US aircraft production in 1944 was one plane being completed every 5.5 minutes. That is beyond insane! Rate of ship production was also crazy, but that's for a different video.
Can't afford that with $100 million F35 fighters. The US already reached $31trillion in war debt. The world is dropping US treasuries and the USD as a reserve currency.
China is unmatched in their capacity to build ships. However the amount of materials to build a ship and train sailors would be massive so ramping up production may prove difficult. The US could increase aircraft but could it produce the pilots? Not nearly to the extent they could airplanes.
@@eliasziad7864 No. Actually modern aviation combat systems endanger air defense. Drone swarms. An S-XXX high digit modern SAM gets target saturated. Aircraft need not fly into range of threat air defense. Weapons and drones are released just outside aquisition range. They make their way on their own, and attack target from multiple vectors. Some would be shot down, some malfunction, but enough would get through and detonate on target. Air Defense missiles , I suspect, will give way to directed energy air defense (DEAD). Solid state laser operating in infrared range. Microwave beam (MASER) that concnetrates microwaves for local high intensity EMP, that destroys electronic components and munition casing via heating. High energy air defense X-Ray beam (XRASER), pronounced 'ray zor' , for extra long range reach. Destroys target via extreme heating of X-Ray beam on target skin.
I think it would be possible to retool to make 4th gen fighters in large scale relatively quickly. The big question is how to train pilots at scale as the air combat space is significantly more complex today than back during ww2
Retoool to make 4th gen fighters relatively quickly? Relatively quickly compared to who? Gambia? Costa Rica? WE DON'T HAVE A SUFFICIENT BASE OF TOOL AND DIE PLANTS to even make such a thing possible, let alone likely.
Ever read Red Storm Rising? The real world wouldn't be quite that nice to the US, because in the real world every now and then the other side gets a moment of genius when we have our pants down to piss (and both sides have much better technology), but it's mostly still good.
@@dbadaddy7386 Yes I read read Red Storm rising it is a work of fiction that takes significant literary license with real world facts to create a conflict that isn’t one sided. The technological edge the West has over Russia and China is huge. Even though politicians and Western militaries say it isn’t. Why do they lie to us? Because if they didn’t lie we would demand cuts in military spending to enhance domestic spending and the politicians, military, and military contractors want to avoid that at all costs.
enemies such as... oh, say, some South American country flying leftover P-51's, or do you mean Russia (which produces top notch Aeronautical Engineers) or China (who are the world's leading industrial thieves.... especially since our federal government has become so corrupt that they let Chinese nationals work in facilities which are supposed to require top secret clearance AND U.S. Citizenship to work in them -- yet somehow, Chinese, without even disguising their names, are getting full access to designs of our nuclear warheads, aircraft, missiles, etc. AND the Chinese literally just buy Russian jets and blatantly copy the stuff without even hiding what they're doing.
People claiming that we do not have enough "skilled Mechanic's" or that "American males are weak or unknowledgeable with tools" are just flat out stupid.. our real mechanics are working for themselves because aviation mech wages have not increased in over 70+ years....in the 1950's an aviation mechanic made 52k per year in 2020 aviation mechanics made 52k a year , why would a toolhead mechanic work in an industry that pays there mechanics less than your local Ford dealership repair shops .....the moment WWIII breaks out they would start paying 150-400k a year and the "skilled Mechanic's" would roll in and make miracles happen...I have an electrical engineering degree ,10 years as a helicopter electrician, 10 years building new helicopters of various types and designs , I hold an FCC communications repairman certificate in everything including fiber optics and ship radar endorsement, I have both my airframe and powerplant certs completed and awaiting final practical....I make more from my garage repairing cars, tractors, and other assorted equipment than I did working 75+ hrs a week for the biggest aviation production companies in America....+ I can still self medicate my war time PTSD with weed.
People forgot that millions of housewives became tradesmen, steel workers, and factory workers within 6 months while the men went out to fight. They underestimate how skilled our people can be if needed.
A similar video on Chinese vs US ship building capacity would be very interesting. The Chinese naval buildup is already producing ships on a massive scale.
The US would switch manufacturing to the 6th gen fighters and focus mostly on unmanned support planes to support the conflict. Mostly because cost/tech/size benefits would allow for quicker and cheaper manufacturing contributing to higher output volumes.
The point about producing guided munitions over aircraft is important. In WW2 you could send an entire squadron of bombers to destroy and factory and completely miss it, where as one Strike Eagle could reliably hit any target you asked it to.
@@grumbeard That is where modern radar, computer targeting, computer modelling and so on get layered into the weapons and attacks systems. The US has retrofitted a lot of old missiles with new targeting systems so even 1950s style missiles have lots of accuracy. The US can also integrate communications and targeting from the ground into air attacks. A simple drone can target everything in a battle space for an awesome scale missile strike.
@@bighands69 That and the information network the US posess is truly terrifying. I am an avid reader of the first gulf war and if they could do those things in the early nineties... boy what could they do nowadays.
If you look at the engineering, there's like an absolute value kind of thing where the more complicated an item gets, the more complicated the supply line gets, the bloom for how much you need to be able to create the plane skyrockets logarithmically as you try to scale up, just like a military logistics math problem. The airplanes we used to make in WW2 weren't all that different from making a car at the time (in fact, most new cars now are significantly more complicated than any airplane made in WW2) and you only need so much in the way of support materials and specially machined components. Let's say you would need five major items, and five factories producing those items. Even from scratch, you can make those 5 factories pretty quickly, and make whole new factory lines quickly, because it's relatively simple. For something like an F 35, you need more like three hundred of those components, made in god only knows how many factories. That isn't something you can spin up quickly. The back end of that, from labor, to research, to various managerial and operationsl skills for the actories and logistics, requres an entire culture to be inculcated in a whole generation of people, and we only have so many of those people trained. What will likely happen if we were to go to an all out war would be the creation of a bunch of older planes that are not nearly as advanced that we can mass produce much more quickly, something like a ton of F14 or F16. But the idea that we'd be able to just pop out five thousand F22s or F35s as if they were P51 mustangs isn't going to happen, especially if our cities or production lines start taking any kind of damage.
I think you are also assuming that the US can continue its imports as usually. I think there is a good change that the US will quickly find that its short on components used to build planes, engines, radars, computers, and so on pretty quick and have to start rebuilding the infrastructure to try and make them locally.
Its just not required. Whole point of building high tech weapons is that you don’t need a lot to make a large impact. The US has both quality and quantity already. We simply don’t need more production. There is no adversary out there that even remotely has the same level of technology as us. China is near but still at least a few decades away from anything close to what the US has.
I hate how engrained in youtube culture established titles has become. The company Is based in Hong-Kong in other words it has nothing to do with the Scottish government so you're giving them money for land that they don't own and all you get for it is a fake certificate. There is no laws in place in Scotland to make people lords by buying a foot of land it's just not a thing. It is a title that is bestowed within the government it is not bought.
Speaking as someone who has had enough time with this. Never under-estimate how much US can do in economic and production terms if it wants to, and never under-estimate how much a country that is full of corruption can do if its poked to fight someone.
I suspect in WW3 it would be drone and guided missile production that would be scaled up more than anything. Not only more bang for your buck, but you don’t lose a skilled pilot every time you lose an aircraft.
@@eliasziad7864 that's Russian thinking and that is exactly why they are losing, Firepower is important BUT NOT EVERYTHING! There is also cost effective, Range and accuracy and flexibility and many more
You are completely ignoring the fact that the US has a massive airplane graveyard with older jets and other military aircraft that would need work to be able to use them again, but less work than building a new airplane. They are being stored there, but a lot of them are still in good condition. There are incredible ammounts of airplanes available. Same goes for other military vehicles like tanks, MRAPs and APCs.
@@sahilk5885 i highly doubt that the spare parts is not maintained, theres a lot of people taking care in the boneyard to make things well-maintained in case of salvage for some parts to be used again.
I realized from WW II how important the switch over of civilian products to military products was, but I had lost sight of how it would happen for modern military combat planes. Thanks for this eye opening exploration.
Honestly, as of today it's disputable. During WW1 and WW2 the US was rather isolationist and kept their production capacity at home. As of now most plants/factory are empty and closed down due to foreign outsourcing.
WW2 aircraft were simple compared to today’s military airplanes. Add to this the training was rudimentary compared to today. The training accident rate of WW2 was horrendous. Several times higher than combat losses.
Takes longer to train a F-22A or F-35 pilot than it is to build one. Training can be condensed and pilot retention forced but there will need to be a corresponding increase in training of pilots with any increase in production. Also with the older gen planes the Air Force keeps a huge reserve of them stored in the desert which are brought online by refurbishing the airframe or salvaging them for major components. These can be used to replace losses or meet new export contracts. In a wartime scenario this stockpile would become busy to plus up the inventory.
there are a lot more pilots in private industry then there was in the 30's. Not the same level of training of course, but all the basics are already there. There are 10's of thousands of current pilots to pull recruits from.
