OT Olympics The game

[Nightjar]

I think Albert Speer was probably quite well placed to know whether it could have stopped all armaments production within four months, as he later said.

Colin Bignell

[Terry Fields]

I'm sure he was well placed, but it may have been in his interest to tell whoever it was what they wanted to hear. Much the same happened, I think it was in Dresden, when the Russians took over. Not wishing to send a message up the chain of command saying how devastating Allied bombing could be, when the Russian in charge got the casualty list, which ran to six figures, he just crossed off the most significant digit.

Terry Fields

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Grimly Curmudgeon writes

I had a moment of enlightenment as an apprentice. My final two years were spent on placement in the *electronics* dept. This was the era between thermionic valves and silicon transistors ie. discrete Germanium devices.

On this occasion my role was to standby while our control system was commissioned on the customers plant before being shipped out to site. I duly arrived at the address which was a side street of terraced houses in Birmingham. No factory gates, no car park, no security guard, just a normal painted front door!

Very strange! Anyway I went through the door and up the stairs behind, along a corridor and down another set of steps and into the factory in what must once have been the back garden of several houses.

I don't think the Germans were alone in production dispersal.

When I joined SKF in 1972 the Leagrave Road site had a limited form of production machinery grouping. A component such as a ball race inner ring might have the sides, bore and race ground and the race polished by one or two operators working a group of machines.

This type of production could easily fit in a large domestic garage given enough electrical power.

regards

[Nightjar]

Then again, he might simply have been telling the truth.

Perhaps he should just have shot whoever gave him that report and used the official German figures which put the number of dead at around 22,000.

Colin Bignell

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Some parts could at a very low level of volume: but what went on at the big factories in the UK and in Germany could not.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , The Natural Philosopher writes

I think *batch production* was necessitated by the attempt to field a full product line.

Global rationalisation within the SKF group meant permanent production lines could be set up for the allocated types.

The ball factory at Sundon Park was closed (balls now imported from Schwienfurt:-) and fixed range production lines installed.

regards

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

More than you'd know about.

[Terry Fields]

Do tell.

Terry Fields

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Exactly so. The types of machines I'm referring to (and which TNP is ignorant of) could all be fitted into a domestic car garage. Even a small production furnace can be accomodated in a back yard.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Dance boi, dance. You opened your gob and spouted bullshit and and now you're desperately backpedalling.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Albert Speer was responsible for the dispersal of production during and following the raids, and in fact war production actually increased during that period, thanks to Speer and others' efforts.

Many things were written and some things were deliberately wrong or left out. Sure, if no balls were available from that point on, and if no steps were taken to disperse production, then yes, the tanks/guns/planes would have ceased production. But really, do you think that's all there was to it? Was Speer going to sit on his arse and do nothing? Of course not, and he didn't. He dispersed production, exactly the same as the British did. FFS, how many small back-alley plants were involved in making widgets for Spitfires? Thousands.