to places where the housing market may not be able to absorb all the transplants.

Compare to the drama around BRAC in @ - only here, the pain isn't spread around the whole country but is concentrated in the southwest. You folks are being naive if you think that DOD can just decree this and it will happen without Congress and unions throwing a giant monkey wrench into things.
I may post much in RDverse, but I have been reading long enough to know that you folks have built a world in which on a LOT of levels, the US government did not believe this could really happen until tanks were rolling across the border. That just doesn't jive with mass peacetime industrial relocation.

[Wolfman]

OOC: I’m not disagreeing with you! At most, I figure it’s something along the lines of ‘we’re most probably never going to have to do this, but let’s make sure that we don’t lose anything if we have to do this!’

[Poohbah]

OOC: Having a SHTF contingency plan is one thing. Relocating vast swaths of the US defense industry within a 350-400 mile swath of the US-Mexico border in peacetime is an entirely different kettle of fish. Y'all aren't just talking about moving factories. You are talking about sucking thousands of well paying union and professional jobs out of all those communities - in peacetime. And transplanting them to places where the housing market may not be able to absorb all the transplants.

Compare to the drama around BRAC in @ - only here, the pain isn't spread around the whole country but is concentrated in the southwest. You folks are being naive if you think that DOD can just decree this and it will happen without Congress and unions throwing a giant monkey wrench into things.
I may post much in RDverse, but I have been reading long enough to know that you folks have built a world in which on a LOT of levels, the US government did not believe this could really happen until tanks were rolling across the border. That just doesn't jive with mass peacetime industrial relocation.

And I'm talking solely about a SHTF CONPLAN that gets started by about D+2. Unions would be very happy to have their people and their families be A-999 green sheet must ride evacuees.

[Wolfman]

Can everyone please calm down before the Admin gets annoyed?

[James1978]

What is there to calm down about? I thought we were talking about two DIFFERENT things - theoretical pre-war industrial relocation and post-invasion relocation. What, we can't discuss both?

[Wolfman]

Maybe I misinterpreted what was happening? The discussion was looking to me like it was getting a little heated.

[Poohbah]

Maybe I misinterpreted what was happening? The discussion was looking to me like it was getting a little heated.

Emotion doesn't come through well in text. Sorry for my contribution to the chaos.