Numbers are definitely not useless but the US heavily relies on its technological edge to minimize losses and maximize unit effectiveness. Desert Storm was the last big show of air power by the US, and in a modern war the US would probably use similar tactice
You have forgotten the aircraft boneyards. There are thousands of airframes sitting in the desert stripped, just waiting. They are the initial refurb while factories are being retooled/ built. Older model aircraft, with less flying time life left following years of service, but they are still an important strategic reserve.
Okay yet forgets about the 100's of aircraft in America's boneyards , that are well maintained and inspected each year and stored in a dry climate that could be bought back into service quicker than building brand new ones 🤔
@@mohammedarafatlone bruh , I think the Americans could detect and shoot down any attack before they even reach the boneyards with the national guard aircraft nevermind the USAF 🤣😂
In 2019 I did deliveries of PW300s engines from Montreal Canada to Miami going to South America to be used in military use passenger jets. I delivered 2 per 8 days. I took 2 at a time 63 loads per year for 126 engines. We had 3 trucks running all the time. So lets sat 370 engines. All of those engines could be use in Canada or the US instantly. That is just 1 line of the engines built there. I belive all engines made is over 1000 a year with only 2 8 hour shifts. If they added a 3 line and increased hours by 50% to 12 and then worked weekends a 125% increase in output to over 3000 engines per year. So from 6 engines a week to 14. This is without any need to build a new plant.
I am not too sure the Americans can make combat fighters en mass like they could in WW2. They need to realign their industrial production capacity, and most of all their ability to make high tech chips for MILSPEC electronic components. This is why Taiwan is an extremely important strategic ally, also 'reshoring' of chip production back to the US by Raytheon GE Intel and others will be crucial for advanced weapons.
Ive been asking this same question. I believe one of the reasons they keep updating the F15 and F16 is because we will primarily build those since it takes shorter time to build than a gen5 fighter. The next peer to peer war will have to be won within the first 4 to 8 weeks. The time it takes to ramp up production the war will be over long before. Whoever loses thier airforce/ navy first will be a sitting duck.
good thing our f35s are unmatched at stealth and over-the-horizon targeting and sensing. i don't think anyone else can as quickly disassemble a country's air defense and have free skies over an opponent as fast as we can. we also have the edge in multi-vehicle data sharing, so info from satellites and other aircrafts can be used for targeting as well without, likely without alerting the target that they're a target.
Some lousy mathematics here. An increase of 200% is enough to triple production. A 300% increase would actually quadruple production. If anybody doubts that, then think what a 100% increase would do. It's a common mistake, but a very basic one. Note, he gets it right by 1943 with a 100% increase, or doubling having claimed the previous year's tripling was a 300% increase.
The training of the pilots is also much more time consuming than before the a 3rd world war would be over before new pilots are finished with their training.
Nazi defeat was practically a given, as soon as the USA entered WWII, beacause of it's huge industrial base (and economy). This applies to the Ukranian war to. Russia has an economy the size of Spain alone. But even worse, the industrial base isn't what makes up the economy - it's comodities exports like oil, gas and metals. The moment it became clear that USA, Britain and several other advanced economies would support Ukraine, Putin should have given up, under whatever pretext he could invent. There is just no chance whatsoever that Russia can win against 50 other countries. Instead he is destroying Russia. The west will not bomb Russia to rubble, like Nazi Germany was. But everything else about Russia will stop developing for at least two generations. And even the country itself might collapse. With or without civil war. (Having 37 private armies in a country, competing for political influence, is a really bad idea. It usually only takes two sides to rip a country to pieces.
i think you're wrong. i think Russia will last for awhile. it IS starting to make deals with other countries, including nations that look like they will develop drastically in the future. the USA and Europe are not the total masters of the world they used to be. advanced economies need raw materials and cheap labour too. also, the USA gets a lot of its materials from China, and those two aren't on the friendliest of terms. it doesn't matter anyway. we're all going to be bathed in nuclear fire soon most likely, so who cares how many planes you can produce.
There are a number of US companies that have agreements with the DOD to change over from civilian to military manufacturing in a short period of time. In reality its not as difficult as it would seem. Even during WW2 the changeover was finished in a short time.
It's opposite actually, in WW2 it was much easier for manufacturing to shift from cilivian goods to military equipments, however, as the technology improves, military hardware got so complicated that only very selected facilities can match the requirements
If mainstream is true, not Russia as they got too many people for their factories (or several hundred thousands workers would lose their job and so unrest and instability ) and are thus inefficient. (compared to capitalist US MIC who try to be as efficient as possible to maximize the profits)
@@DarkSnake49542 Russia does have a industry though not as big as the U.S and some of them are old, though if Russia was to be invaded out of nowhere (in it’s own territory) and it’s population was willing to fight, then I can see them mass produce weapons, not on the U.S level but at a good pace
A key point missed is pilot training and whether it would in fact be logical to scale up production of manned combat jets at all. Far better to align the civil sector with the production of large drone carriers and the full suite of drones from small to full scale replacements for manned fighters. After all you may go into a major war with the weapons of the last war - but the winner comes out of it with the weapons of the next one.
Boeing can produce... uhh since when did Boeing make all of its airliners in the US? This 800 figure includes the 100 produced in China. Parts of that 800 also takes place in Japan, South Korea, UK etc.
In the 1940s, outsourcing was not a thing. Your industry was entirely defined by your domestic production. Nowadays, the west has outsourced so much of its own production that it leaves domestic production lacking. We were so distracted by cheap foreign labour that we didn't realise we were weakening our own industries in the process
Oh no, they fully realized, but they just didn't care. The greedy corporations were more than willing to bring this country down, as long as they continued to make windfall profits...and that hasn't changed, to this day.
A factor Binkov didn't touch on is that we likely wouldn't NEED that many aircraft. A single F-15 Strike Eagle can carry significantly more ordinance than a WW2 B-29 Superfortress, and those bombs can be precision guided. A target that in WW2 would take hundreds of bombers and thousands of bombs could now be destroyed by a single F-15- which could then go on to strike even more targets before heading home. You'll run out of targets before you need WW2 production levels.
in war you have "military first" doctrine. If TSMC wouln't make dozens chips per car and all these things for smartphones and essentially toys and home aplliences - focusing of just pumping out drivers for smart munitions and military equipment - I'm more than sure we (as "the west") are capable of making enough. Vast part of that market is civilian so there's a LOT of room to improve
@@TST1998 HQ and biggest factory in Taiwan (I see where you're going, yes, strike distance from China), but factories are pretty global, especially currently built ones. Also pretty much entire supply chain of it (notably ASML) is within' "The west" - Europe, US, Japan and Korea
No F14s . The F14s were destroyed to keep Iran from getting spare parts and to appease the Russians in some sort of treaty . Plus they were maintenance intensive. In many ways in terms of Kinimatics,payload ,range and speed the F14s best the F35s and F18s.
An excellent logistics-oriented video. Thank you Binkov! Your ending naturally begs for a similar video for maritime military capacities (both current and potential in this hypothetical ww3 scenario of yours) of different countries. I would assume that countries such as South Korea and Netherlands might prove surprisingly big players in that regard.
Ramping up F-35 production could be tough but what about a simpler design ? Something shaped like the F-16XL but based on the T-7 Redhawk. The fuselage would be designed for E-glas, S-glas and carbon with a high temp epoxy like bismaldimine and vacuum bagged but not autoclaved. It could be built by boat builders.
The issue would be pilot training not aircraft manufacturing. The Valkyrie and loyal wingman drones are the best bet to reach that level of airframe usage.
@@engineeringvision9507 Who is "you" here? Apple consumers are mindless drones. Nothing to do with military production either, which is mostly domestic in the US and can source it's own reconstructive resources.
@@InkyBlitz Yup lots of military production in the US, but most of the civilian production has been shipped to China. It's not like WW2 where the US was a sort of global megafactory.
modern manufacturing isn't a guy with a drill bent over a steel bar ...the defense industry is 70% automated , so they're not just throw more people at it question , electricians , robotics programmers ,sculptures , electronics engineers , computer programmers etc , so unless you hire more of those no dice ...unless you increase the speed , the rate of production ....and none of that takes into account supply , liquified rubys, platinum , gold , composite materials , semiconductors, more microchips than a server bank ,....and that's not finance at all , ot for the labor is small cash 👍
Umm, I don’t know how much you’ve worked in aviation, but aircraft manufacturing is far from automated. Parts may be milled through CNC machines and such, however, the assembly of aircraft is completely done by hand. Automation does not work in aviation overall.
