Henry Ford's Planes

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RayYoung
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Henry Ford's Planes

Post by RayYoung »

Being relatively new to these forums I am not really sure if this was ever posted before.

Henry Ford’s Planes

The time is June 1941, just months BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Henry Ford, determined that he could mass-produce bombers just as he had done with cars, built the Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan and proved it. At the time, It was the world's largest building under one roof. This film will absolutely blow you away; one B-24, each with over a million parts, assembled every 55 minutes. Ford had their own pilots to test them and they had no recalls!

HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by wdolson »

Anyone in Axis powers who bothered to educate themselves on the industrial power of the US knew that the US was capable of crushing any and all comers in a war of attrition. In 1940 the US had 50% of the world's entire production capacity and a well educated workforce. We're fortunate the leadership of the Axis powers were so arrogant. When Goering was asked if he feared Americans building a giant fleet of bombers to attack Germany, he quipped, "what are they going to do, drop refrigerators on us?"

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by CaptBeefheart »

Here's a great book on that ("Forge of Freedom"). It turns out Willow Run wasn't the best way to do it, as it consisted of one snaking production line. However, it was a major advancement at the time.

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: RayYoung

Being relatively new to these forums I am not really sure if this was ever posted before.

Henry Ford’s Planes

The time is June 1941, just months BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Henry Ford, determined that he could mass-produce bombers just as he had done with cars, built the Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan and proved it. At the time, It was the world's largest building under one roof. This film will absolutely blow you away; one B-24, each with over a million parts, assembled every 55 minutes. Ford had their own pilots to test them and they had no recalls!

HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0
Did Ford tell the US Army brass "You can have any color you want ... as long as it's black." ?
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by Leandros »

ORIGINAL: RayYoung

Being relatively new to these forums I am not really sure if this was ever posted before.

Henry Ford’s Planes

The time is June 1941, just months BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Henry Ford, determined that he could mass-produce bombers just as he had done with cars, built the Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan and proved it. At the time, It was the world's largest building under one roof. This film will absolutely blow you away; one B-24, each with over a million parts, assembled every 55 minutes. Ford had their own pilots to test them and they had no recalls!

HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0

Cool clip! Tks for posting.

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by HMSWarspite »

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: RayYoung

Being relatively new to these forums I am not really sure if this was ever posted before.

Henry Ford’s Planes

The time is June 1941, just months BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Henry Ford, determined that he could mass-produce bombers just as he had done with cars, built the Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan and proved it. At the time, It was the world's largest building under one roof. This film will absolutely blow you away; one B-24, each with over a million parts, assembled every 55 minutes. Ford had their own pilots to test them and they had no recalls!

HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0
Did Ford tell the US Army brass "You can have any color you want ... as long as it's black." ?

Have you seen bombers with paint colour options? They were all Olive green, and then all bare metal. You had to paint your own details. So "yes"[;)]
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by postfux »

I think to have read somewhere Hitler himself was briefed about the US potential for monthly production of heavy bombers. Cant remember the source.

Deploying the Luftwaffe against SU probably wasnt the best decision.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by Yaab »

ORIGINAL: RayYoung

Being relatively new to these forums I am not really sure if this was ever posted before.

Henry Ford’s Planes

The time is June 1941, just months BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Henry Ford, determined that he could mass-produce bombers just as he had done with cars, built the Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan and proved it. At the time, It was the world's largest building under one roof. This film will absolutely blow you away; one B-24, each with over a million parts, assembled every 55 minutes. Ford had their own pilots to test them and they had no recalls!

HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0

Uhm, one million parts. I guess service rating 5 is there for a reason.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by crsutton »

The day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Churchill wrote in his diary that the war was won. He understood.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by jcjordan »

I seem to remember seeing lately that the last traces of Willow Run are in danger of being lost & there's a movement to try to preserve it
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by aspqrz02 »

ORIGINAL: RayYoung

HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

Actually, he did. There is a chunk of a chapter on the attempts by the Germans to build a massive aero-engine production facility in a desperate attempt to stave off likely massive allied production capacity in Tooze's "Wages of Destruction' ... the facility was a massive white elephant that never came close to meeting its targets.

There's a lot that the Germans wished away ... they were not quite as bad as the Japanese, but not entirely in touch with reality either.

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by Yaab »

Consider a alternative history scenario. USSR stays on the sidelines, neutral to the Third Reich and Japan. She entices a global war of Germany/Japan/Italy vs USA/UK/China. USSR waits for Germany/Japan/UK/Italy to bleed themselves white. I guess then even the American aircraft industry wouldn't be able to keep up with the losses.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by aspqrz02 »

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Consider a alternative history scenario. USSR stays on the sidelines, neutral to the Third Reich and Japan. She entices a global war of Germany/Japan/Italy vs USA/UK/China. USSR waits for Germany/Japan/UK/Italy to bleed themselves white. I guess then even the American aircraft industry wouldn't be able to keep up with the losses.

