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To: Hermann the Cherusker
The steel for 8400 Hummers could be produced in few days at most mills. We aren't talking millions of tons here.

Maybe, maybe not.
As I commented elsewhere on this thread, a lot depends on what alloy is being used.
(I'm assuming Hummer armor isn't an "ordinary" alloy, and may require a "secret recipe" of 11 herbs and spices to produce.)
Yeah, other mills may (or may not) have the right combination of furnaces and equipment to produce the stuff, but they don't have experience with the precise formula, timing and temperatures to duplicate the witch's brew exactly. Then you run into the "problem" that they're reluctant to disrupt their normal production just to crank out a small, specialized batch of some alloy that they'll never be asked to produce again.

Yeah, such things can easily be done in case of a true national emergency. But it ain't gonna happen over this temporary political flap over Hummer armor. Face it, Hummers were never intended to be as heavily armored as Abrams Tanks, yet the jack@$$es in the left-wing newsmedia will report this story as if they should be.

150 posted on 12/10/2004 9:02:15 AM PST by Willie Green
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To: Willie Green
As I predicted way earlier in this thread, this whole "one steel supplier" thing is probably disinformation. The Humvee armor (some of it, anyway) is ceramic, not steel. From powerlineblog.com:
The ability and capacity to assemble armored vehicles does NOT mean that the upstream suppliers also have the capacity to produce more Ceramic armor plating. I agree -- there probably is no shortage of assembly capacity of vehicles -- whatever the configuration.

But I do believe there is a shortage of ceramic armor production capacity (Ceradyne is opening a new plant -- I understand there was over an 18 mo lead time to manufacture and deliver the furnaces needed for the production -- and they are not sourced in the US).

The MSM will mislead by discussing the assembly of vehicles -- but that is not where the bottleneck is...I had the opportunity to talk to some of the people at Ceradyne -- from what was related during the visit, the bonus potential and contracts are set up to run capacity at 100% 24/7. I just do not buy that if capacity existed along the entire supply chain -- we would be artificially limiting production.


153 posted on 12/10/2004 9:49:33 AM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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