Automation is more cost effective and accurate. But you 100% would throw bodies at the manufacturing in a war. Output above all else is all that matter. Rework rates of 50% don't matter if you get an extra 200 planes this year
All this considered, a single successful airstrike/missile strike on a factory will hinder production greatly. Modern technology is too complex and expensive. Production can be very fragile. This can be said for all nations though.
true, and the real issue is its soooo much cheaper to build a hypersonic missile than it is to shoot one down. that is the disconnect right now.... and like all weapons it will eventually have a foil or shield that works well, its just many years off. Ukraine is about to get its cities destroyed by Iranian high end ballistic missiles that only patriot and a few other systems can take out and guess what? Ukraine does not have those.
It’s a lot more demanding to get an F-35 out thanks to electronics, stealth coatings, and all sorts of other technologies and avionics compared to a P-51 mustang, which really was just metal with an engine and machine guns.
But a lot of that training is on multi-role stuff. Train single-role pilots and it goes quicker. Less versatile, sure. But when the size of your airforce needs to quadruple, you can afford to specialize a bit. On top of that, I'm pretty sure the current training schedule is based around a 40 hour work week. No reason why you wouldn't do 6 10 hour days if you need to crank out pilots faster. And there are an abundance of people who could serve as trainers, from civilians doing basic flight training to retired military pilots for the advanced stuff.
4.5 gen fighters instead of 5th gen fighters can help achieve better figures. Jas Grippen is such a plane that can be operacional ready at any time and be a game changer. Almost as effective as a 5th gen fighter with a lower price.
That would be true a few years ago, but Lockheed Martin's F-35A production line has gotten more efficient and they can produce one with less cost than a Gripen. Yes, a 5th-gen that's lower cost per unit than a 4+ gen. Why would anyone go for an older plane for higher upfront payment? Also no stealth.
@@korakochmonka8582 the issue with F-35 si that they need a lot of hours to repost and go back to the action. Grippen needs 15 minutes. Is not only about price but availability, supply chain and reaction times. Theoretically you can make, I don't know... 7 missions with Grippen? While you have 2 with F-35? I need to check the figures but You understand.
The cost of procuring modern combat aircraft isn't the only thing that grew exponentially over time... also the cost of teaching and training pilots has grown just as much, which is why drones are the way of the future now, and the Irani drones being currently used at the war in Ukraine are quite possibly paving the way for what will be unmanned warfare as some scifi writers have envisioned
True.Ultimately Technology and manufacturing capacity will trump all sorts of military valor and experience. that easily puts US,China,India and even Russia(biggest natural resources country) as the countries with biggest military potential in world.
No one can mass produce 5th gen fighters. However, 4th gen fighter could be stamped out somewhat quickly. The idea would be to use the 5th gen fighters conservatively as force multipliers while the 4th gen fighters and stand off weapons to the heavy lifting.
I think a better question to this scenario would be: Is the US capable of expanding the current militairy planes expansion production while simultaniously able to make great leapse in militairy fighter technology. The 1945 were vastly superiour then the 1939 variants.
Well no. They were the same except with more power. WWII fighters were sheet metal bent and riveted together with an engine, guns, and a radio. That is all.
Biden’s $300 million “counter Chinese influence” money is treating you well. Also see Operation Earnest Voice; DPP 1450; Falun Gong. Thief cry thief lol 😂.
Why would you bother with ramping up the numbers much on the high technology planes, the smarter method would be ramp up a little bit to use in certain high stakes scenarios but more ramp up massively relatively cheap drone production and put gamers to work
@@AkilanKamarajan i mean even with our supplying ukraine with a bunch of tech to fight drones including their electronic components, those kamikaze drones are still proving best dealt with by cheap AA guns and more expensive AA rockets.
@@lulzywizard7576 They are fighting against poorly equipt russian which don t even know what a software codings is .....apple to orange (when to big power meet both would disable their enemies drone first.
US industrial capacity is huge and would take about the same amount of time that it did during WWII - roughly two years. Then the US would produce MORE equipment than it could recruit and train people to use the equipment.
You hit it on the head at the end of the video. Between new builds and refurbishing boneyard airframes, we would have enough aircraft in the US but what would really be needed is missiles. Fast track the Aim 260 and make 'em by the thousands. You could build simple F16s with AESA radars and launch dozens of 260s to overwhelm anything the enemy might have. F35s and 22s would be a luxury in a missile war. They could be used to take out SAM sites and the like. Missiles,missiles, missiles would win a modern air war.
I work in manufacturing, tech based. Have also worked in aviation. My hat goes off to manufacturing that revolves around things like 5th gen fighters. I don't know how they pull it off, but I can guarantee it's via a lot of stress and a lot of competence.
As a former Rockwell Collins engineer, I was surprised to hear Binkov utter that name. But I wanted mention that that company is now Collins Aerospace, a division of UTC and now Raytheon.
Fighers are way more technical and complex than back in the 1940's. Making 10 or 20k fighters in 1year is impossible in today's time frame. Drones are the future.
The American advantage in commercial aviation can also see those planes being repurposed as transports for rapid global deployment of soldiers on a scale never seen before
In actual wartime. Especially on a world scale, the US wouldn't obviously be working alone. I think you severely underestimate the numbers of products, parts, and components of every kind would be unbelievably massive through the joint efforts of the allies. Unmatched by any size and number of axis forces. Also, we wouldn't be fighting strictly with the complex, hard to build fighting machines and jets. The allies would absolutely hire as many design minds as possible and begin designing new jets, planes, and other military equipment more suited for much quicker production and still able to retain or improve upon the current combat capabilities of today's most advanced jet fighters or tanks. That's what an actual, massive, world war would do to a nation's mindset. So we wouldn't have fleets of f35's or f16's , we'd have completely new jet's that look, feel, fly, and kill in completely different ways. Jets we could call things like The Mustang 2, or Super Spitfires. The allies would also take over currently existing mines of every type to assure and increase supply, refinement, and production of fuel and materials. We'd have whole new divisions built for scientists to create new materials. Design teams by the thousands working at newly built research and development centers. Because again, THAT is what real world war does to a nation that has the capabilities to do such things. And finding soldier's, jet pilot's, or any other military personnel wouldn't be an issue. When you give a nation a damn good reason to fight, such as protection their homeland and allies, the population mentality changes and we want to fight and volunteer ourselves to the cause. People by the millions will be lining up for training. Ultimately, I think you severely dumb down and over simplify the entire situation and outlook on what wartime does to a nation and it's way of thinking and abilities to win a massive multi-year campaign. This video is really on a caveman level compared to reality.
Binkov, I have to say your report is well thought out and researched. The thing that I would say though is its rhe exact same thing that the Americans faced in world war 2. The Americans sold contracts to commercial industry to produce. So long as there are factories in place (there are) you will see large numbers of units being produced. Most of the M4 Sherman's were built by automotive companies like Ford and Chrysler. For that reason the hardest thing to predict in war is production.
One wrench thrown into this assessment that didn't exist for US wartime manufacturing in WW2 is ballistic missiles. Using existing manufacturing infrastructure wouldn't last long since they would be targeted by the thousand and thousands of ballistic missiles with conventional warheads that would certainly target this crucial infrastructure. It would take much longer to get up to volume production of anything since we would essentially need to build out secure underground factories for production from scratch. We might be able to hold off some destruction with setting up aggressive missile defense systems for these factories but eventually some will get through and it doesn't take but one missile to make a direct hit to completely disrupt manufacturing and bring it to a screeching halt.
Problem with that scenario: an intercontinental (conventional) ballistic missile looks identical on early warning systems to a an intercontinental (nuclear) ballistic missile. Once the target is identified as the United States, nobody is going to wait around to see how big the boom is. It will be assumed to be a nuke, the response for which is a retaliatory nuclear strike.
We have seen that this is the achilles heel of the Russian airforce during the war. However, should that prove to be insufficient, in a real world war like situation wouldn't they go back to 'the old ways'? When it becomes a world war, casualties and losses become quite a bit more acceptable. It does raise some interesting questions.
The US has developed systems that can be retrofitted to older equipment. It also has weapons platforms that produce very strange forces. The US has a missile system platform that allows small fishing boats to launch missiles. It also has missile programs that can be applied to commercial aircraft and so on. Every high output manufacturing process in the US can be integrated into a wartime program.
If world war happened. 1. Marine radar manufacturing would not swap to air radar manufacturing. Ship manufacturing would be increased as well. 2. Limit would be chips more than anything else. Depending on the location of war, major suppliers might be cut off, making ship shortage a huge issues.
Before 1980 the USA still retained an industrial capability, today almost all of the subcomponents used by US industry come from China or Asia... the USA would need to rebuild it's entire industrial capacity from the iron and coal mining through steel mills and on up through the basic machining capabilities... It would take 10 years minimum to get the USA's industrial capacity back on line and the USA is very divided and very unlikely to pull together given the fractious political climate today. Often your channel is good but this is seeing the USA through rose colored glasses...
