60,000 Planes, Etc.

Let no man say it cannot be done. It must be done and we have undertaken to do it.

Thus last week did the President launch the biggest production program in world history. For 1942, U.S. industry is asked to produce 60,000 airplanes, 45,000 tanks, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns, 8,000,000 deadweight tons of merchant ships. For 1943, 125,000 planes, 75,000 tanks, 35,000 anti-aircraft guns, 10,000,000 tons of merchant ships.

Even in billion-calloused, production-booming January 1942, these figures at first seemed fantastic. Only 18 months ago, U.S. output was around 500 planes monthly; the first medium tank rolled off Chrysler's line only eight months ago; monthly output of anti-aircraft guns is still in low hundreds. Merchant shipbuilding last year just edged over 1,100,000 tons. But this was when war work was a side show to business-as-usual. Now war is going under the big top.

That switch in itself will help industry toward the President's goal, but will not cinch it. While few businessmen last week said it couldn't be done, all could foresee difficulties, began appraising the limiting factors:

Airplanes. The first question on 60,000 airplanes is the aluminum supply, which was short even in 1941, when plane output was put at 18,000. That shortage is rapidly being met. Expansion under way will boost aluminum 1942 output to 1,450,000,000 lb. (1939: 327,000,000 lb.), and 1943 plans call for 2,000,000,000 lb., including 300,000,000 lb. from Canada. At a rough average of 13,000 lb. of aluminum per plane, 60,000 planes will take less than 800,000,000 lb. But aluminum is needed for many things besides planes.

There may be other obstacles of the same kind that slowed production last year. Glenn Martin once had scores of B-26 bombers waiting on the field for propellers; Bell Aircraft waited weeks for Allison engines and 37-mm. aerial cannon; Lockheed for flight instruments. Such disbalances are mostly defects of organization, not materials, and are cured by experience. Output of air-cooled radial engines is now well ahead of schedule, and liquid-cooled production is stepping up fast.

One way airplane output could be boosted: honest-to-God freezing of designs. Some planemakers complain that the Army still changes its mind more often than a hen crossing a road. Concentrating on fewer models would also eventually boost output. OPM has a standardization plan in the works, may test it on pursuit-ship output in a few big factories.

Man power and floor space do not worry planemakers. Making and assembling the 20,000 parts, 90,000 rivets of a big pursuit ship alone takes 20,000 man-hours. Thus the 60,000-plane program needs over a billion man-hours. This could be supplied by 500-600,000 men working 300 eight-hour days in 1942. Planemakers already have about 230,000 shop workers, plan to pull thousands more from training schools and civilian industries. In floor space, they hope to avoid huge plant additions by more subcontracting.

Tanks. The President's 1942 figure is only a few thousand above the War Department's old goal of about 40,000 units. The snag: transmissions and engines. But last week farm-equipment makers were ready to take on big transmission orders. Another idea: hitch two 125-h.p. automobile engines (which can be made by the hundreds) to form one 250-h.p. tank engine.

Regular tank producers, meanwhile, are stepping out. Chrysler--biggest medium tank outfit--is starting to triple its plant. Ford is rushing work on his Highland Park factory, hopes to make 400 mediums a month before year's end. General Motors' Cadillac division is retooling for light tanks; Fisher Body will be turning out medium & heavy tanks by the fourth quarter.

High-alloy steel for tanks was scarce in 1941. But the end of passenger-car production releases 600-650,000 tons of such steels, nearly 50% of 1940 output.

Anti-aircraft Guns. Washington is hush-hush about gun production, antiaircraft and otherwise. But OPM is optimistic, figures that the auto industry will do most of the work. Pontiac and Chrysler are already making Orelikons and Bofors.

Ships. The Maritime Commission is optimistic. Actual merchant-ship launchings last month hit a 6,000,000-ton-a-year rate, only 2,000,000 tons below the President's 1942 goal. To reach it, shipbuilders will go on a seven-day week, add "a few" shipways to the present 406 (for ships over 300 ft.), draw needed labor from a 200,000-man pool now in training. Mass orders have enabled some yards to rationalize their production methods, approximate an assembly-line technique.

Unlike munitions makers, merchant shipbuilders have little fear of shortages. The average cargo-ship hull requires 3,000 tons of steel plate. The ships to be built this year--about 770--will thus need 2,-310,000 tons--about five months' output for a single mill like Carnegie-Illinois's huge Gary works. Builders plan to make only as many C-2 and C-3 freighters as they can get turbines for. The rest of the program, mostly "ugly ducklings," will get easy-to-make reciprocating engines and old-type Scotch boilers (which can be replaced by modern innards after the war). To the shipbuilders, even 1943's 10,000,000 tons looked easy last week.

But--as U.S. businessmen buckled grimly to their huge assignments, they knew that only one thing could make all four programs succeed: coordination. Some of the shortages (such as aluminum) were too close for comfort anyway; without a firm hand in Washington over priorities, scheduling and distribution of orders, even over Army & Navy specifications, the shortages could be disastrous. Whose hand that might be, no one knew last week.

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