US-UK-Commonwealth Aircraft Production: ~450,000 aircraft
German-Japanese-Italian Aircraft Production: ~215,000 aircraft

US-UK-Commonwealth directly controlled ~37% of the world economy (45% including China)

Germany-Japan-Italy directly controlled maybe ~20%

Of the remaining 43%, most was indirectly accessible to the UK-US-Commonwealth only, relatively little was accessible to the Axis

I think its fairly safe to say that the Allies won't sweat the non-direct involvement of the Russians ... in fact, you could include Russian production on the Allied side of the ledger anyway, as the Germans and Japanese would have to keep reserves sufficient to prevent a successful 'stab in the back'.

The US aircraft industry would keep up very nicely ...

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by wdolson »

The key issue if the USSR stayed neutral would be the Soviets would continue to sell Germany oil and Germany would never face an oil shortage. Additionally the western Allies would have to face a Germany that does not have the bulk of its army tied down on the Russian steppes. That would make an invasion of Europe essentially impossible.

The western Allies would probably win the war in the air over the long haul, but I think occupied Europe would remain in German hands. All 3 of the major allies against Germany were critical to beating them. The Americans contributed material, the Russians contributed blood and territory, and the UK/Commonwealth contributed time. The UK was able to get the Germans to a draw in the west and keep it that way until the US could build up enough force the western Allies could tip the balance.

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by aspqrz02 »

ORIGINAL: wdolson

The key issue if the USSR stayed neutral would be the Soviets would continue to sell Germany oil and Germany would never face an oil shortage.

An interesting claim, just not borne out by the facts.

The allies produced/imported over a billion metric tons of POL during the war, the Axis produced/imported 66 million metric tons.

Before the war, Germany imported in excess of 75% of her oil requirements, overwhelmingly from overseas sources (only about 5% came overland, mainly from Romania) ... the overseas imports went 'poof' in 1939. Russian supplies made up for less than 10% of the shortfall.

That leaves 65% that could not be easily made up ... and really never was in the medium to long term.

The German oil reserves were exhausted quickly, and stocks seized in Poland and Western Europe only temporarily made up for expenditures, as those countries relied on imports as much or more than Germany did, and those imports similarly went 'poof' on the German conquest.

Romanian oil production was eventually ramped up to ~40% of prewar requirements ... but, of course, since the war meant that requirements actually increased (rationing in Germany had applied even before the outbreak of war), requirements for military use alone were double the entire peacetime requirements of 1939, the increased Romanian production amounted to only 15% of the military's requirements alone.

And not all that Romanian oil went to Germany for the simple reason that the Germans were never able to pay for it.

They were broke. They didn't pay for most of the Russian oil they got before Barbarossa, either ... and couldn't have, not even looting Eastern and Western Europe (which is what funded the war through to early 1942, mostly ... and wasn't enough).

How much excess Russian capacity there was is unclear, but it is fairly obvious that, even if the Russians had been able to step up, the Germans wouldn't have been able to pay for it.

(Now, granted, without active military operations on the Eastern Front, that reduces land force requirements, but operations against the western allies means fuel requirements for the Navy and Air Force increase exponentially, one presumes ... and, though smaller, Naval and Air Force operations were much more fuel intensive than ground operations. Still and all, I don't see that the German fuel situation would have been as gloriously easy as implied ... YMMV).

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by postfux »

Tried to find some data:

Fuel consumtion (total)
1937 3.507.000
1938 4.287.000
1939 4.365.000

Fuel consumtion (total/Wehrmacht):
1940 5.865.000 3.005.000
1941 7.305.000 4.567.000
1942 6.483.000 4.410.000
1943 6.971.000 4.762.000

Conversion Plant Fuel Production (Aircraft/Vehicles/Total):
1940 __591.200 1.288.800 1.880.000
1941 __970.000 1.494.400 2.464.400
1942 1.365.200 1.584.800 2.950.000
1943 1.867.600 1.924.000 3.791.600

ALL aircraft fuel came from conversion plants, there were different sources for vehicle fuel.

I think the data implies without fielding a giant army including 21 tank divisions Germany had the means to supply its airforce.