Ehh the majority of US trade flows are with Mexico or Canada, not China. It would not have no impact, but there is still a huge industrial capacity through close Allie’s and immediate neighbors.
one thing that'd be an important factor is drones, in this case larger drones, and to some extent cruise missiles, not all aviation would have an onboard pilot, and drones can be a lot simpler.
US would not have to manufacture as much hardware as they did in WWII. One plane now in service can carry as much destructive power as all of the planes used in WWII.
If WW3 happens the US will build in excess of 100,000 fighter aircraft, 1000 carriers, millions of aircraft, hundreds of thousands of armoured vehicles. While it is true that a single fighter today has more firepower due to force multiplier effects of technology they still will need to be able to cover a wide theater of war.
@@bighands69 WW3 IS happening. It's just that nobody is shooting it yet. But no way can the US, or anybody, build 1000 carriers now let alone if a shooting WW3 breaks out.
@@denniskoppo4259 The US in WW2 had over 100 aircraft carriers in the pacific. When I say 1000 carriers that will be down to the fact that the US has made a 20 fold increase in production output since WW2. Based on Just population levels the US went from 140 million people in 1945 to 320 million today. Modern carriers will be used for helicopters and attack drones and also vertical take off aircraft. It will not all be used for fighter jets. Even C-130s can take off and land from an aircraft carrier. Right now the US has about 20 active aircraft carriers and several in storage. With a 4 year war there will be massive increases in production with automation being used to increase that output as well as an increased population. Right now the US produces 20 commercial scale ships every year and in a war that figure will go through the roof.
@@denniskoppo4259 1000 carriers is feasible. They just wouldn't be the Modern carriers we have today. Dig up the specs of the old Liberty ships. And use those as a carrier for drones. An "ugly duckling" liberty ship can be quickly and cheaply put together by inexperienced welders. Pair those with cheap long range drones in place of expensive modern air craft. And you have an affordable pocket carrier.
That recruiting, training time is a special advantage of drones, isn't it? Not to mention they can be built to a lower standard with no pilot to preserve.
The most important thing about a pilot controlling a drone is that the pilot LIVES if the drone is downed. After a while they would become scarily good. The things a pilot could do with such a plane with not risk of dying? Food for thought.
TL;DW: Not as many aircraft, but airplanes today are generally larger, more powerful, more expensive, and more complex than in World War 2, so they'd take more time, materials, expertise, and equipment to make, so fewer would be made.
Computers, tooling automation, off the shelf and cross developed parts, better transportation systems, 2022 population of 331,000,000 compared to1943 pop of 136,739,353. an existing robust and advanced commercial and military aviation sector makes for more aircraft.
@@stevea2909 Planes are larger, more sophisticated, and although our population is larger, it's older, has fewer people employed in manufacturing, and while we have more manufacturing in absolute terms compared to 1940, it's less in relative terms. Plus, aircraft require more types of materials than they used to.
Indeed there is no possibility to mass manufacture in the same amout as in WW2 modern fighter jets not even speaking about the pilots who need years of training , on the other hand you could do it with drones , they are smaller simpler dont need human interfaces which require a lot of expertize and fine tuning to develop they basically need only computers and sensors from the electronics perspective , you write the softwarte one time and thats it .
@@marekstepanaxureta6218 Precisely. But UAVs have a trade-off in that they're susceptible to electronic warfare completely compromising the platform. At least in a manned aircraft, the pilot can't be hacked.
@@swedhgemoni8092 it depends on the implementation of the UAV if you dont want realtime control / feedback then it can be made to be invulnerable to EM warfarfe very easily
If we had to the US could increase production of any weapon system to a degree that is unbelievable. WW2 was unique. The US was not ready to fight two wars. The US did not have to go into massive production to fight in Korea, Vietnam, the first Iraq War, the second Iraq War, or Afghanistan. We already have the military that we need to fight and win against anyone.
Worth noting that during WW2 many car factories were converted into making tank, plane and ship parts and sometimes the entire finished products. One example is a Ford factory making the B-24 Liberator from start to finish. 18,500 units in total were made during the war with 8,685 being made by Ford at a car factory.
Modern automation and engineering would be used including auto industry to make aircraft, missiles and other weapons platforms. Modern companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Texas instruments and so on would be producing the control systems for modern weapons. A simple controller chip such as Texas Instruments msp platform would be used for guidance controls.
Unless the US reaches microchips and semiconductors independance i cant see they reaching the level of production like in world war 2, nowadays everything has a computer chip or semiconductors inside by knocking up Taiwan you could easily fuck up the supply chain of US military war machine production to its core, rising factories to do so cant be done in a whim it will take years maybe decades for the US to reach level of quality and production Taiwan does. If a world war 3 starts today even if they focus all the tax payers money in overdrive they cant reach the level of mass production like they did in world war 2 because of that, right now they cant even give more Javelins and Stingers to Ukraine and need some years to actually restock the stockpile they donated. The CHIPS and Science act passed quicly unanimously without partisan bickering this year for a reason
And that not taking account raw materials. One example is titanium. They have to redesign the Stinger missiles (or it was javelins) to not use titanium, because without Ukraine, only Brics countries can produce enough titanium to be put into mass production.
US aircraft production in 1944 was one plane being completed every 5.5 minutes. That is beyond insane!
Rate of ship production was also crazy, but that's for a different video.
Can't afford that with $100 million F35 fighters.
The US already reached $31trillion in war debt. The world is dropping US treasuries and the USD as a reserve currency.
China is unmatched in their capacity to build ships. However the amount of materials to build a ship and train sailors would be massive so ramping up production may prove difficult.
The US could increase aircraft but could it produce the pilots? Not nearly to the extent they could airplanes.
But sophisticated air defense systems like S-300 S-400 and S-500s already makes the airforce significantly reduce its role in warfare.
@@eliasziad7864 No. Actually modern aviation combat systems endanger air defense. Drone swarms. An S-XXX high digit modern SAM gets target saturated. Aircraft need not fly into range of threat air defense. Weapons and drones are released just outside aquisition range. They make their way on their own, and attack target from multiple vectors. Some would be shot down, some malfunction, but enough would get through and detonate on target. Air Defense missiles , I suspect, will give way to directed energy air defense (DEAD). Solid state laser operating in infrared range. Microwave beam (MASER) that concnetrates microwaves for local high intensity EMP, that destroys electronic components and munition casing via heating.
High energy air defense X-Ray beam (XRASER), pronounced 'ray zor' , for extra long range reach. Destroys target via extreme heating of X-Ray beam on target skin.
@@dkoz8321 I don't care.
I think it would be possible to retool to make 4th gen fighters in large scale relatively quickly. The big question is how to train pilots at scale as the air combat space is significantly more complex today than back during ww2
I think at that you look to pull the pilot out of the 4th gen jet.
In War one prefers ASAP over perfection. Training time would be reduced to months for someone with previous flight experience.
10s of 1000s of younger video gamers would like to take on some real world flying!
@@davefranklyn7730 hey i would say why not? Hehe
Retoool to make 4th gen fighters relatively quickly? Relatively quickly compared to who? Gambia? Costa Rica?
WE DON'T HAVE A SUFFICIENT BASE OF TOOL AND DIE PLANTS to even make such a thing possible, let alone likely.
I wonder if the question should be if it should. Modern planes are faster, can fly longer, carry more weapons.
Cottage cheese
that goes for modern anti air systems though
My two favorite channels in the same comment section ? Am I dreaming ?
@@Jack_Redview unbelievable right?
Or even 'could' might be the right question. Love the videos, thanks Binkovs.
The US couldn’t produce planes like they did in WW2, but they could out perform their enemies by the same proportions.
Ever read Red Storm Rising? The real world wouldn't be quite that nice to the US, because in the real world every now and then the other side gets a moment of genius when we have our pants down to piss (and both sides have much better technology), but it's mostly still good.
@@dbadaddy7386 Yes I read read Red Storm rising it is a work of fiction that takes significant literary license with real world facts to create a conflict that isn’t one sided. The technological edge the West has over Russia and China is huge. Even though politicians and Western militaries say it isn’t. Why do they lie to us? Because if they didn’t lie we would demand cuts in military spending to enhance domestic spending and the politicians, military, and military contractors want to avoid that at all costs.
enemies such as... oh, say, some South American country flying leftover P-51's, or do you mean Russia (which produces top notch Aeronautical Engineers) or China (who are the world's leading industrial thieves.... especially since our federal government has become so corrupt that they let Chinese nationals work in facilities which are supposed to require top secret clearance AND U.S. Citizenship to work in them -- yet somehow, Chinese, without even disguising their names, are getting full access to designs of our nuclear warheads, aircraft, missiles, etc. AND the Chinese literally just buy Russian jets and blatantly copy the stuff without even hiding what they're doing.
I think they could
I remember the old days when Binkov would talk about hypothetical wars, and only real peace could bring us all together.
@Yanks R EVIL Look at the history of governments. You can't just point the finger at any one. They ALL lie, cheat, steal, and kill.
