James Jay Carafano: Obama, Gates are gutting America’s defense industry

Washingtton Examiner ^ | 8/31/09 | James Carafano

[Nachum]

It isn’t easy to put U.S. defenses back on track after they’ve endured a season of neglect. Gen. William Snow found that out firsthand.

Snow’s job, when he arrived in Washington in the World War I era, was to direct the buildup of artillery for the Allied Expeditionary Force. He thought his office should have stationery reflecting the importance of the task. His request was rejected. Rather than fund this extravagance, it was suggested the general purchase a rubber stamp to mark his correspondence.

Snow had joined a War Department completely unprepared to fight a war. The Army hadn’t been used to buying much of anything since the Civil War. It had forgotten how.

Nor was there much to buy. The United States had virtually no defense industrial base. When America entered the war, Congress handed out unprecedented contracts for artillery, tanks and planes. The war was over before U.S. industry could deliver any of them. Doughboys went into battle riding British tanks, piloting French planes and firing artillery made by their allies.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

The same playbook Clinton used.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

"Doughboys went into battle riding British tanks, piloting French planes and firing artillery made by their allies."

Maybe in the begining, but near the end of the war, we were producing one of the best machine guns ever, the Browning M1917. Outstanding reliability and rate of fire compared to the french junk we had to use in the begining that jammed all the time.

[Philo1962]

Even in those days, with planes made of canvas and balsa wood that flew 110 mph, and tanks that weighed only seven tons, it took a great deal more time to develop industry for aircraft and tank production than for machine gun production.