The strategic situation wasnt cosy for sure but using up the small reserves going all in against SU doesnt seem wise.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by JeffroK »

From the files of Joe Baugher.

http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b24_8.html

In order to meet the projected demand for the B-24, in early 1941 the government established the Liberator Production Pool Program. Under this program, Consolidated would set up a new plant in Fort Worth, Texas to supplement the Liberator production in its main San Diego plant and Douglas would open up a similar plant for Liberator production in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The initial plan was for the Douglas/Tulsa plant to put together complete Liberators from sub-assemblies and components provided to it by Consolidated until it acquired enough experience to build complete aircraft on its own.

Shortly thereafter, the Ford Motor Company joined the Liberator Production Pool Program as a third member. Ford planned to build Liberators at an entirely new plant at Willow Run near Detroit. Initially, Ford was assigned the task of providing components for final assembly by Consolidated/Fort Worth and Douglas/Tulsa, but in October of 1941 Ford received permission to assemble complete Liberators on its own.

In January of 1942, following Pearl Harbor, North American Aviation was given a contract for the manufacture of B-24s at its Dallas, Texas plant. This brought the total number of plants involved in Liberator production to five.

By early 1942, the Army had formalized its initial Liberator production plan. Primary manufacturers of the B-24 were to be Consolidated/San Diego, Ford/Willow Run, and North American/Dallas. These aircraft were to be designated B-24D, B-24E, and B-24G respectively. Consolidated/Fort Worth and Douglas/Tulsa were to carry out the final construction of planes by putting together sub-assemblies provided by the other three plants. Eventually, Consolidated/Fort Worth would also become a primary manufacturing center. In addition, the Ford plant at Willow Run was designated as the prime contractor for B-24 spare parts.

The Willow Run plant was truly gigantic. It was built on a 65-acre site and was almost a quarter of a mile wide and a half-mile long. It had a 90-degree bend in the middle of its length. This bend had supposedly been put there at the insistence of Henry Ford himself. According to local legend, the length of the plant had been miscalculated by the architects during the initial design work, and the bend had to be introduced in order to prevent the plant from extending into the next county where the taxes were higher. This bend came to be known as the "tax turn", and Liberators had to take a rather awkward 90-degree turn as they progressed down the assembly line.

The first B-24Ds for the USAAF were manufactured by Consolidated/San Diego in January of 1942. As part of its participation in the Liberator Production Pool, the Consolidated/San Diego plant began to supply sub-assemblies for B-24Ds to Consolidated/Fort Worth in May of 1942, and to Douglas/Tulsa in August 1942 for final assembly.

The first Ford-built Liberator rolled off the Willow Run line in September of 1942. The Ford-built Liberator was designated B-24E. The Ford plant had lots of initial startup problems, due primarily to the fact that Ford employees were used to automobile mass production and found it difficult to adapt these techniques to aircraft production. Ford's plant at Willow Run was beset with labor difficulties, high absentee rates, and rapid employee turnover. The factory was nearly an hour's drive from Detroit, and the imposition of wartime gasoline and tire rationing had made the daily commute difficult. In only one month, Ford had hired 2900 workers but had lost 3100. Henry Ford was cantankerous and rigid in his ways. He was violently anti-union and there were serious labor difficulties, including a massive strike. In addition, Henry Ford refused on principle to hire women. However, he finally relented and did employ "Rosie the Riveters" on his assembly lines, probably more because so many of his potential male workers had been drafted into the military than due to any sudden development of a social conscience on his part. At the request of the government, Ford began to decentralize operations and many parts were assembled at other Ford plants as well as by the company's sub-contractors, with the Willow Run plant concentrating on final assembly. The bugs were eventually worked out of the manufacturing processes, and by 1944, Ford was rolling a Liberator off the Willow Run production line every 63 minutes. A total of 6972 Liberators were built at Ford, and 1893 knock-down parts were provided for other manufacturers.

The last member of the pool to produce Liberators was North American/Dallas. The version of the Liberator built by North American was designated B-24G. The first B-24G Liberators rolled off the line at Dallas in late 1942.

Since five different manufacturing plants were now building the Liberator, it was necessary for the USAAF to keep track of which plane was built by which plant for maintenance and spare parts purposes. This was done by adding a manufacturer identification code to the designation scheme after the block number to identify the builder of a particular airplane. These letters identified the particular plant which was responsible for the construction of the aircraft. The letters designating the five members of the pool were as follows

CO Consolidated/San Diego
CF Consolidated/Fort Worth
DT Douglas/Tulsa
FO Ford/Willow Run
NT North American/Dallas

However, since each plant in the pool would often use sub-assemblies and components provided by the other members, even this system was not completely adequate to tell maintenance people which factory was really responsible for any given plane. The general rule seems to be that the manufacturer code assigned to a particular aircraft corresponded to the factory that was responsible for its final assembly, with the series letter (D, E or G) identifying the primary manufacturer.