The old days are over, Live in the present kiddo
@@KingdomRepublic Obviously, my initial joke went over your head. 🤷♂
People claiming that we do not have enough "skilled Mechanic's" or that "American males are weak or unknowledgeable with tools" are just flat out stupid.. our real mechanics are working for themselves because aviation mech wages have not increased in over 70+ years....in the 1950's an aviation mechanic made 52k per year in 2020 aviation mechanics made 52k a year , why would a toolhead mechanic work in an industry that pays there mechanics less than your local Ford dealership repair shops .....the moment WWIII breaks out they would start paying 150-400k a year and the "skilled Mechanic's" would roll in and make miracles happen...I have an electrical engineering degree ,10 years as a helicopter electrician, 10 years building new helicopters of various types and designs , I hold an FCC communications repairman certificate in everything including fiber optics and ship radar endorsement, I have both my airframe and powerplant certs completed and awaiting final practical....I make more from my garage repairing cars, tractors, and other assorted equipment than I did working 75+ hrs a week for the biggest aviation production companies in America....+ I can still self medicate my war time PTSD with weed.
People forgot that millions of housewives became tradesmen, steel workers, and factory workers within 6 months while the men went out to fight. They underestimate how skilled our people can be if needed.
A similar video on Chinese vs US ship building capacity would be very interesting. The Chinese naval buildup is already producing ships on a massive scale.
Their commercial shipbuilding is even more impressive. Half of the world total production.
The US would switch manufacturing to the 6th gen fighters and focus mostly on unmanned support planes to support the conflict. Mostly because cost/tech/size benefits would allow for quicker and cheaper manufacturing contributing to higher output volumes.
Don't forget about the boneyard. Thousands of airframes to provide quick replenishment of equipment while new production ramps up.
The point about producing guided munitions over aircraft is important. In WW2 you could send an entire squadron of bombers to destroy and factory and completely miss it, where as one Strike Eagle could reliably hit any target you asked it to.
You are right. The Russians are finding out that fancy aircraft on a modern battlefield without these kinds of munitions are VERY vulnerable.
@@grumbeard
That is where modern radar, computer targeting, computer modelling and so on get layered into the weapons and attacks systems.
The US has retrofitted a lot of old missiles with new targeting systems so even 1950s style missiles have lots of accuracy.
The US can also integrate communications and targeting from the ground into air attacks. A simple drone can target everything in a battle space for an awesome scale missile strike.
@@bighands69 That and the information network the US posess is truly terrifying.
I am an avid reader of the first gulf war and if they could do those things in the early nineties... boy what could they do nowadays.
The short answer is... "No".
The long answer is... "Well, No."
If you look at the engineering, there's like an absolute value kind of thing where the more complicated an item gets, the more complicated the supply line gets, the bloom for how much you need to be able to create the plane skyrockets logarithmically as you try to scale up, just like a military logistics math problem. The airplanes we used to make in WW2 weren't all that different from making a car at the time (in fact, most new cars now are significantly more complicated than any airplane made in WW2) and you only need so much in the way of support materials and specially machined components. Let's say you would need five major items, and five factories producing those items. Even from scratch, you can make those 5 factories pretty quickly, and make whole new factory lines quickly, because it's relatively simple. For something like an F 35, you need more like three hundred of those components, made in god only knows how many factories. That isn't something you can spin up quickly. The back end of that, from labor, to research, to various managerial and operationsl skills for the actories and logistics, requres an entire culture to be inculcated in a whole generation of people, and we only have so many of those people trained. What will likely happen if we were to go to an all out war would be the creation of a bunch of older planes that are not nearly as advanced that we can mass produce much more quickly, something like a ton of F14 or F16. But the idea that we'd be able to just pop out five thousand F22s or F35s as if they were P51 mustangs isn't going to happen, especially if our cities or production lines start taking any kind of damage.
I think you are also assuming that the US can continue its imports as usually. I think there is a good change that the US will quickly find that its short on components used to build planes, engines, radars, computers, and so on pretty quick and have to start rebuilding the infrastructure to try and make them locally.
@@cp1cupcake it will find a slight shortage but will likely be able to pick it back up again in both global and home production.
Its just not required. Whole point of building high tech weapons is that you don’t need a lot to make a large impact. The US has both quality and quantity already. We simply don’t need more production. There is no adversary out there that even remotely has the same level of technology as us. China is near but still at least a few decades away from anything close to what the US has.
Europe is closer than China lol
I hate how engrained in youtube culture established titles has become. The company Is based in Hong-Kong in other words it has nothing to do with the Scottish government so you're giving them money for land that they don't own and all you get for it is a fake certificate. There is no laws in place in Scotland to make people lords by buying a foot of land it's just not a thing. It is a title that is bestowed within the government it is not bought.
Speaking as someone who has had enough time with this. Never under-estimate how much US can do in economic and production terms if it wants to, and never under-estimate how much a country that is full of corruption can do if its poked to fight someone.
The amount of AI drones the car manufacturers could make in a WW3 scenario would be staggering.
Yeah, yours is a good point: I'd give Elon a buck & all of a sudden Korea is united again. Eh, who is to say?
I suspect in WW3 it would be drone and guided missile production that would be scaled up more than anything. Not only more bang for your buck, but you don’t lose a skilled pilot every time you lose an aircraft.
Nah. Tanks and artillery.
@@eliasziad7864 that's Russian thinking and that is exactly why they are losing, Firepower is important BUT NOT EVERYTHING!
There is also cost effective, Range and accuracy and flexibility and many more
I’d add stealth fighters/bombers. Air power still is crucial esp if we are talking a world war covering huge amounts of territory.
Nope! Drones aren’t the ‘future of warfare’, quit reading crap internet takes about Nagorno Karabakh
You are completely ignoring the fact that the US has a massive airplane graveyard with older jets and other military aircraft that would need work to be able to use them again, but less work than building a new airplane. They are being stored there, but a lot of them are still in good condition. There are incredible ammounts of airplanes available. Same goes for other military vehicles like tanks, MRAPs and APCs.
Yeah, its not the number of planes that are the issue. It's the lack of pilots.
U s.a. have not maintain their spare parts ...
They are being careless....
But russia do,because they know their economy well.......
@@sahilk5885 Bro the english here.Aww poor russian supporting indian suffering from copium
@@sahilk5885 i highly doubt that the spare parts is not maintained, theres a lot of people taking care in the boneyard to make things well-maintained in case of salvage for some parts to be used again.
I realized from WW II how important the switch over of civilian products to military products was, but I had lost sight of how it would happen for modern military combat planes. Thanks for this eye opening exploration.
You're missing a part of this analysis. You forgot the U.S. also produces drones... All of those figures are for manned aircraft.
FYI, those plots are a scam. The land never belongs to you and can be sold any time the real owner.
Honestly, as of today it's disputable. During WW1 and WW2 the US was rather isolationist and kept their production capacity at home. As of now most plants/factory are empty and closed down due to foreign outsourcing.
WW2? In early years yes but late no
WW2 aircraft were simple compared to today’s military airplanes. Add to this the training was rudimentary compared to today. The training accident rate of WW2 was horrendous. Several times higher than combat losses.
You did it!!! I’m so glad you added the “Mac”!!! Thank you Laird MacBinkov! Great presentation, as usual, keep up the great work!
Takes longer to train a F-22A or F-35 pilot than it is to build one. Training can be condensed and pilot retention forced but there will need to be a corresponding increase in training of pilots with any increase in production. Also with the older gen planes the Air Force keeps a huge reserve of them stored in the desert which are brought online by refurbishing the airframe or salvaging them for major components. These can be used to replace losses or meet new export contracts. In a wartime scenario this stockpile would become busy to plus up the inventory.
there are a lot more pilots in private industry then there was in the 30's. Not the same level of training of course, but all the basics are already there. There are 10's of thousands of current pilots to pull recruits from.
It is kind of a moot point. The days of hundreds of aircraft in the skies are long over.
air superiority will always be the most important thing even in future wars, that will never change
Numbers are definitely not useless but the US heavily relies on its technological edge to minimize losses and maximize unit effectiveness. Desert Storm was the last big show of air power by the US, and in a modern war the US would probably use similar tactice
@@talandar5773 not reslly because in a real war you will fight contry that have air defence and it is for this reason that you cannot rellay on air
True but we still could if we wanted to
@@talandar5773 aka Blitzkrieg but more modern
You have forgotten the aircraft boneyards. There are thousands of airframes sitting in the desert stripped, just waiting.
They are the initial refurb while factories are being retooled/ built.
Older model aircraft, with less flying time life left following years of service, but they are still an important strategic reserve.
Can you make: "what if modern day us military went back to 1941"
Short answer? Pax Americana
@@KinoTechUSA69 I really want him to make a video on that, I've been begging for litteral months
Where would you put it?
@@barryon8706 north america?
