Manufacturing during WW2

[Opelman]

Keikhaefer/ Mercury made air cooled two stroke engines for pumps and generators.

 

[burbguy82]

Yes for specific reasons (quicker recovery after the work) the Ford Werkes in Cologne were only lightly damaged.

I saw nothing specifically about the Germans having extra air defense for the factory. That part, seems like lore.

That, and the targeting systems for bombers was not very precise, nor would have been the location.

 

[Ranger83]

Keikhaefer/ Mercury made air cooled two stroke engines for pumps and generators.

Homelite made most of the APU’s for the M4 Sherman and other armored vehicles. This was a favorite feature of the Lend-Lease M4’s sent to the Red Army.

Bottom of page. The M1 only got an APU in later M1A2 models.

https://www.theshermantank.com/tag/auxiliary-generators/

 

[Exhaustgases]

And notice how everyone was thin then.

 

[Ranger83]

Studebaker made trucks, a tracked vehicle called the Weasel, and radial aircraft engines. At least one is still flying today. Maytag used their aluminum foundry skills to make aircraft landing gear components. Briggs and Stratton made small generators which powered gun turrets.

Most of the Studebaker US6 6x6 trucks were sent to Russia. They provided the Red Army with superior mobility compared to the Wehrmacht.

After the war, the design was copied by several Russian manufacturers, and produced into the 90’s.

Because of the danger of the Vladivostok convoys, many were shipped to Iran and driven into Russia from there.

 

[MolaKule]

My mom was one of many testers who did final testing at the Sherman tank factory before delivery. She said firing the cannon at the target range was awesome.

 

[Pablo]

My mom was one of many testers who did final testing at the Sherman tank factory before delivery. She said firing the cannon at the target range was awesome.

That explains just about everything.

 

[wsar10]

Being a coin and PM guy, one of my (many) favorite or most interesting bits of WWII manufacturing is the creation of war nickels through the US mint. What a scary time to be alive during the heat of WWII....

War Nickels were brought about due to the increased demand and need for Nickle and Copper to produce munitions and alloys for other uses. From 1942-1945 Nickels had the copper content decreased from 75% down to 55%, and Silver was actually less valuable than nickel at the time due to the nature of our economy.

Your average nickel to that point was %75 copper and 25% Nickle, mid 1942 the alloy was changed to 56% copper, 35% silver, and 9% manganese, for a brief period of time. Each War-Nic as we call them, contains .05626 troy ounces of silver. This means 1$ face value of War-Nics is over 1ozt of Silver (AG).


Guys like me who started in Precious Metals while we were still young and broke LOVE War-Nics! Because you could buy them back then for a few cents or rolls were dirt cheap and they add up quick by AG weight. As we grew in our hobby or investment these Nickels were always great to sweeten trade deals or to combine and upgrade to something that took less space in your safe.

 

[Kestas]

While working at a corporate job, I saw how the modern day company would strangle productivity of its workers with pet projects (QS9000, ISO 17029, 5S, BE, etc.) from corporate CEOs and hurt their profitability. I get these thoughts every time I see how manufacturing responded to the war effort during WW2. If we had another national emergency, whether it be war or something else, I suspect these programs would disappear.

 

[Kestas]

During WW2, Americans reverse engineered a captured German aircraft, and found bearings stamped Made in the USA. It was from a Swedish bearing company. Americans made the bearings, shipped them to neutral Sweden, who yhen sold the bearings to Germany. This forced Americans to incorporate the company's American operations and put a stop to this nonsense.