The version of the Liberator that underwent primary manufacture at Consolidated/San Diego was designated B-24D. When the B-24D was completely assembled at San Diego, it was designated B-24D-CO. However, Consolidated/San Diego also shipped parts and components of B-24Ds to Consolidated/Fort Worth and to Douglas/Tulsa for final assembly. B-24Ds assembled by these plants were designated B-24D-CF and B-24D-DT respectively.

The B-24E was the version of the B-24D that underwent primary manufacture by Ford at Willow Run. There were significant differences between the B-24E and the other two versions. Not only did Ford build complete planes, but it also supplied components of B-24Es for final assembly at Douglas/Tulsa and at Consolidated/Fort Worth. B-24Es built and fully assembled at Ford were designated B-24E-FO, but those assembled by Douglas/Tulsa and Consolidated/Fort Worth out of parts supplied by Ford were designated B-24E-DT and B-24E-CF respectively.

The version of the Liberator built by North American/Dallas was designated B-24G. It differed little from the Consolidated/San Diego-built version. Since North American/Dallas was only a primary manufacturer and did not supply components to the other members of the pool, all B-24Gs bore the NT manufacturer's letters.

As might have been expected, the production pool system did cause lots of problems with standardization of components and equipment. Variants coming from the various members of the pool would often have significant detail differences from each other, leading to a spare parts and interchangeability nightmare. There were often significant differences between the various production blocks of the same model Liberator and sometimes differences even WITHIN a production block. Parts for Liberators built at different factories were often not interchangeable with each other, and all four factories involved in primary manufacturing produced Liberators of similar variants but of vastly different detail specification. Even the two Consolidated plants suffered from this problem.

With the introduction of the B-24J, all five members of the pool (both primary manufacturers and sub-assemblers) converted to the production of this version.

Since Liberator production rates were extremely high, it became difficult to introduce changes dictated by field experience onto the production line in a timely fashion. Consequently, newly-constructed Liberators were often already obsolescent as soon as they rolled off the line. For this reasons, a series of modification centers were established for the incorporation of these changes into new Liberators following their manufacture. There were seven known modification centers: Consolidated/Fort Worth, Oklahoma City Air Materiel Center, Tucson Modification Center, Birmingham Depot, Northwest Airlines Depot, Martin-Omaha, and Hawaiian Air Depot.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by ndworl »

ORIGINAL: crsutton

The day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Churchill wrote in his diary that the war was won. He understood.

Churchill wrote to the Japanese ambassador on the occasion of his visit to Germany in 1941, as he reports in his "The second world war" series. He asked a number of pertinent questions, about relative industrial strength. The Japanese ignored the letter and proceeded on the basis of standing forces. History shows who was correct.
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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by aspqrz02 »

The strategic (oil) reserves were gone well before the invasion of Russia. By the end of 1940, IIRC ...

The hiatus between the fall of France and the invasion of Russia allowed the Germans to build up enough of a reserve to stage Barbarossa, but they were forced to make operational decisions caused by limited fuel stocks as soon as the end of 1941 and early 1942, and the situation remained as such (or got worse) for the remainder of the war.

Even without fuel, the Germans didn't have the industrial capacity to produce enough aero engines for the sort of airforce that would be needed against an allied onslaught ... their planned centralised aero engine mega-plant only ever managed to produce a tiny fraction of what was hoped, which wasn't (as it happened) enough to meet US/Commonwealth production anyway (see Tooze, 'Wages of Destruction') and, even more problematic, despite fantasy weapons, they were only able to manage incremental upgrades to their aircraft rather than truly major upgrades as the allies were ...

Then there's the issue of Octane - Germany didn't have the technology to produce high octane aviation fuel, which the allies did ... and that made a significant difference for, and gave a significant advantage to, the allies.

Phil

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RE: Henry Ford's Planes

Post by postfux »

I am aware that fuel shortages historically started 1941. I do doubt that without Barbarossa Germany would have lost its ability to supply the Luftwaffe.

To my knowledge the Luftwaffe suffered more from the loss of personal than from the loss of planes. Even if aircraft production would have become an issue I guess the industrial capacity not needed for the conquest in the east could have helped.

Could and would Germany have lost an full out air air war against the Western Allies. Probably. But what would have been the result of this bloody campaign if successfull?

I dont see a reason to start this Kind of war against a well supplied Luftwaffe at its prime and all the resources of Germany available? All this with english bases and population centers within range, without any hope of a successfull invasion and the SU becoming stronger by the month.

In this scenario chocolate and coffee supply possibly would have been more critical than fuel supply or aircraft production.
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