@@PineappleMaxwell like a 1:1 swap, everything the US is now, current population and everything replacing 1941 US? That'd be a really fun video.
Okay yet forgets about the 100's of aircraft in America's boneyards , that are well maintained and inspected each year and stored in a dry climate that could be bought back into service quicker than building brand new ones 🤔
It takes 3-4 modern planes with only guns to take those aircrafts out bruh 🗿
@@mohammedarafatlone bruh , I think the Americans could detect and shoot down any attack before they even reach the boneyards with the national guard aircraft nevermind the USAF 🤣😂
Do the same video but for armored vehicles (MBT's, IFV's, APC's) or for naval assets.
In 2019 I did deliveries of PW300s engines from Montreal Canada to Miami going to South America to be used in military use passenger jets. I delivered 2 per 8 days. I took 2 at a time 63 loads per year for 126 engines. We had 3 trucks running all the time. So lets sat 370 engines. All of those engines could be use in Canada or the US instantly. That is just 1 line of the engines built there. I belive all engines made is over 1000 a year with only 2 8 hour shifts. If they added a 3 line and increased hours by 50% to 12 and then worked weekends a 125% increase in output to over 3000 engines per year. So from 6 engines a week to 14. This is without any need to build a new plant.
I am not too sure the Americans can make combat fighters en mass like they could in WW2. They need to realign their industrial production capacity, and most of all their ability to make high tech chips for MILSPEC electronic components. This is why Taiwan is an extremely important strategic ally, also 'reshoring' of chip production back to the US by Raytheon GE Intel and others will be crucial for advanced weapons.
Ive been asking this same question. I believe one of the reasons they keep updating the F15 and F16 is because we will primarily build those since it takes shorter time to build than a gen5 fighter. The next peer to peer war will have to be won within the first 4 to 8 weeks. The time it takes to ramp up production the war will be over long before. Whoever loses thier airforce/ navy first will be a sitting duck.
good thing our f35s are unmatched at stealth and over-the-horizon targeting and sensing. i don't think anyone else can as quickly disassemble a country's air defense and have free skies over an opponent as fast as we can. we also have the edge in multi-vehicle data sharing, so info from satellites and other aircrafts can be used for targeting as well without, likely without alerting the target that they're a target.
Some lousy mathematics here. An increase of 200% is enough to triple production. A 300% increase would actually quadruple production. If anybody doubts that, then think what a 100% increase would do. It's a common mistake, but a very basic one.
Note, he gets it right by 1943 with a 100% increase, or doubling having claimed the previous year's tripling was a 300% increase.
The training of the pilots is also much more time consuming than before the a 3rd world war would be over before new pilots are finished with their training.
nah fam i have over 100 hours in msfs2020 put me in a f18 il be fine
Nazi defeat was practically a given, as soon as the USA entered WWII, beacause of it's huge industrial base (and economy). This applies to the Ukranian war to. Russia has an economy the size of Spain alone. But even worse, the industrial base isn't what makes up the economy - it's comodities exports like oil, gas and metals.
The moment it became clear that USA, Britain and several other advanced economies would support Ukraine, Putin should have given up, under whatever pretext he could invent. There is just no chance whatsoever that Russia can win against 50 other countries.
Instead he is destroying Russia. The west will not bomb Russia to rubble, like Nazi Germany was. But everything else about Russia will stop developing for at least two generations. And even the country itself might collapse. With or without civil war. (Having 37 private armies in a country, competing for political influence, is a really bad idea. It usually only takes two sides to rip a country to pieces.
i think you're wrong. i think Russia will last for awhile. it IS starting to make deals with other countries, including nations that look like they will develop drastically in the future. the USA and Europe are not the total masters of the world they used to be. advanced economies need raw materials and cheap labour too. also, the USA gets a lot of its materials from China, and those two aren't on the friendliest of terms.
it doesn't matter anyway. we're all going to be bathed in nuclear fire soon most likely, so who cares how many planes you can produce.
Russia is winning
Now they producing 3 times more than nato lol
There are a number of US companies that have agreements with the DOD to change over from civilian to military manufacturing in a short period of time. In reality its not as difficult as it would seem. Even during WW2 the changeover was finished in a short time.
It's opposite actually, in WW2 it was much easier for manufacturing to shift from cilivian goods to military equipments, however, as the technology improves, military hardware got so complicated that only very selected facilities can match the requirements
@@andyofzzi still think it’s possible still
You should do similar videos on China, Russia, UK etc.
If mainstream is true, not Russia as they got too many people for their factories (or several hundred thousands workers would lose their job and so unrest and instability ) and are thus inefficient. (compared to capitalist US MIC who try to be as efficient as possible to maximize the profits)
@@DarkSnake49542 Russia does have a industry though not as big as the U.S and some of them are old, though if Russia was to be invaded out of nowhere (in it’s own territory) and it’s population was willing to fight, then I can see them mass produce weapons, not on the U.S level but at a good pace
@@pabcu2507 what is surprising is that since Crimea sanctions, Russia should have a MIC fully independent and here, it isn't. Weird.
A key point missed is pilot training and whether it would in fact be logical to scale up production of manned combat jets at all. Far better to align the civil sector with the production of large drone carriers and the full suite of drones from small to full scale replacements for manned fighters. After all you may go into a major war with the weapons of the last war - but the winner comes out of it with the weapons of the next one.
Boeing can produce... uhh since when did Boeing make all of its airliners in the US? This 800 figure includes the 100 produced in China. Parts of that 800 also takes place in Japan, South Korea, UK etc.
Don't forget about the Boneyard (309th AMARG).
In the 1940s, outsourcing was not a thing. Your industry was entirely defined by your domestic production.
Nowadays, the west has outsourced so much of its own production that it leaves domestic production lacking. We were so distracted by cheap foreign labour that we didn't realise we were weakening our own industries in the process
Oh no, they fully realized, but they just didn't care. The greedy corporations were more than willing to bring this country down, as long as they continued to make windfall profits...and that hasn't changed, to this day.
The real question: could our enemies? They're already outnumbered and under the curve in terms of major combat systems .
Excellent video! I often wondered about US plane production abilities during a possible WW3 event! Excellent video Binkov!
A factor Binkov didn't touch on is that we likely wouldn't NEED that many aircraft. A single F-15 Strike Eagle can carry significantly more ordinance than a WW2 B-29 Superfortress, and those bombs can be precision guided. A target that in WW2 would take hundreds of bombers and thousands of bombs could now be destroyed by a single F-15- which could then go on to strike even more targets before heading home. You'll run out of targets before you need WW2 production levels.
We'd also pull a lot of planes out of the boneyard
The real limitation will be the semiconductors.
in war you have "military first" doctrine. If TSMC wouln't make dozens chips per car and all these things for smartphones and essentially toys and home aplliences - focusing of just pumping out drivers for smart munitions and military equipment - I'm more than sure we (as "the west") are capable of making enough. Vast part of that market is civilian so there's a LOT of room to improve
@@juliuszkocinski7478 Where the manufacturer are located?
@@TST1998 HQ and biggest factory in Taiwan (I see where you're going, yes, strike distance from China), but factories are pretty global, especially currently built ones. Also pretty much entire supply chain of it (notably ASML) is within' "The west" - Europe, US, Japan and Korea
Also not to mention. The 1000s of combat planes we've mothballed that can easily be bright back. F4. F14. F15s f16s.
No F14s . The F14s were destroyed to keep Iran from getting spare parts and to appease the Russians in some sort of treaty . Plus they were maintenance intensive. In many ways in terms of Kinimatics,payload ,range and speed the F14s best the F35s and F18s.
An excellent logistics-oriented video. Thank you Binkov!
Your ending naturally begs for a similar video for maritime military capacities (both current and potential in this hypothetical ww3 scenario of yours) of different countries.
I would assume that countries such as South Korea and Netherlands might prove surprisingly big players in that regard.
Ramping up F-35 production could be tough but what about a simpler design ? Something shaped like the F-16XL but based on the T-7 Redhawk. The fuselage would be designed for E-glas, S-glas and carbon with a high temp epoxy like bismaldimine and vacuum bagged but not autoclaved. It could be built by boat builders.
Yup and in a war of numbers, we would make thousands of simple light fighters.
The issue would be pilot training not aircraft manufacturing. The Valkyrie and loyal wingman drones are the best bet to reach that level of airframe usage.
Technically yes. These days, with automation, we could turn out P-51 Mustangs like crazy.
But China can turn them out at crazy x100, and for a fraction of the price too.
@@engineeringvision9507 No they couldn't and with a fraction of the quality.
@@InkyBlitz You seem happy enough with your made in China iPhone. Being in denial of the problem makes you feel better, but the problem won't go away.
@@engineeringvision9507 Who is "you" here? Apple consumers are mindless drones. Nothing to do with military production either, which is mostly domestic in the US and can source it's own reconstructive resources.
@@InkyBlitz Yup lots of military production in the US, but most of the civilian production has been shipped to China. It's not like WW2 where the US was a sort of global megafactory.
modern manufacturing isn't a guy with a drill bent over a steel bar ...the defense industry is 70% automated , so they're not just throw more people at it question , electricians , robotics programmers ,sculptures , electronics engineers , computer programmers etc , so unless you hire more of those no dice ...unless you increase the speed , the rate of production ....and none of that takes into account supply , liquified rubys, platinum , gold , composite materials , semiconductors, more microchips than a server bank ,....and that's not finance at all , ot for the labor is small cash 👍
Umm, I don’t know how much you’ve worked in aviation, but aircraft manufacturing is far from automated. Parts may be milled through CNC machines and such, however, the assembly of aircraft is completely done by hand. Automation does not work in aviation overall.
Wtf are you smoking? Liquified rubies 😂
Automation is more cost effective and accurate. But you 100% would throw bodies at the manufacturing in a war. Output above all else is all that matter. Rework rates of 50% don't matter if you get an extra 200 planes this year
Do not comment so long....
Boaring.....
No matter the speed of assembly, you can still go 3 shifts , 7 days
Then it's supply chain
The comments are giving me cancer.
All this considered, a single successful airstrike/missile strike on a factory will hinder production greatly. Modern technology is too complex and expensive. Production can be very fragile. This can be said for all nations though.
true, and the real issue is its soooo much cheaper to build a hypersonic missile than it is to shoot one down. that is the disconnect right now.... and like all weapons it will eventually have a foil or shield that works well, its just many years off. Ukraine is about to get its cities destroyed by Iranian high end ballistic missiles that only patriot and a few other systems can take out and guess what? Ukraine does not have those.
An interesting thought experiment. Thank you.
It’s a lot more demanding to get an F-35 out thanks to electronics, stealth coatings, and all sorts of other technologies and avionics compared to a P-51 mustang, which really was just metal with an engine and machine guns.
Pilots take a lot longer to train today than back then, I think getting pilots will be the bottle neck.
We would have a lot of drones, and we could bring back former pilots, who were forced to retire due to medical reasons.
But a lot of that training is on multi-role stuff. Train single-role pilots and it goes quicker. Less versatile, sure. But when the size of your airforce needs to quadruple, you can afford to specialize a bit.
On top of that, I'm pretty sure the current training schedule is based around a 40 hour work week. No reason why you wouldn't do 6 10 hour days if you need to crank out pilots faster. And there are an abundance of people who could serve as trainers, from civilians doing basic flight training to retired military pilots for the advanced stuff.
I would just like to say that I appreciate that binkov wore a kilt during that sponsor moment.
You forgot about the thousands of planes that are “mothballed” in the US.
All the best to everyone
4.5 gen fighters instead of 5th gen fighters can help achieve better figures.
Jas Grippen is such a plane that can be operacional ready at any time and be a game changer.
Almost as effective as a 5th gen fighter with a lower price.
That would be true a few years ago, but Lockheed Martin's F-35A production line has gotten more efficient and they can produce one with less cost than a Gripen.
Yes, a 5th-gen that's lower cost per unit than a 4+ gen. Why would anyone go for an older plane for higher upfront payment?
Also no stealth.
@@korakochmonka8582 the issue with F-35 si that they need a lot of hours to repost and go back to the action. Grippen needs 15 minutes.
Is not only about price but availability, supply chain and reaction times.
Theoretically you can make, I don't know... 7 missions with Grippen? While you have 2 with F-35? I need to check the figures but You understand.
I could imagine the government easily putting out programs for people to switch jobs from making fries to making bombs.
First step would be activating the boneyard planes and recruiting former pilots for those airplanes.
The cost of procuring modern combat aircraft isn't the only thing that grew exponentially over time... also the cost of teaching and training pilots has grown just as much, which is why drones are the way of the future now, and the Irani drones being currently used at the war in Ukraine are quite possibly paving the way for what will be unmanned warfare as some scifi writers have envisioned
True.Ultimately Technology and manufacturing capacity will trump all sorts of military valor and experience.
that easily puts US,China,India and even Russia(biggest natural resources country) as the countries with biggest military potential in world.
@yami6499 lol, india, what?
No one can mass produce 5th gen fighters. However, 4th gen fighter could be stamped out somewhat quickly. The idea would be to use the 5th gen fighters conservatively as force multipliers while the 4th gen fighters and stand off weapons to the heavy lifting.
and cheap drones
I think a better question to this scenario would be: Is the US capable of expanding the current militairy planes expansion production while simultaniously able to make great leapse in militairy fighter technology. The 1945 were vastly superiour then the 1939 variants.
No because they don't have the people with the work ethic they had back then
Well no. They were the same except with more power. WWII fighters were sheet metal bent and riveted together with an engine, guns, and a radio. That is all.
i've always been pretty confident that if need be, NATO could absolutely ANNIHILATE the industry aspect of war.
Ramp up drone production and every 16 yr old gamer becomes a pilot.
I see the ten cent army has dialed in this video lol
They are fast and stupud
Biden’s $300 million “counter Chinese influence” money is treating you well.
Also see Operation Earnest Voice; DPP 1450; Falun Gong.
Thief cry thief lol 😂.
Why would you bother with ramping up the numbers much on the high technology planes, the smarter method would be ramp up a little bit to use in certain high stakes scenarios but more ramp up massively relatively cheap drone production and put gamers to work
Electronic Warfare and Jamming says hello
I doubt the higher-tech manned aircraft would fare much better against electronic warfare
@@AkilanKamarajan i mean even with our supplying ukraine with a bunch of tech to fight drones including their electronic components, those kamikaze drones are still proving best dealt with by cheap AA guns and more expensive AA rockets.
@@twagetomato Yeah they would cause there manned lol
@@lulzywizard7576 They are fighting against poorly equipt russian which don t even know what a software codings is .....apple to orange (when to big power meet both would disable their enemies drone first.
US industrial capacity is huge and would take about the same amount of time that it did during WWII - roughly two years. Then the US would produce MORE equipment than it could recruit and train people to use the equipment.
You hit it on the head at the end of the video. Between new builds and refurbishing boneyard airframes, we would have enough aircraft in the US but what would really be needed is missiles. Fast track the Aim 260 and make 'em by the thousands. You could build simple F16s with AESA radars and launch dozens of 260s to overwhelm anything the enemy might have. F35s and 22s would be a luxury in a missile war. They could be used to take out SAM sites and the like. Missiles,missiles, missiles would win a modern air war.
Established Titles is a scam.
i cant believe they got an ad on here😮
I work in manufacturing, tech based. Have also worked in aviation.
My hat goes off to manufacturing that revolves around things like 5th gen fighters. I don't know how they pull it off, but I can guarantee it's via a lot of stress and a lot of competence.
As a former Rockwell Collins engineer, I was surprised to hear Binkov utter that name.
But I wanted mention that that company is now Collins Aerospace, a division of UTC and now Raytheon.
And? What benefit does that do? Who cares?
Fighers are way more technical and complex than back in the 1940's. Making 10 or 20k fighters in 1year is impossible in today's time frame. Drones are the future.
The American advantage in commercial aviation can also see those planes being repurposed as transports for rapid global deployment of soldiers on a scale never seen before
In actual wartime. Especially on a world scale, the US wouldn't obviously be working alone. I think you severely underestimate the numbers of products, parts, and components of every kind would be unbelievably massive through the joint efforts of the allies. Unmatched by any size and number of axis forces. Also, we wouldn't be fighting strictly with the complex, hard to build fighting machines and jets. The allies would absolutely hire as many design minds as possible and begin designing new jets, planes, and other military equipment more suited for much quicker production and still able to retain or improve upon the current combat capabilities of today's most advanced jet fighters or tanks. That's what an actual, massive, world war would do to a nation's mindset. So we wouldn't have fleets of f35's or f16's , we'd have completely new jet's that look, feel, fly, and kill in completely different ways. Jets we could call things like The Mustang 2, or Super Spitfires. The allies would also take over currently existing mines of every type to assure and increase supply, refinement, and production of fuel and materials. We'd have whole new divisions built for scientists to create new materials. Design teams by the thousands working at newly built research and development centers. Because again, THAT is what real world war does to a nation that has the capabilities to do such things. And finding soldier's, jet pilot's, or any other military personnel wouldn't be an issue. When you give a nation a damn good reason to fight, such as protection their homeland and allies, the population mentality changes and we want to fight and volunteer ourselves to the cause. People by the millions will be lining up for training. Ultimately, I think you severely dumb down and over simplify the entire situation and outlook on what wartime does to a nation and it's way of thinking and abilities to win a massive multi-year campaign. This video is really on a caveman level compared to reality.
I think the idea was to look it at it from a purely technical perspective...
We could go to the bone yard and have already waiting airframes too.
Already doing it with B52s. Just the maintenance time being a factor, as well as follow-ups.
Binkov, I have to say your report is well thought out and researched. The thing that I would say though is its rhe exact same thing that the Americans faced in world war 2. The Americans sold contracts to commercial industry to produce. So long as there are factories in place (there are) you will see large numbers of units being produced. Most of the M4 Sherman's were built by automotive companies like Ford and Chrysler. For that reason the hardest thing to predict in war is production.
One wrench thrown into this assessment that didn't exist for US wartime manufacturing in WW2 is ballistic missiles. Using existing manufacturing infrastructure wouldn't last long since they would be targeted by the thousand and thousands of ballistic missiles with conventional warheads that would certainly target this crucial infrastructure. It would take much longer to get up to volume production of anything since we would essentially need to build out secure underground factories for production from scratch. We might be able to hold off some destruction with setting up aggressive missile defense systems for these factories but eventually some will get through and it doesn't take but one missile to make a direct hit to completely disrupt manufacturing and bring it to a screeching halt.
Problem with that scenario: an intercontinental (conventional) ballistic missile looks identical on early warning systems to a an intercontinental (nuclear) ballistic missile. Once the target is identified as the United States, nobody is going to wait around to see how big the boom is. It will be assumed to be a nuke, the response for which is a retaliatory nuclear strike.
An increase in delivery platforms has no value without a bigger increase in munition delivery. Missile and smartbomb increases are limited as well.
We have seen that this is the achilles heel of the Russian airforce during the war. However, should that prove to be insufficient, in a real world war like situation wouldn't they go back to 'the old ways'? When it becomes a world war, casualties and losses become quite a bit more acceptable. It does raise some interesting questions.
I'd guess with all the weapons being shipped to Ukraine the US is finding ways to ramp up supplies quickly to keep its own stocks up
The US has developed systems that can be retrofitted to older equipment. It also has weapons platforms that produce very strange forces. The US has a missile system platform that allows small fishing boats to launch missiles. It also has missile programs that can be applied to commercial aircraft and so on.
Every high output manufacturing process in the US can be integrated into a wartime program.
Forget building new fighters. Just put missiles on commercial airliners. Problem solved.
Just airdrop white women into the enemy cities, make them wish they were dead
The pilots of the DC-3 and the FW-200 agree with you.
How come the US could produce that many fighter when my hoi4 game with >50 mil can't achieve the same thing
Base game hoi4 is very inaccurate compared to real life
If world war happened. 1. Marine radar manufacturing would not swap to air radar manufacturing. Ship manufacturing would be increased as well. 2. Limit would be chips more than anything else. Depending on the location of war, major suppliers might be cut off, making ship shortage a huge issues.
THIS is the video I’ve always needed
Before 1980 the USA still retained an industrial capability, today almost all of the subcomponents used by US industry come from China or Asia... the USA would need to rebuild it's entire industrial capacity from the iron and coal mining through steel mills and on up through the basic machining capabilities... It would take 10 years minimum to get the USA's industrial capacity back on line and the USA is very divided and very unlikely to pull together given the fractious political climate today. Often your channel is good but this is seeing the USA through rose colored glasses...
Ehh the majority of US trade flows are with Mexico or Canada, not China. It would not have no impact, but there is still a huge industrial capacity through close Allie’s and immediate neighbors.
Not for the US military equipment. China is on the prohibited suppliers list.
You should do this but navy edition that would be cool
The defense manufacturers would still ask for 5 year experience clean record cover letters etc.🤣
And think about the drone production how crazy fast these will be built too for a future war
one thing that'd be an important factor is drones, in this case larger drones, and to some extent cruise missiles, not all aviation would have an onboard pilot, and drones can be a lot simpler.
The limiting factor is the supply chain which is much more global and much more out of control of US now.
US would not have to manufacture as much hardware as they did in WWII. One plane now in service can carry as much destructive power as all of the planes used in WWII.
If WW3 happens the US will build in excess of 100,000 fighter aircraft, 1000 carriers, millions of aircraft, hundreds of thousands of armoured vehicles.
While it is true that a single fighter today has more firepower due to force multiplier effects of technology they still will need to be able to cover a wide theater of war.
@@bighands69 WW3 IS happening. It's just that nobody is shooting it yet. But no way can the US, or anybody, build 1000 carriers now let alone if a shooting WW3 breaks out.
@@denniskoppo4259
The US in WW2 had over 100 aircraft carriers in the pacific. When I say 1000 carriers that will be down to the fact that the US has made a 20 fold increase in production output since WW2.
Based on Just population levels the US went from 140 million people in 1945 to 320 million today.
Modern carriers will be used for helicopters and attack drones and also vertical take off aircraft. It will not all be used for fighter jets. Even C-130s can take off and land from an aircraft carrier.
Right now the US has about 20 active aircraft carriers and several in storage. With a 4 year war there will be massive increases in production with automation being used to increase that output as well as an increased population.
Right now the US produces 20 commercial scale ships every year and in a war that figure will go through the roof.
@@denniskoppo4259 1000 carriers is feasible. They just wouldn't be the Modern carriers we have today.
Dig up the specs of the old Liberty ships. And use those as a carrier for drones. An "ugly duckling" liberty ship can be quickly and cheaply put together by inexperienced welders. Pair those with cheap long range drones in place of expensive modern air craft. And you have an affordable pocket carrier.
Binkov is the goat military channel
That recruiting, training time is a special advantage of drones, isn't it? Not to mention they can be built to a lower standard with no pilot to preserve.
The most important thing about a pilot controlling a drone is that the pilot LIVES if the drone is downed. After a while they would become scarily good. The things a pilot could do with such a plane with not risk of dying? Food for thought.
TL;DW: Not as many aircraft, but airplanes today are generally larger, more powerful, more expensive, and more complex than in World War 2, so they'd take more time, materials, expertise, and equipment to make, so fewer would be made.
Computers, tooling automation, off the shelf and cross developed parts, better transportation systems, 2022 population of 331,000,000 compared to1943 pop of 136,739,353. an existing robust and advanced commercial and military aviation sector makes for more aircraft.
@@stevea2909 Planes are larger, more sophisticated, and although our population is larger, it's older, has fewer people employed in manufacturing, and while we have more manufacturing in absolute terms compared to 1940, it's less in relative terms. Plus, aircraft require more types of materials than they used to.
No. The amount of electronics modern fighter aircraft carry alone will take up a lot of expertise, let alone other components.
Indeed there is no possibility to mass manufacture in the same amout as in WW2 modern fighter jets not even speaking about the pilots who need years of training , on the other hand you could do it with drones , they are smaller simpler dont need human interfaces which require a lot of expertize and fine tuning to develop they basically need only computers and sensors from the electronics perspective , you write the softwarte one time and thats it .
@@marekstepanaxureta6218 Precisely. But UAVs have a trade-off in that they're susceptible to electronic warfare completely compromising the platform. At least in a manned aircraft, the pilot can't be hacked.
@@swedhgemoni8092 it depends on the implementation of the UAV if you dont want realtime control / feedback then it can be made to be invulnerable to EM warfarfe very easily
Do one for ground assets.
If we had to the US could increase production of any weapon system to a degree that is unbelievable. WW2 was unique. The US was not ready to fight two wars.
The US did not have to go into massive production to fight in Korea, Vietnam, the first Iraq War, the second Iraq War, or Afghanistan. We already have the military that we need to fight and win against anyone.
Worth noting that during WW2 many car factories were converted into making tank, plane and ship parts and sometimes the entire finished products.
One example is a Ford factory making the B-24 Liberator from start to finish. 18,500 units in total were made during the war with 8,685 being made by Ford at a car factory.
Modern automation and engineering would be used including auto industry to make aircraft, missiles and other weapons platforms.
Modern companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Texas instruments and so on would be producing the control systems for modern weapons. A simple controller chip such as Texas Instruments msp platform would be used for guidance controls.
Unless the US reaches microchips and semiconductors independance i cant see they reaching the level of production like in world war 2, nowadays everything has a computer chip or semiconductors inside by knocking up Taiwan you could easily fuck up the supply chain of US military war machine production to its core, rising factories to do so cant be done in a whim it will take years maybe decades for the US to reach level of quality and production Taiwan does. If a world war 3 starts today even if they focus all the tax payers money in overdrive they cant reach the level of mass production like they did in world war 2 because of that, right now they cant even give more Javelins and Stingers to Ukraine and need some years to actually restock the stockpile they donated.
The CHIPS and Science act passed quicly unanimously without partisan bickering this year for a reason
As amusing it is to "knock up" a country, I see your argument. (Although Taiwan's not a bad country to do that with -- I believe you mean "knock out")
And that not taking account raw materials. One example is titanium. They have to redesign the Stinger missiles (or it was javelins) to not use titanium, because without Ukraine, only Brics countries can produce enough titanium to be put into mass production.